Family Mystery: Searching For My Unknown Great-grandfather

Who was my grandmother's unknown father?  

Family secrets and a burning question that has been whispered throughout my youth: just who was my paternal grandmother's father? That my grandmother was illegitimate was one of those open secrets in the family that no one talked about. I'm not certain that even she knew who her father was. 

But like a stone being thrown into a pond -- whatever the intent was in keeping it quiet -- the waves that the secret created has had a real impact on her children and grandchildren. I personally feel a sense of loss of family connection and history, a sense of being robbed of something that can never be fully reclaimed. My uncle, aunt, and father never got to know their grandfather and they grew up thinking their grandmother was their "aunt"; we grandchildren (my brother and paternal cousins) were robbed of knowing our great-grandfather and of having anything but a distant-aunt relationship with our great-grandmother. The unfairness to those generations that follow has a uniquely bitter taste.

What do we know?  

My sense of justice and my generation's desire -- need -- to reclaim our heritage has led me to search for our great-grandfather over many years but with limited success. I have discovered a few documents that confirm the following facts about my grandmother:

• she was born to an unwed mother who was still a child herself -- barely 15 years old at the time; 
• her father was listed as "unknown" on the birth certificate; and
• she was adopted by her maternal grandparents and raised as their daughter and as her mother's sister.

DNA has so far been silent...or has it?

My father and I have taken autosomal DNA tests through a couple of the larger companies, but so far with little success. I am currently uncertain about what conclusions I may draw from that silence. So far the only relevant matches that have appeared are connected to my grandmother's maternal family. Assuming her biological father had other children, have his other descendants not taken a DNA test? Or could there be another explanation? The DNA silence is frustratingly loud.

Applying a method to break through this brick wall.

In my search to find out more, I am embarking on a research project to find my great-grandfather. I will be enlisting the aid of two books by Family Locket Genealogists Diana Elder, Nicole Dyer, and Robin Wirthlin: 

• Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist's Guide; and 
• Research Like a Pro with DNA: A Genealogist's Guide to Finding and Confirming Ancestors with DNA Evidence. 

It is my hope that by applying a more rigorous research method to unpick this knot of family secrets, I can break down at least some of the walls of silence erected around my paternal grandmother's biological parentage. I understand that what I may find could be potentially upsetting. But my mind is already going to dark places with the not-knowing, and I want to set the record straight and to clear the air with the truth.

Join me on this journey.

As I apply the methods set out in the Family Locket Genealogists' books, I will post my progress and findings here. I welcome you to join me on my fact-finding journey.