Disclaimer: Out of respect to my living relatives, no full names will be used in this article. Both deceased and living relatives will be identified using initials.

One of the most common questions I get as a genetic genealogist is “Did you find any long lost relatives when you tested your DNA?” The short answer is yes, a few actually. Most of them were unknown to me at first, but there was one long lost relative in particular who I started looking for well before taking my DNA test.

A Family Mystery Passed Down

Depending on who you ask, this story starts at different times. For me, it was when I was a teenager in the early 2010s. For my grandmother, it was in the late 1970s when she was a busy mom to three kids. But it really all goes back to 1945.

How I First Learned the Story

By the time I was in high school, my genealogy interest was in full swing. My mom’s mom, my grandma, had lots of old letters and newspaper clippings that pertained to both of her parents and their families that she inherited after her mom passed away in 2010. But the real holy grail was the family bible that came from her paternal side of the family. The back of the bible had a section where different ancestors and their descendants were listed, including birth, marriage, and death dates. I started asking my grandma about her dad and these relatives of his, when I learned the long and complicated story of his family.

Secrets in the Letters and the Family Bible

My 2nd-great-grandparents were W and E. They had two children together, including my great-grandfather F. One day E picked up and left the family when F and his sister were about kindergarten-age. She ran away with her husband’s best friend, and had two children with him. W couldn’t stop working to care for his children, so his aunts—his only relatives in Canada—took them in.

Complicated Family Dynamics

*Family tree: Married couples are denoted by dashed lines. Children are denoted through solid lines.*
This was extremely difficult for my great-grandfather, who seldom talked about this. I remember my mom telling me that my great-grandma T, F’s wife, told her that we could never use E’s first name for daughters in the family because of how deep the pain ran. It deeply affected F into his adulthood. He was abandoned and hurt, and even ashamed under the rigid moral standards of the early 20th century. Despite the taboo nature, my grandma knew about all of this by the time she was a young girl. Her father had some kind of relationship with his half-siblings, and they definitely weren’t strangers to the family.

My grandma also shared with me that her father’s half-brothers through his mother weren’t his only half-siblings. His father had also had a child with someone else, under very different circumstances. And this was something that my grandma only found out about around the age of 30.

A Child Lost to Time

What My Grandmother Heard

Let’s jump back to the late 1970s. My grandma doesn’t remember many exact details from the conversation because it was so long ago. But one day she was chatting with her mom, T. She thinks that they may have been discussing her dad’s maternal half-brothers, when T briefly mentioned that F had another half-sibling through his father. W had fathered a baby with a younger woman in 1945. W was a poor, working man living in a rooming house, and wasn’t able to provide for this woman and the baby. T didn’t know what happened to the baby or the woman, and the conversation ended there.

Understanding the Times

For several reasons, F did not have a relationship with this much younger half-sibling. His father W didn’t raise the child despite having married the mother so the baby would be legitimate. My great-grandfather was having his own children at the same time, and the post-war era wasn’t exactly an accepting time for blended-family dynamics. Coupled with the trauma he went through from his mother leaving to start a new family, F did not want to have a relationship with his half-sibling. My grandma didn’t pry, and it was something she never actually discussed with her father. But she always wondered about the baby, whose gender she wasn’t even sure about. She thought it was a boy, but she really had no information about the long lost child.

What We Found in the Family Papers

After both of my great-grandparents had passed away, my grandma was sorting through the many boxes of old photos and records from her parents. One of the boxes actually contained old papers which had belonged to W, which F received when his father passed away in the 1960s.

Inside were some letters from W talking about a woman named M, along with W and M’s marriage certificate which stated the two married at the United Church in Scarborough in April of 1945. Until that moment, we didn’t even know her name. But now we had it, along with the paper proof that she had married W in 1945. But we still didn’t know anything about their baby.

DNA Testing Changes Everything

Now let’s jump ahead to 2018. I had recently taken an AncestryDNA test and had loads of matches (even back then.) With a teeming new interest in genetic genealogy, I dove in head first to figure out how I related to these people. I had the story my grandma had told me in the back of mind, and I was hopeful that I could find something out.

A Match That Stood Out

One day, a match popped up that immediately caught my attention. The match had the same last name as my Grandma’s paternal family. She also shared another match with me, who I had already confirmed was a descendant of W’s sister, so I knew she had to come from that side of the family. And the best part? We shared 135cM, which Ancestry estimated as a half 1st cousin 2x removed. This meant that our shared ancestor was one of her grandparents—who would also be my great-great-grandfather W. Her dad had to be my grandma’s missing half-uncle. Bingo.

Confirming the DNA Connection

I reached out to her with a short general message, sharing the family names from that side and asking if she recognized a connection. You never know what other people know when it comes to estranged or lost relatives, so I try not to drop a bomb of information in those initial messages. My match, C, got back to me quickly, telling me that she could tell I matched through her paternal side but that they unfortunately knew nothing about that side of the family because her father had been a foster child. She decided to do DNA testing to try and figure out more about her father’s biological family.

I replied sharing W’s story, and quickly the details lined up. It was all confirmed when she shared her father’s full name, which was exactly the same as W’s name. And the best part was that her father was still alive. After decades of hoping our families would cross paths, it finally happened.

Recap: A Lot of Moving Pieces

I know that’s a lot of people with a bunch of different relationships, so here’s a quick recap:
My 2nd-great-grandfather, W, had a baby with a younger woman, M, in 1945. Their relationship fell apart, and W didn’t raise the baby because of his personal circumstances. My great-grandfather F chose to not have a relationship with this child, his half-brother. My grandma slowly found out about this baby, her half-uncle who was about the same age as her. By doing a DNA test, I found her half-uncle W Jr’s daughter C.

A Reunion Over 50 Years in the Making

I called my grandma as soon as C and I started to work out the connection. She was ecstatic to not just know who her half-uncle was, but that he was alive and they could meet. I put my grandma in touch with C right away so they could exchange pictures and stories. We also finally got to learn the story of what happened all those years ago.

The Story of W Jr’s Early Life

W Jr was the youngest child born to M, who already had a young son in her care when she got pregnant in 1945, and also had two older children already in foster care. Soon after getting married, W and M’s relationship fell apart and M returned to her wild ways, going to bars and partying. M abandoned her children, and they never saw or heard from her again.

The children, only one of whom was biologically W’s, were put into foster care since W wasn’t in a position to care for the children. He was a steamfitter who worked very long hours and lived in a rented room. Despite this, W tried his best to be there for his young son, visiting him very often and taking him on outings like going to the zoo. W Jr fondly remembered this about his father. He saw a hardworking man who did what he could given the circumstances.

Sadly, W died suddenly of an aneurysm when W Jr was only 18 and away working for the summer. He found out weeks later when he came home because his foster mother decided to wait to tell him. The foster family only had contact with W, so W Jr had no way of connecting with his biological paternal family after his father’s death. Over 50 years after losing his father, W Jr finally got the family reunion he had been waiting for.

A Long-Awaited Meeting

A couple of months after I first messaged C, both of our families got together for to finally meet in person. I unfortunately couldn’t go because of my work schedule, but I couldn’t contain my excitement for them. After so many years, so many wondering thoughts, so much sadness and grief, I was able to put the puzzle pieces together and bring closure to two families longing for one another. It was the most incredible feeling.

Why These Stories Matter

I’ve encountered more stories like this both in my own tree and when working for clients. The many stigmas of the past surrounding family and respectability often destroyed relationships that had every right to exist. Or because of those stigmas, secrets were kept out of fear—only for those directly affected by them to find out years, sometimes decades later.

It’s exactly in spite of these stigmas that I share these stories, because more often than not you’ll find a situation like this somewhere in your family tree. It’s only recently that our society has become more accepting of unwed couples having children or single mothers raising children on their own. And I feel it’s important to bring light to just how common these situations were. It’s a way to break the cycle of shame and empower self-discovery. Everyone should have the right to know who they are, where they came from, and the people they relate to. I also believe it’s a way to honour our ancestors, by accepting their truth rather than deepening their shame.

Ready to Start Your Own DNA Journey?

If there’s something about your biological family you don't know, or you’ve had suspicions about for years, I strongly suggest you look into DNA testing and how it could help your situation. People often go looking for each other when they think they might be out there, and there’s a good chance you’ll get at least some of the answers you’re looking for.

If you think you’re ready for a DNA test, I’m here to support your search. I work one-on-one with clients to interpret their DNA results and uncover the stories hidden in their matches. Whether you need help sorting relationships, making first contact, or just knowing where to begin, I'm here. You can book a consultation to see how I can help.

Finding My Grandma’s Long-Lost Uncle: How I Solved My First DNA Mystery Using Genetic Genealogy