This is the story of how I helped a Jewish adoptee find his birth family using DNA testing.
DNAadoption.com helps adoptees with DNA, including classes
First, here is a simplified explanation of the technique that an adoptee uses to find his birth parents using DNA:
- Do an autosomal test at each of the main companies. Once the results are in …
- Look through the family trees of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th cousin DNA matches for a common ancestral couple or two.
- Build private, unsearchable family trees down from each common couple to find someone in the right place at the right time.
- Get other people on those lines to test when their results will narrow it down some more.
- Males can also do a Y DNA test which might give them a surname if there are any close matches.
Obviously the more you know about the birth parents the easier this is. For more details on this technique see http://dnaadoption.com/index.php?page=methodology-for-autosomal-results or sign up for a class there.
Sadly these DNA search methods do not work well for adoptees from endogamous populations, such as Ashkenazi Jews (AJ) because everyone in that group shares as much DNA with each other as a 4th or 5th cousin. Even worse, most Jewish family trees stop at the grandparents or great grandparents because they do not continue across the ocean. Another problem is that even second cousins can have different Americanizations of their original surnames and let’s not forget that surnames are very recent in this population, about 1815 for most.
That is why there are so very few jewish adoptee successes, so I am celebrating this one with a blog post.
The DNA Search Story
I got an inquiry from, let’s call him Roger Stein, an adoptee curious about his birth parents who matched a cousin of mine at GEDmatch. GEDmatch is a site where you can compare tests done at different companies. His story follows, with all the names changed for privacy. If you do not want the DNA details just skip to the section titled “Contact.”
Kitty,
My name is Roger Stein (Axxxxxx) and my DNA has several matches to Mxxxxxx (Kittys3rdAJcousin). I was born out of wedlock in 1950 and adopted. My mother was Jill Weiss, from Brooklyn NY. She went to Miami to complete her pregnancy and the court filings say FATHER unknown. My adoptive mother’s Aunt was an attorney in Miami and handled my adoption. Her office records were destroyed about 40 years ago.Jill has a nephew who completed his DNA and we do have some strong matches but my paternal side is a missing.
I have some strong matches but do not have the expertise to understand how to move forward. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Comparison of my cousin and Roger at GEDmatch.com
Helping my relatives is something I do for free, but when I looked at the match I had to give him the bad news that it did not meet my criteria for a good AJ match to my cousin. My rule of thumb for AJ matches is there must be at least one matching segment greater than 20 cM, another larger than 10 cM, plus several more segments. I then explained that I would be happy to help him but I would have to charge him since this is my profession.
A match like this on my Norwegian side would likely be a third cousin but on the AJ side it is not significant. At best they might find ancestors from nearby villages. Since he did not match me or anyone else on the part Jewish side of my family, I knew the relationship had to be on my cousin’s paternal side. All I could tell him was that this family line was Lithuanian Jewish and it was not a match worth pursuing.
Roger had his mother’s information from his court adoption papers so he knew the name and age of his birth mother, Jill Weiss, 19, from the Bronx, Kings County, New York. Since this was notarized we assumed it was correct. Searches are a lot easier when you know one parent.
One problem with this information was that the Bronx is not in Kings county. Another was that there were about five possible girls of that name and approximate age in the New York area. An adoption “search angel” friend of his who runs https://www.findmyfamily.org had narrowed it down to the likely mother, now deceased, and her nephew Sam had done a DNA test.
Comparison of Sam and Roger at GEDmatch.com
I looked at Sam’s comparison to Roger over at GEDmatch and noticed that he was not a close enough match either. A first cousin is expected to share about 869 cM and a half first cousin about half of that (see the charts at ISOGG for expected shared DNA). This supposed nephew shared only 27 cM. So likely this was not the right Jill after all.
Next I had Roger upload his Ancestry.com results to Family Tree DNA and test at 23andme. The advice for adoptees is to always fish in all ponds. I did not suggest a Y DNA test for him, because it rarely helps AJ adoptees, since surnames are so recent in the European Jewish population.
Since second cousins share great-grandparents with each other, they are far more useful than thirds who share great-great-grandparents. Plus there is a better chance that second cousins will have a family tree that includes the names of the common ancestral couple.
Roger did have a few good matches. A second cousin at Ancestry.com, let’s call her Dora Reese, and what looked to me like a second once removed at Family Tree DNA, lets call him Bob Fox, plus several third cousins in both places who met my criteria. Neither of the second cousins had a published tree but both responded to my queries and while they did not provide trees, they did give me all their great grandparents names and dates so I could go looking. Naturally they had nothing in common with each other nor anything in common with the two good third cousin matches who were helping. Nor did any of them match each other significantly.
Now we waited for the 23andme kit to come in. Another second cousin but she did not respond. Several third cousins. No luck. But since it showed that Roger was haplogroup R1a1, the Levite group like Bob Fox, we went ahead with the Y test at family tree DNA to see if Roger was a Fox.
Meanwhile over at Ancestry.com, I was building trees down from each set of Dora’s and Bob’s great grandparents and trying out different dads for Roger from them, trying in vain to get a DNA green leaf hint. Also I kept trying the different Jill Weisses but none of their trees generated a hint. Feeling a bit discouraged, I finally noticed an unusual surname, let’s call it Eiger, popping up in some fourth cousin trees that was a match for one set of Dora’s great grandparents. Googling that name plus Weiss found an obituary for a Jill Weiss that we had previously eliminated because she was too young.
Obituaries are wonderful because they give you the names and locations of the living. This Jill sounded like a great person and there were many facts that pointed to her (common professions, etc). From the information in the Obit, I found her daughter, let’s call her Ema, on Facebook and was startled by her strong resemblance to Roger.
Contact
Normally the adoptee does the contacting but because this was somewhat of a long shot, I volunteered to do it. I had Roger change his photo to one that looked more like him and then I sent this message on a Saturday night [somewhat edited and shortened here]:
Dear Ema,
I am a professional genetic genealogist working with a retired adoptee, born in 1950, named Roger Stein whose birth certificate lists his mother with the name Jill Weiss, born in the New York City area and father unknown. While this may not be the same Jill as your mother, some clues from his DNA testing suggest it might be. She would have been very young when this happened, too young to marry and keep the baby.
Roger is searching for his birth family in order to learn his heritage and especially his medical family history. He has no need of any financial connection and has no desire to upset anyone.
Here is what he said about himself:
“I am a graduate of [xyz] and received my Doctorate in [xyz] at the University of [xyz]. I am married and, between us, we have 4 adult children and 3 grandsons. As I am now getting older it has become increasing important to me that I obtain my biological family medical history. I need to know this for myself and my descendants. I am hopeful you will be willing to share this information with me.”
Roger grew up in a wonderful family in [xyz] who adopted him as a baby.
My email address is —- and Roger’s is —- and his cell phone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx (PST so 3 hours earlier here). You can also find him on Facebook as Roger Stein and see his picture, notice that he looks a lot like you! [url]
It would be great if you did a DNA test with Ancestry.comor any of the main personal genome testers so we can confirm or disprove this relationship. Roger would be happy to pay for this or send you the test. I have lots more about DNA testing on my blog at http://blog.kittycooper.com/dna-testing/
Kitty Cooper
On Sunday morning I got a call from Roger. He told me that Ema’s daughter had called him and asked him what his birth date was, his place of birth and then she said,”I think you’re my uncle.” He said, “I know I am.” She then gave the phone to Ema who said “I have been searching for you for 38 years.” Yes I started crying too.
The Back Story
Ema is his full sister! Roger and his family have now met his Dad and brother and will meet Ema and her family in a few days. Here is the whole story.
Once upon a time a teen-aged boy and girl fell totally and completely in love. This love had unintended consequences. Both mothers insisted that 15 and 16 were too young to get married and keep the baby (it was 1949). The girl’s mother took her away to have the baby and give it up for adoption … A familiar tale?
The next part is not so familiar. When the girl turned 18, these two lovebirds got married. He joined the military and they went off to Germany for a few years. On coming back they had two more children, a boy and a girl, and they all lived happily ever after (or close to it). This couple had been married for 64 years when Jill passed away. She still grieved for the son she never knew and asked her daughter to find him … and now he is found.
Thank you everyone for all your help resolving this. Jill would be so happy.
In Conclusion
The lesson here? For Jewish adoptees, you need close family DNA matches to find your birth family. As more people do DNA testing this will get easier. As of today, Roger has another second cousin match on the Eiger line and a third cousin match that is actually a half second cousin on another line, the one where which we think Bob Fox is from. He is a second cousin twice removed (a cousin marriage provided some extra DNA). Plus Roger has four other new third cousin matches at Ancestry.com.
Disclaimer: Not every detail of this search is discussed here as that would be far too long and might violate some privacy, so I included just the highlights in the hope that it might help others with their searches.
I’m glad that I was able to help a little. I’m still trying to figure out how Roger is related to my cousin.
Your wording on the contact email is so very good! Kudos on this, so glad it is has a happy ending. 🙂
I am extremely new to all of this and all of the segments and matching and mirrors and trees and centimorgans still have me rather muddled; however, I understand enough that I can appreciate the effort and diligence it takes to undertake a search, whether successful or not. I’m glad this one was!
“The lesson here? For Jewish adoptees, you need close family DNA matches to find your birth family.” I also appreciate being told the cold, hard facts, but wonder if my knowing a little bit about my birth father, such as approximate year of his birth and that he was married with 3 children at the time of mine is enough information to make it worth continuing in the absence of that close family match I am lacking at the moment. Or need I be content for the time being to wait and pray?
Sue, keep on plugging away so that when you do get a strong match you will understand what to do with it. My experience has been that mirror trees do not work for Jewish adoptees but centimorgans, matches sizes and GEDmatch are worth learning about.
Nice. “so I included just the highlights in the hope that it might help others with their searches.” I don’t know about “help,” but certainly “inspire!”
I have worked on a few different adoptions (one without DNA) & it seems that each comes with different types of information with which to work. So far, none of the births occurred in the place where the mom was from. One adoptee only took one DNA test that resulted in a removed second cousin, who didn’t respond to emails, yet the parents (not on any DNA site) were detectable within five hours! I’m sure that was pure luck. When he finally made contact with a full brother, he was asked, “What took you so long (50 years)?”
I found the endogamy part of the AJ search particularly fascinating. Thanks!
Well stated! I am an adoptee who is half European Jewish. I have six 2nd cousins and have built out their trees. There are seldom any matching names between the families and when they do exist, it is COHEN or LEVY and of course, most of them were born in ‘Russia’ and lived in Brooklyn. Two of my second cousins are also second cousins to each other and I still cannot find the connection. I am impatiently waiting for that illusive first cousin match!
Your wording on the contact letter was excellent.
Brenda –
Only ancestry is accurate with Jewish 2nd cousin matches because they remove population specific DNA in their matching algorithm. At the other companies you need to add up the large segments (perhaps > 10 not sure yet) and then look at the chart at ISOGG. Very few are actual 2nd cousins. Segment sizes are also important
See also https://larasgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/04/how-endogamy-looks-in-practice.html
Thanks Kitty,
I remove all segments less than 7 cMs before calculating the relationship. My best 2nd cousin match has a large segment of 51 cMs and four other segments between 22 and 35 cMs. My next best 2nd cousin has a largest segment of 43 cMs and two other segments between 20 and 32 cMs. They are also 2nd cousins to each other.
I just started all this on ancestry.com. I found I am 42% European Jewish. I do know from paperwork it is on my father’s side. My mother’s side is English and Scottish. The closest I could get were 3rd-4th cousins on that site. They were extremely confident though. I haven’t gotten any further yet. This whole thing with the European Jewish and being hard to locate the family is discouraging though.
Hi you in exactly same situation as myself! Up to 46 % Jewish on Ancestry…and mother is British Irish. So now at last I know my fathers origins, but with no names it seems impossible !!!
Brand, Fancy, and Gina –
Upload your results to GEDmatch, family tree DNA, MyHeritage, and DNA.land
My rule of thumb for matches worth following up on is at least one segment > 20 cM and another > 10 cM plus a few more > 7
Start with GEDmatch. You can sort by largest segment there and at ftDNA. See Lara Diamonds blog post today for that tip.
Look at the trees of your best matches and good luck. See the advice at DNAadoption.com but remember that traditional methods do not work with Jewish.
I feel you frustration ….
Very interesting. It gives me lots of ideas for my project. It is not an adoption, but my husband’s grandfather came to the United States by himself and we don’t know who his parents are. it is obvious from my husband’s Y test that he was from Lithuania and from his aunt’s DNA test that he was Jewish. But this story explains the surname conundrum. I’ll have my husband and aunt tested on the other two sites. Maybe that will help. Thanks for sharing.
Sue,
If you have other relatives who are descended from him, get some of themthem to test as well. Be sure to get your family tests on GEDmatch as well.
What a wonderful success story – thank you sincerely for sharing parts of the journey. The story gives hope and inspiration to others, myself included.
I am an adoptee and have been searching for 12 years for my biological father. I started the DNA journey around 9 months ago and through the assistance of a wonderful lady I learnt my paternal heritage is European Jewish ethnicity and full of endogamy.
I am very much a novice in genealogy and would love to know if you would consider taking on my case as a paying client?
I sent you an email Linda, if you don’t get it , use my contact form. Yes I take clients
Just received my DNA test results, and was very surprised to find 13.2% Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. 23andme also matched me to a possible 2nd to 3rd cousin, 1.59% shared in 7 segments. Longest segment is 29.3 total 119cM. This match is also 94.5% Jewish. I’ve been searching for information on how to interpret this, and happened upon your site. Hoping you can steer me in a direction, or perhaps consult? I’ve uploaded to GEDMATCH both the DNA report and GEDCOM. GEDMATCH matched me to this same person with DNA, but nothing in common with GEDCOM, except that our relations all lived in the same city around 1900. My ancestors (german, polish, irish, french canadian – no jewish history at all, all catholic) all arrrived in the US between 1850 and 1880. My first thought is that the Jewish is from way back, but I’m starting to think that doesn’t make sense with this matching DNA relative. Any thoughts or advice you can give is appreciated!
That much Jewish could be a great-grandparent or two partially Jewish great grand parents. Look at those Polish and German ancestors … Lots of Jewish in those populations … A mixed marriage could be a reason to emigrate
Another possibility is that one of your great grandads was not the person who thought …
Yes I consult, I will email you
Oh, and here I was thinking that the 23% AJ that came up in 23andMe (18% FTdna?) would make my search easier. No wonder I have so many AJ matches, it is because of the endogamy right? The funny part is I converted about 8 years ago, with no idea there was a Jewish grandparent around there somewhere.
I am a “grey” market adoptee. My B-mother went down to Mexico City to give birth, and left me there with a Mexican couple. There was no official adoption, so no records other than the hospital ones. I think I found her, but she was less than thrilled to be found. Now I am searching for my B-father and I though DNA would make it easy…
Any tips? If you think you might be able to help, could you send me info about becoming a client or doing a consult?
Thanks
Test at every company. 23andme will give you your haplogroups which may help. I am assuming the Jewish is not from your BM in which case the Y haplogroup may indicate whether it was your paternal grandad who was Jewish therefore whether or not a 37 marker Y test at family tree DNA is likely to give a surname. I will email you
I am so dumb, I should have inferred that. I previously followed your steps on Ysearch using my 23andMe data. QM378, and it came out Q1b1. Being that my results are 99.9% European, it is most likely an AJ line.
So yeah, most probably, paternal grand father. I guess that (when I have some extra cash) I’ll test for SNP L245 @ FTdna. If that comes positive, there will be no doubt.
Thanks Kitty
Just a short update on this case.
I met some of this extended family yesterday and was amazed. “Roger” and his brother are so much alike it is utterly remarkable. Similar professions, similar tastes, even their wives have a lot in common! And of course they both look like their 85 year old Dad who was there too.
Lovely to see them all becoming a family.
And we now know how the two second cousin matches are related now but not the two thirds yet. There the likely common ancestors were back in Europe and we do not have “Roger’s” new tree back far enough yet, other than where “Bob Fox” has done the research.
This is a great post! One correction, though: The Bronx is in Bronx County and has been since 1914. The Five Boroughs are each in their own county; Brooklyn is in Kings County, Manhattan is in New York County, Staten Island is Richmond County, and the Bronx and Queens have the same name as their counties.
Thanks, the point was that the birth certificate had information that was clearly incorrect, however I did not have to compound the error! So I ammended it to read “the Bronx is not in Kings county”
Hi,
Thanks for this post. I’m currently helping a new match to my MIL who also is an adoptee. What do you consider significant enough on Ancestry to be considered close enough to try and dig through the tree to find a common ancestor? What CMs? Is less than 150 cms too far away? Ancestry does not have a chromosome browser and this adoptee has yet to upload to other sites. (Getting there).
I should clarify. My MIL is not an adoptee. The match is an adoptee. 🙂
I use automation (DNA2tree or Genetic Affairs) to look at the trees and I usually go down to 20 cM… for Jewish matches my known 3rd cousins only have 30-40 cM on Ancestry (but much more elsewhere) – down to 60 might be a good initial break off point, it depends how close a match.
see also
https://blog.kittycooper.com/more-dna/help-for-adoptees/