Monday, April 15, 2019

Grampy was an NPE

Blogging does not come easy to me.  So I don't do it as often as I would like. That said I will be trying to post my genealogical thoughts more this year.

NPE's or Non-Parent Expected - is a term in Genetic Genealogy that most know but not many had to deal with until the last few years.  With the advancement of Autosomal (atDNA) testing and the sheer numbers of people testing NPE is becoming very well known to most.

I started testing family almost 8 years ago now.  I read and researched to understand how atDNA worked and began charting all my family matches and where they fell into my tree.

Shortly after I started helping others, adoptees and people who were confused by their DNA test because they didn't match to the family they thought they should.  I will admit I started many on their journey by sending a note to request information to how we related on a specific line of my family.

Most would say they have no ancestry with that name or in that area and I learned quickly to leave it alone.  All of them would come back later finding they didn't belong to their father or that one of their parents didn't belong to theirs.

I had helped many using paper trails in past years to find birth families so adding DNA was a natural progression.  It is challenging and emotional but I am so thankful for the people who I have met along the way.  Some have become chosen family to me.

A few years ago I knew something was not right with one line of my family, so I tested my maternal aunt, my mother had passed several years before DNA have become affordable, neither of us was getting matches to my grandfather's paternal line.  As I have mentioned in previous blogs parts of my family are from Albert County, New Brunswick.  Endogamy causes huge issues with figuring out DNA matches in this area.

My grandfather's only sibling died at age 2, and his Birth Certificate Father (BCF) was an only child. None of us would have a close match show up for this family because you have to go back to 1849 to find his grandfathers siblings.

I can't use my own atDNA to help other Leaman descendants from that area to find their ancestors because I descend from Robert Leaman 4 different ways.

Believing the endogamy was part of the problem I kept trying to locate the connections.  I tested my other maternal aunt.  I am so thankful to her and her family for her agreeing to test while very ill.
Again no matches.
Helping a few friends/distant cousins with their results was the breakthrough I needed.  I could see their matches.  Because of the Endogamy, they had shared matches that belonged to the family I was searching for.  There they were, match after match and not one matched me or my aunts.

About the same time in late 2016, I had a new match show up on Ancestry, at 212 cM's I contacted her and even build a tree for her to see how we connected.  Believe me, I know all my 2nd cousins and she was not one of them. Looking things over I was afraid I would have to tell another person they didn't belong to their father.

I wanted to make sure I have everything correct so I made a spreadsheet of matches, a mirror/floating tree, and a handwritten chart.  It quickly came to light that it was my DNA that was matching to her family.

The only place I had any questions was my maternal grandfather, Weston, he was my person, my go-to guy.  He pass when I was 7 and I don't remember if we ever had any conversations about his family.

Narrowing down the possibilities of who was his biological father I was down to 3 men of the same family.  Luckily for me, I contact the grandson of one of the men.  The key was the picture of my grandfather I sent, who looked very like his grandfather.  He agreed to ask his father, at age 92, if he would take an atDNA test for me.  I was so thankful he said yes and as I can attest it is not easy to get a DNA test order in the US delivered to Canada.

The test showed he matched my maternal aunt at 596 cM's, so most likely he was a full cousin of my grandfather.

Down to two men, but one was not in the same area and was only 15 at the time. So it fell to one man, the grandfather of my original 212 cM match.

My great grandmother, Weston's mother, had been married for several years when he was born.  I don't judge her in any way, I believe she was in an arranged marriage to a man who most likely could not have children.

I belong to a Facebook group for NPE's there were not many in the beginning but it is about to hit 10,000 people, all who found they did not belong to who they thought they did through DNA.

I had worked with people for years, helping them through finding their families, the emotions, disappointments, and joys.  I was not ready for the feeling of losing a quarter of my ancestry.  At that time 25 years of research gone.  I knew that family inside and out, having re-written the book on them.  Now they were not mine.  The walls and shelves of my house loaded with pictures of people who were absolutely no relation to me anymore.  I would just stand there and look them over feeling so sad for this family, who now no longer had any descendants.

This week I had the opportunity to meet a cousin from my new family. The first person I have seen that I share this family with.  My grandfather did not have any siblings that lived or paternal cousins. So it wonderful to add, cousins and Aunts and Uncles to his tree.  We only had a short time but it was wonderful to share information and hear stories of my new great grandfather.  To him, his Uncle Pete.

NPE is not a club I would have asked to join but being place in it has been a journey of discovery and finding others who have joined who are trying to find their new place in the world has changed me forever.





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