Connecting illegitimate children to biological parents
Several years ago our family was able to identify through DNA testing the biological parents of my grandmother who was given up at birth to the midwife who attended the delivery. Grandmother never knew anything about her biological parents and the story she was told about her birth turned out to be a myth — thus, she was perhaps spared the shame of being an illegitimate child. The lack of knowledge about her heritage haunted her all of her life.
While we do not know the details of Grandmother's conception, we do know that the father was not married to the mother, but was the mother's son-in-law. A tangled and unpleasant connection, almost unthinkable.
My question is - would there ever be an appropriate time to connect Grandmother to her biological parents? The question is further complicated by the fact that the mother is a Read Only profile. There are, of course, no sources that would connect Grandmother to these two individuals and I don't see a way to provide a DNA analysis in Family Tree to prove the connection. I and other members of my family did extensive research on the two parents and this research is reflected on the profiles of both.
Grandmother was born in 1897 and died in 1977.
I would be interested to know what FamilySearch policies might apply here.
Thank you.
Answers
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There are a couple of Help Articles you may find useful:
The basics of connecting relationships:
And a discussion of adding children with parents who were not married to each other:
As far as policy, protection of privacy of the living is paramount. Since all parties are deceased, the matter is more sensitivity to feelings of living descendants.
You can request assistance from Support to make connections to Read-Only profiles. For DNA Analysis, you could write a Proof Statement and attach the document as a Source.
Hope this helps.
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Thank you, Aine. You always respond with such thoughtful and thorough answers.
In this case, it really is the sensitive nature of the findings that has caused the hesitation, on my part, at least, from making the connections. If I did submit the DNA analysis as a proof statement I would have to redact the names of the DNA matches in order to protect their privacy. This is something that I will have to give some serious thought to.
Again, I appreciate your insight.
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A thought - if you write the Proof Statement using the PID numbers instead of names, all those who are living would be anonymous since living profiles are protected. Once the testing generation(s) are deceased, the details would become available for those interested.
You might also consider using the new Family Group Trees lab experiment - where your living family members could see and participate.2 -
That's a good idea, Aine, as I do have the living matches entered in the tree. Hadn't thought of that.
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