Unofficial Adoption

When doing genealogical research, death certificates generally reflect the parents that raised the child. At times, people use the death certificate as a time to tell the truth that has gone unspoken in the family for many years. If you see a person in census records with a set of parents that don’t match their death certificate, you may be dealing with an unofficial adoption. Unofficial adoption is my term for the situations in which a child is raised by non-biological parents. A few scenarios you may not consider when thinking of adoption are:

1. An underaged girl gives her baby to her parents or another family member to raise.

2. A husband or wife has an outside relationship that results in a child and they bring the baby home to be raised by their spouse.

3. A woman becomes pregnant as a result of rape or incest and the baby is raised be her family, or by the woman without acknowledgement of the father.

4. A woman is pregnant at the time she marries, and the child is raised by the husband as his own.

In each of these cases, the baby is raised by biological relatives. In some cases, one of the biological parents. If a DNA test is done, there will still be a connection to the family they were raised with, but the relationship may be incorrect. For example, if Amanda is raised by her aunt and uncle, her “siblings” are biologically her cousins. If Amanda’s child and one of the “sibling’s” children both take tests, they won’t show up as first cousins as expected, instead, they will be 2nd cousins. The more generations removed the person testing is from the adoption, the less likely they are to know that the adoption occurred. I recall being a pre-teen and hearing my grandmother reference her father as living. This was in the 90’s and I knew her father had dies in the 70’s. When I inquired, I discovered that her mother was pregnant when she got married and that the man who raised her was not her biological father. I was shocked to learn that I had a LIVING GREAT-GRANDFATHER!!! I developed a relationship with him that was precious to me that remained until he passed away. Her adoption was common knowledge in the family, but not openly discussed. It was fortunate that I was able to ask her directly and find out who her biological father was. When I got my DNA test results back and saw connections to this family, I wasn’t surprised, it simply confirmed the story. Unfortunately, some may not have this opportunity. They may not know which level of their family tree has the “error”. When you compare your tree to the trees of your matches, you expect to find an area of overlap. If there is no overlap, there is a chance that one of you has an “error” in their tree that may not be uncovered by documents. You are likely dealing with a case of unofficial adoption.

If you need help researching your family history and untangling some of your roots, send us a message at www.tangledrootsresearch.com. Until next week,

Keep Searching,

The Tangled Roots Team