DNA Research

Over the past few weeks I have had frequent phone calls from a man I will call "Kay". It has been an interesting journey with him.

Kay had taken a"family finder" autosomal DNA test from AncestryDNA. To his surprise he discovered that his father was not his biological father. Out of curiosity, he was trying to see if he could find his biological father.

In his DNA matches, Kay noticed several matches to the name of Buchanan. He was contacted by someone who was related to President James Buchanan, and wondered if I had any suggestions to identify which Buchanan family he was related to. I told him that my Buchanan family has no known connection to the family of the former president of the United States, although both families came from County Tyrone in Ireland.

He offered to let me look at his DNA matches. When I did, I was surprised! Of the closest matches that showed a pedigree or a common ancestor, over 70% were members of my great-great grandparents family! So now we knew which Buchanan family he was related to. Welcome to the family, Kay!

From the Common Ancestor information, Kay appears to be a descendant of Robert Buchanan (born in 1815 near Castlederg, County Tyrone), my great grandfather's oldest brother, and of Robert's second wife, Margaret Booth. (born about 1832 in County Tyrone). Some of Robert's great grandchildren lived in the general geographical region of Kay's birth. But who is his father? There are many possibilities.

Kay's next step was to take a YDNA test with Family Tree DNA, to see whether there are matches to known members of my family. If there is a match, we will know that Kay's birth father had the surname of Buchanan. If there are no matches to my family, the test may be even more helpful, because it should indicate the surname of Kevin's biological father, which should greatly limit the number of possibilities.

Why? If it is Kay's biological father's mother or grandmother who was a Buchanan, his father's name will not be Buchanan but should appear on the list of known descendants. And it should be a much shorter list.

Now we are waiting for the results from Kay's YDNA test to see what clues it can offer. He says that he will always love the father who raised him, and he will always be a member of that family, even if he succeeds in identifying his biological father. I think it is the only attitude that makes sense. Family is much more than biology!  Family is love.