A BIG FAMILY SECRET

Finding someone's birth parents is always exciting, but I often uncover family secrets that are far more interesting.  In this case, the story got so bizarre, I decided I better change some names here for privacy.  This family has no idea what I uncovered, and I'm not sure I will even tell them.  Just when I thought I had seen it all, DNA reveals something very unexpected.  There's a lot to understand here.  If you're only interested in the crazy outcome, skip to the answer at the end.

I was helping a woman named Geraldine.  She was able to get her pre-adoption birth certificate.  It included the name of her birth mother, Mary Jane Lowe Rogers.  Even before she let me see her DNA list, I did some searching for Mary Jane.  I assumed her maiden name was Lowe and her married name was Rogers.  The only other info we had was Geraldine's place of birth, Branson Missouri, and her birth date in 1970.  To my surprise, I wasn't able to find anything about a woman named Mary Jane Lowe or Rogers in the Branson area. 

Next, I took a close look at her DNA list.  Geraldine's father was quite easy to find.  There were enough good DNA matches there to confirm who he was, and he is not important to this story.  On the mother's side, there were absolutely no Lowes to be found in any trees.  I did see a few trees with Rogers in them however.  It looks like Rogers was her maiden name.  Perhaps she was married to a Lowe when she had the baby, or maybe she kept the name of a previous husband.  Mr. Lowe is not important to this story either.

After looking at documents related to a Fred Rogers found in several trees, I noticed he had a daughter named Mary Jane who appeared with him in a 1950 census record.  She was age five at the time.  They were from Michigan however, which seemed strange, but I did more research on this Mary Jane.  I found a marriage certificate with the same exact name listed, Mary Jane Lowe Rogers, born 1945.  This had to be the right lady.

Mary Jane appears to still be alive today.  She had two older sisters who passed away, Lana and Marie.  Both of their obits listed Mary Jane as their sister, and Fred Rogers as their father.  This was obviously the birth mother we were looking for.  I like to look at the DNA matches just to see how people match up and make sure it all looks right.  First, here's how Geraldine's tree looks based only on documents and other trees I found.  I did notice something odd.  Take a look...

Geraldine's Tree

Do you see it?  Fred and his wife Anna seem way too old to be having a child in 1945.  Anna would have given birth at age fifty.  It is physically possible however, and I know this is the right Mary Jane.  I also noticed, Anna was originally from Branson Missouri.  That helped explain something.  When an unmarried girl got pregnant back then, they were often sent away to have the child secretly.  When Mary Jane was pregnant with Geraldine, Anna likely sent her to Branson to stay with her family so no one would find out.

I could have stopped there, but I wanted to give Geraldine an accurate family tree.  I thought Fred may have married a younger woman at some point and she was probably Mary Jane's real mother.  This family is well documented and appears in over fifty trees on Ancestry.  They all show the same thing.  Fred was married before to a woman named Hazel.  She died very young however, way back in 1926.  Therefore, Hazel can't be Mary Jane's mother.  Everyone's trees show Fred had two daughters with Hazel, Lana and Marie, in the 1920s.  Fred remarried later, and had Mary with his new wife Anna.  Everyone shows Anna was age fifty when Mary Jane was born, and Anna's obit lists Mary Jane as her daughter.  Again, a woman giving birth at age 50?  Possible, but what does the DNA say?  Let's look at some matches...

Daniel - 161cM DNA Match

In the tree above, we see Daniel Oliver.  His grandparents are Fred, and Fred's first wife Hazel.  This would mean, Daniel would be a half first cousin to Geraldine (one grandparent in common, Fred).  Daniel has a 161cM DNA match.  If you've read my previous posts about centimorgans, you know that's super low for a half cousin relationship.  I suppose it's theoretically possible, and we know Mary Jane can't be related to Hazel because she died long before Mary Jane was born, so Daniel may just be a super weak half cousin match.

Katie - 445cM DNA Match

What about Katie?  She is a 445cM DNA match.  She is a generation younger than Geraldine, and we see Fred Rogers as her great-grandfather.  What is Geraldine's relationship to Katie based on the trees?  Half first cousin once removed.  Again, if you understand centimorgans, you know that's a super high DNA match.  Now I'm suspicious.  We have DNA matches to descendants of both of Fred's other daughters that don't seem right, and we have a woman giving birth at age fifty.  It's time to do some serious investigating.  This is where it all unravels and the truth comes out...

First I looked into Anna McGee's family.  She comes from a large family in Missouri and had many siblings.  Yet, there are no DNA matches to any McGees at all.  Then I noticed, the only Rogers DNA matches we have are to descendants of Fred's daughters.  Fred also had many siblings and so did his parents.  No other Rogers descendants appear anywhere on the match list however.  Next, I decided to really confirm this.  I found someone on ancestry who was a descendant of one of Fred's siblings and asked if they had DNA on the site.  They confirmed they did, and they were not matching to Geraldine or Katie, but are matching to Daniel.  What???  How is Geraldine related to Daniel and Katie at all then?

I looked into Fred's first wife a little more and found something that no one on the Ancestry site seems to know about.  Hazel was married to someone before Fred.  In 1920, she married a man named Walter Thompson.  He died in 1921, shortly after their marriage and the birth of Lana.  Hazel then married Fred Rogers in 1922.  This means, the bio father of Lana is, Walter Thompson, NOT Fred Rogers.  Lana simply was given the Rogers' name when Hazel remarried.  This is not a secret though.  There are records of all this.  Let's take a look at Katie's tree again, with the corrected father of Lana.

Katie's Corrected Tree

Do you understand what the big family secret is?  There's really only one explanation here.  Ask yourself, how can Geraldine be related to both Katie and Daniel?  How can the DNA work properly?  What is the new relationship between Geraldine, Katie and Daniel?  Maybe the biggest question should be...  How the heck did no one ever figure this out before?  I'll keep the answer hidden below.  Click on it when you think you've got it figured out.

If you read the answer and understood all that, now you know the big family secret.  I'm often left with another question after discovering things like this.  Do I say something?  Nothing I've seen indicates that anyone has any knowledge this.  Geraldine asked me to find her birth parents, and I did that, but this family didn't ask for my help with anything.  Mary Jane has children and grandchildren now.  Do we continue to let them not know their true family history?  Do some people know the real truth and are keeping it hidden on purpose?  Would Mary Jane want to know after all these years?  If it were you, would you want to know?

Look for more posts coming soon.