DNA match helps adoptee abandoned as baby

DNA Match reunites adoptee abandoned at birth

 

I’m writing to share an amazing story on behalf of my Mother. Mom joined Parent Finders in the mid 1970’s, hoping to find any information that would lead to her birth family, or the 2 children that found her in 1931.
Abandoned at birth, or shortly after, she was discovered under a bush, in a lane in Regina, Saskatchewan on August 9,1931. She was found by 2 eleven year olds, Jean and Roy who heard her cries. Left across the street from the Salvation Army Home for Unwed Mothers, we had always thought that whoever left her there knew she’d be taken to the home to receive proper care from the nurses there.

 

A media search in the late 70’s led her to Jean and Roy, who were finally able to tell her more about the day she was found. She had a loving relationship with them both until their deaths. She was named Jean and my daughter and I are also namesakes. So vivid was the experience of finding her, that when my Mom met Roy in Regina in 1978, he was able to lead her to the exact spot in which she was found!

After so many years had passed, we had basically given up hope that her story may have a different ending…or perhaps, beginning would be a better term. When Mom turned 85 last August 2016, my daughter decided that she and the rest of the grandkids should purchase a DNA test kit from Ancestry.com, so that Mom could at least gain some insight into her heritage and ethnicity.

When the DNA results came back, we learned that there were 3 potential matches in the database for first or second cousins. Exciting indeed, but I don’t think any of us anticipated what would follow. When we emailed the potential matches, just to see if they had any family ties to the Saskatchewan area, particularly Regina in the 1930’s, all 3 revealed that they had! All emails led back to the same potential couple as parents, but the third email was the one that nailed it!

 

Sent from a granddaughter, she said that on her Great Grandmother’s deathbed, she revealed to her daughter that she had a sister that she didn’t know about…that she and her husband had left a baby on the steps of the Home for Unwed Mother’s before they were married.
When the daughter, Faye, went searching through adoption records in Regina, she actually found a brother that had been born at that home the year before, in 1930, and been given up for adoption.

Thinking her mother had been confused, and said sister, but meant brother, she ended her search, happy that she had found a brother. They reunited 8 years ago. So it seems, that Mom’s birthday gift ended up being a bigger gift then we had ever imagined. Although her biological parents are both deceased, she has assembled most of her puzzle.
She has one sister, and 2 brothers still living…2 deceased. Her parents gave her up, because they were unmarried, but went on to have 4 more children and remained together. There have been many pictures and phone calls, and a meeting is being planned this fall. There are similarities, left handedness that runs in the family, twins, a peg tooth. The family has been very welcoming and we are excited to meet them.

Thank you Parent Finders for the guidance you provided to my Mom as she began her search….another happy ending/beginning.
S. B.