Who's Reginald's unwed father? (Almost impossible answer, requiring DNA) [closed]

Question

Asking this question, because it gives us something to aim at finding. Having a question, helps us to know what question we need answered. Am expecting it to be an extremely difficult answer to find, and probably require DNA to find a satisfactory answer. 

Background to this question. We established satisfactorially, that Reginald's mother Bridget was in Adelaide around the time Reginald was conceived (Jan 1886), and moved to Melbourne (Mid 1886). She married in Melbourne (1887), to James Keane, who was married in Melbourne (to someone else) at the time Reginald would have been conceived in Adelaide. James' wife and child died before he married, and took responsibility for Reginald.

The other hints that we do have, is the LNAB given on Reginald's birth certificate, is Morris, which doesn't seem to be from Bridget's family, and so may be from Reginald's father. Bridget's maiden name is Mongan.

So, a DNA update. Keryn and I have somewhat of a triangulation of DNA results, which seem to be successfully isolating cousins from that segment of the family. We both seem to have an unexplained higher than expected percentage of Swedish / Danish, but don't particularly have an explanation. We also have somewhat of a list of surnames that seem to keep coming up with these connections: Taylor, Ward, Crowther, Lees, Farrell, Brennan, Nesbitt, Davis, Leibich, Johnson, Carter, Nicholson, Moore, Williams, Starr, Singleton, Myers, Humphrey, Green, Robbins, Jones, Martin, Richards. There are many more, of course, but these ones seem to come up multiple times across the cousins we have connections with. Not to mention, Green & Carter coming up in a Y-700 search. Not sure how much closer we are, but hopefully some progress.

Have confirmed with someone our connection beyond Reginald. It confirms a connection with the Herbert surname, which seems to be closely connected with Taylor, Ward, Crowther, and possibly Nesbitt. Those with similar DNA, seem to have some similar names in their tree. These would represent either the paternal or maternal side of Reginald's father's family. Using that information, I have been able to also work out a cluster of people with similar DNA, from the other side of the family. There are names such as Carter, Jones, Williams, Davies, Martin, Rees, and others. It would be great if one of the cousins would actually respond to my email though. We are looking in either Adelaide, or the Gawler area of South Australia.

Comments

Wow. That's a question.

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I did have another one almost as impossible, and it was found out with DNA. So you never know.

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One of my favorite quotes (from an educational psychologist whose name I can't remember) is:  "the answers are easy - it's the questions that are difficult".

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Just want to say there is hope. I managed to figure out who my ancestors father was with DNA. She was also born out of wedlock but given a middle name that was a surname. With DNA matches I narrowed down to a family with that surname in the right area. I then found a newspaper article about a son of the family who was killed by poachers at the time her mother would have been pregnant saying that he was engaged to be married. The daughter was given a feminine version of his name.

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Thank you. Love stories like that. And great quote Gaile.

We have wondered if the last name on his birth certificate is a clue, or a mistake.

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Found it, using DNA. And looking at the names on the list in the question, it exactly ties most of them in. The story fits really well too. It seems that Reginald's father was a married man. He had two previous children to his wife, and seemed to have a relationship breakdown, during which time Reginald's mother became pregnant with a still married man. His father eventually went back to his wife and had about 4 more children. In the mean time, Reginald's mother ran away to Melbourne, having Reginald in Melbourne. Just need to make some connections on Wikitree now. I'm not sure that there will be much proof, but if I spelled out all the DNA connections, the strengths of the connections, and where they fit in this other tree, the whole thing makes complete sense.

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Kudos, Ben! This is really impressive DNA & genealogical detective work. When I first saw your question, my eyes got big -- it seemed like a daunting task for you to sift through that haystack of names and trees and segments. Huge applause to you for your organization and perseverance.

I'm currently working on the parentage of my step-sister's 2xGGpa and on my mother's 3xGGpa using DNA. I'm hopeful the former is recent enough for crack; the latter I'm less optimistic about but trying anyways. Reading about your success is inspiring and motivational. Thank you!

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Thank you. You're welcome. I'd been watching a number of videos on how to find those missing connections. It looks like, when I posted that comment, I may have had the wrong brother. That family is now digging through there history to give us more information. Which is great. But what I did, was worked on building a common tree for the DNA matches, from the trees they had posted. Then connected my DNA matches into that tree, and looked in the tree to see where my closest matches were. But the biggest breakthru, was finally getting one of the matches to respond, and confirm where the closest matches joined into that tree. Then I could easily see which person was in the right place at the right time, to father my 2xGGpa. Although, it may be difficult to ever prove which brother wwas responsible. The grandparents of the man, have the surnames Taylor, Ward, Herbert and Crowther, which were the exact names that I said were continually coming up across all the trees I was sifting through. Good luck with finding your missing families. It is possible.

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So it all started with Ben's DNA on Ancestry and then mine on FTDNA which I linked to My Heritage. I have now done the Ancestry DNA and proven with DNA and Genealogy that our Great Great Grandfather (Ben's 3 x GGF) is in fact most likely Frank Taylor. There are no brothers that we can find. All DNA matches are lead to Frank Taylor from his line, they are all 1/2 2nd cousin to 3rd cousin. 

So, we figure the mystery has been solved to some extent using DNA and the genealogy 

Keryn

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An encouragment for others, that the almost impossible can be achieved, when the right details are dug up.

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And with awesome collaboration with extended family!! 

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As always!!! Couldn't do it without you.