I’ve been away from 52 Ancestors for a while – nothing bad, just that most of the intervening topics I’ve covered before here, and there will be some in the upcoming weeks that, likewise, are duplicates of previous posts so they will be skipped! A full list of this year’s posts will be made at some point (presumably in December!) which will include those equivalent versions.

This post has, I suppose, been a few years in the making. I’ve uncovered many ‘family secrets’ over the years. Illegitimate children, stillborn babies, extra-marital affairs, court cases, entire family lines rediscovered, but this one is a real doozy …

… and it contains many of the above listed points!

Several years ago I was contacted by someone via Ancestry who connected with me very closely with DNA, but there was no way that I couldn’t have known who he was, so I was quite frankly somewhat dismissive of his request for help. That one’s on me. Luckily, he persevered and later came back to me and explained that he was an adoptee who was searching for more information on his bio father’s family after having made contact with his bio mother – who wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the extra details. This definitely piqued my interest. Given the shared DNA matches we had in common (and expecially the ones that we didn’t) it became clear that he connected on my Holborow side. Amazing!

Our initial thoughts, given the ages of the people involved, were that he was somehow the child of one of my great-uncles whilst they were away at war. I obtained the service record of one of them who passed away some time ago and I was then able to place him around the right place at the right time to be a possibility. Not exactly a smoking gun, but certainly a strong contender. The light also shone briefly on the great-uncle who is still alive. I asked one of my second cousins (from the great uncle who was deceased) to do a DNA test to see if we could get a bit more clarity. We already had results from me, my mum and her two siblings. Her results came back and using the amazing What Are The Odds tool over at DNA Painter seemed to rule out the deceased great-uncle. Which left us in a bit of an ethical quandary …

In the meantime the new contact had employed the services of a Search Angel. Actually two as the first one was bloody useless and got as far as a deceased cousin of my mother and called it a day. The second one took their work a little more seriously and after some back and forth between themself and I, absolutely smashed the brick wall.

There were a number of American and Scottish DNA results that highlighted one particular family who seemed to be tied in to this paternal line, but nothing seemed to leap out. It transpired that not only was the person who contacted me an adoptee, but his father had also been adopted. Crazy times. But as I said the second Search Angel cut through the Gordian knot somehow.

They were able to prove that my great-grandfather, Joseph Holborow, when in Scotland for his training in WWI had enjoyed a dalliance with a young lady named Mary Jane Clark Longmuir. That union, although brief, was fruitful, and in 1918 a son, William Longmuir was born. William was the paternal grandfather of the person who contacted me – and is happily the newest 2nd cousin in my tree!

We managed to meet up in peson late last year, and I was struck (as was my mother) at how much he physcially resembled some of my mother’s cousins on that side of the family, and she could see some of my great-grandfather in him too.

So not a family secret per se as I highly doubt that my great-grandfather knew that he had a son in Scotland, but it’s still a pretty amazing thing to discover!