I didn’t do it. I really didn’t. Ok, I wanted to, but I didn’t.
Yes, I seriously considered exhuming my father. Ok, now that you’ve stopped gasping, let me tell you about the story, and what I did instead, and how successful it was, and wasn’t.
My father, William Sterling Estes, died in a car accident in 1963. That means he’s been dead now for 50 years, half a century. Depending on the source, he had between 2 and several children. His obituary names me as his daughter, then inadvertently mixed up my mother, his x-wife’s name with that of his sister. So my mother is listed as my father’s sister in his obit and his sister isn’t listed at all. Neither is his other daughter, my half-sister. For any of you who follow my family story, you already know it’s bizarre, so this unfortunate error should come as no surprise and would only provide Jeff Foxworthy with fodder for his “you might be….if” series.
But, as you’ll see, that obituary is part of the problem and so is the fact that he has been dead 50 years now. That’s 50 years for his DNA to degrade.
My father was, well, ahem, somewhat of a playboy. I keep finding children, and rumors of children, scattered about as I kept researching. I keep waiting for a solid half-sibling match to some poor unsuspecting person on one of these autosomal tests too. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m just sure that one day it will.
And I haven’t published my blog article on Ilo yet, but suffice it to say that if you know of an Ilo (or maybe Flo?) who had a male child about 1920 in or near Battle Creek, Michigan and was briefly “married” to William Sterling Estes who was serving at Camp Custer at the time….I need to talk to you.
Now you’d think with all of these alleged children, there would be a male child to test, but the only male child I knew of back when DNA testing began was the male child of Ilo who I have never been able to identify, let alone locate. I hadn’t found my “brother” Dave yet at that time, but as it turned out, Dave’s DNA did not match the Estes line anyway, so that would have been a red herring.
My Estes line out of Claiborne County Tennessee, for all of the males in earlier generations, dwindled to only a few, then to none in my generation. The best I could do was a descendant of a male 3 or 4 generations upstream in my tree, and where there are paternity questions in more recent generations, a descendant from up the tree isn’t helpful, or wasn’t before autosomal testing.
Ah yes, that paternity question. You see, it wasn’t definite. A descendant tested the Y chromosome, and he was off just enough markers to be considered a problematic match. But, it was enough to introduce doubt. And doubt is a horrible nag for a companion – especially for the family genealogist who has spent the past three and a half decades working on this “doubtful” family. In other words, OMG!!! This was the genealogical equivalent of a panic attack. And what could I do? There was no one else to test.
On the chart below, the green line is the Estes ancestral line, as we know it today, proven by both genetics and genealogy. The purple is the anonymous participant that tested and had the questionable match to the green ancestral Estes line. The yellow group was then “suspect” because of the questionable match. When I found David, supposedly my father’s son, and he tested, matching neither the purple participant nor the Estes ancestral line, it nearly put me over the edge. My cousin, Buster agreed to test, which confirmed the ancestral Estes line back to Lazarus, which left the yellow still in the questionable realm. There were no living males to test in the yellow line.
So, I considered exhuming Dad. That possible paternity issue had shaken me, pretty much to the bone, and I desperately wanted to know. Was I barking up the wrong tree? Was my Dad not my Dad, but David’s Dad? David and I clearly were not genetic half-siblings, suggested at that time by CODIS testing, but proven eventually by 23andMe testing. Was my Dad not the child of his father, William George? Was his father maybe not the child of his father, Lazarus? Why did my grandfather not look like the other Estes men? We knew that John R. Estes matched the ancestral Estes line, but we had no one else to test below John R. on the tree.
Below, my great-great-grandfather, John Y. Estes, at left, my great-grandfather, Lazarus, center and my grandfather, William George, at right.
Why did my son look so much like my father? Was I just seeing things that weren’t there? Below, my father as a teen in his military uniform and my son about the same age.
Without a male to test the Estes Y-line DNA, how would I ever know?
One day, a package arrived in the mail. My step-mother had died some years ago, and her daughter had found a group of letters in her mother’s belongings that she felt I should have. Among those letters were letters from my grandfather to my father.
Letters? Envelopes? Stamps? Saliva? DNA? JACKPOT!!! WOOHOOOO!!!!!!!
At the time my grandfather mailed those letters to my father, in the 1960s, my grandfather was living alone, so he should have licked the envelope and the stamp himself.
I called Bennett Greenspan at Family Tree DNA. He referred me to a private lab that “does things like this,” called Trace Genetics. Before you start googling, the company was subsequently sold and has now been defunct for years. However, at that time they were doing custom processing of private forensic samples.
Yes, anything like that is considered forensic. Anything you have to extract DNA from before you can have it processed in a regular lab is forensic work.
So, I got an estimate, took out a loan, and told them to go ahead. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. The cost was in the $2000 range FOR EACH ATTEMPT. So, we tried the envelope first. No DNA. Then we tried the stamp. We got DNA, but it was female, so we knew it was contaminant DNA. Think of how many people handle an envelope in the processing and delivery of mail, not to mention all the people who had handled it since. Then we tried a second envelope. No dice.
I was beyond frustrated and so were the two wonderfully patient scientists I was working with at Trace Genetics. We all desperately wanted DNA. In all fairness, they told me very clearly up front that there was a less than 50% chance of obtaining ANY DNA, let alone usable DNA, let alone Y-line DNA. Yes, the odds were very much stacked against me, and I knew it.
Y-line DNA is the least obtainable. Most forensic work is done using mitochondrial DNA. That’s because in each cell there is a total of 1 Y chromosome and there are thousands of mitochondria. So the chances of recovering mitochondria are much greater than a Y chromosome.
Still, I had to try. If you’re thinking of the word obsessed, I certainly wouldn’t argue with you.
Then I remembered, I had my father’s VFW hat. I had it stored away in an old train case with other memorabilia from my childhood. That was the one and only thing of my father’s I ever had – that hat. I still remember him wearing it and I remember going to the VFW hall with him. They had a slot machine and sometimes he used to let me pull the arm on the machine. That was great fun.
I asked my friendly scientist at Trace Genetics what to do with the hat. He suggested that I look for hairs in the interior of the hat, under the hatband, and then he told me how to extract the hair without touching it myself using sterile gloves. I did so, put the hair in a Kleenex, put the Kleenex in an envelope and overnighted it to Trace Genetics. This hair had the all-important follicle attached, the only part of the hair that will provide DNA.
I was positive, just positive, that this time was the jackpot. But it wasn’t, and neither was the next hair.
Are you adding up the numbers in your mind? Well, I assure you, I was adding them up. And it wasn’t the money that bothered me, but the lack of results. I was devastated.
So, I considered exhumation. I looked into it, and I discovered a couple of things that were very important and were likely show-stoppers.
- In order to exhume someone, you have to petition the court and give a reason. Then, you have to obtain the written, notarized, permission from every single descendant. Yes, I said EVERY SINGLE DESCENDANT. If even one disagrees, or refuses, it’s done, a deal-killer, dead.
- The cost of said exhumation is about $20,000 including all expenses, like attorney fees, backhoe, medical examiner, etc..
Choke, sputter, cough….clutching chest….
I happened to know someone who actually did exhume their ancestor, not for DNA testing, but because the cemetery was going to wind up at the bottom of a lake. And yes, the entire process did cost in the neighborhood of 20K, a price-tag they did not anticipate in advance nor expect.
I had my doubts that any court would approve an exhumation for obtaining DNA for genealogy, but they might approve it to move the grave to Tennessee where my father’s family was buried. Dad was (and is) buried alone in Indiana.
But to move him, the cost of the exhumation would increase exponentially. Moving a body which is considered medical waste is not inexpensive. By way of comparison, to bring my sister home from Arizona to Michigan for burial was in the neighborhood of 10K. And that would have been in addition to the 20K for exhumation.
For a minute, I thought about my brother, Dave, the long haul truck driver and I wondered if he had any room in that truck between pallets of yogurt. But I got a grip on myself before asking him. I had visions of Dave putting Dad back in the sleeper cab…but I digress.
Ok, now we were talking the price of a car or a small house…a vacation home maybe or a trip around the world. And it wasn’t 2K at a time, but an all or nothing proposition.
Not only did I not have the 20K or 30K, I couldn’t justify borrowing it, so I decided to leave sleeping Dad’s lie, so to speak.
I also decided that really, while I desperately did want to know about the paternity issue and its resolution, that I’m an Estes no matter what. It’s my maiden name, it’s my name now that I’m married (I married a Kvochick, need I say more) and it will be my name on my tombstone. So, I’m an Estes no matter whether I descended from them genetically or not.
I intentionally have not addressed any moral or ethical issues about exhumation. Some feel the dead should be left alone, undisturbed. However, there is precedent… the Catholic church regularly exhumes their saints to see if the body is well preserved. I didn’t know what to think, truthfully, along those lines, and before I could have and would have actually made that decision, I would have had to think long and hard about it. Would I have been there for the exhumation? Could I have stayed away? Would I have wanted to see my father like that? All questions I would have had to answer, but did not have to, because the other issues precluded exhumation.
The first issue I would have encountered was who, exactly, were his descendants, and how, exactly, legally, was that determined? I mean, does the court go by the obituary? If so, my mother was his sister. But I had a real half-sister. Was she included? No place did it say that she was his descendant. He didn’t have a will. And what about the children we knew about but couldn’t find? Would that preclude the exhumation? Or should we just stay quiet about them? No, too many ethical issues and thorny problems, and that is BEFORE you get to the money issue.
I’m glad I didn’t slog through that mess, because before long, autosomal testing came about – not CODIS testing – which was inconclusive at best – but wide spectrum testing using hundreds of thousands of DNA positions, today’s 23andMe and Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder tests.
I have several Estes cousins who aren’t direct male lines but who who are fairly close genetically and I’m not related to any of them through any other genealogical lines. If I matched them, it would be proof positive that I indeed was a blood descendant of the Estes line. I wasn’t happy testing just one or two, so I tested 5 or 6 of my cousins from different children of my great and great-great-grandfather – and yes, I did indeed match all of them.
What a relief! I didn’t have to dig up Dad or spend the equivalent of a couple years of college education.
But for those who are indeed as desperate as I was, let me tell you the following.
- There are very few labs that will do this kind of processing. It is very unpopular as you basically have to shut the entire lab, sanitize it, and run no other tests until you are done. You can see a forensic lab clean room in Ripan Malhi’s lab at the University of Illinois.
- Best case, with a relatively recent sample, meaning one from someone who died recently, you have about a 50% chance of useable DNA retrieval. That’s BEST CASE.
- Skin is good. The best is an electric razor contents. Do NOT touch them. Put the entire razor with contents into a plastic bag and DO NOT seal it. Keep it in a temperature stable environment. No attic or basement. Sometimes hairbrushes have skin flakes in with the hair.
- Hearing aids are good. Again, do not touch, etc. Blood is good. Spit is good. A Kleenex is wonderful, providing you are sure it is their Kleenex. If your mother was like my mother, check her bathrobe pockets.
- Older things like hair, sweat, envelopes etc. are not so good. The older the sample, the less likely you’ll be able to retrieve DNA. It degrades with time and these aren’t particularly good to begin with.
- Digging up a grave without doing all of the paperwork is illegal, and the legalities vary by locality – so consult an attorney and get the check book ready. I just thought I should mention that little illegal detail, just in case. I know genealogists are innovative and sometimes desperate people.
Having said all of that, don’t go throwing anything away. There is new technology on the horizon that will only need one cell of DNA – so I’m told. Seeing how far we’ve come in the past decade, I don’t doubt that someday this will be true, and someday may be closer than you think. And no, I do not know how far away that horizon is.
So, store your DNA item safely. Label it. Do not seal it in plastic. Do not store it in the attic (heat) or basement (cold, humidity) but someplace fairly temperature regulated.
One time when working with an archaeological specimen, we were told to freeze the sample. Well, we did, in a plastic cool-whip container with water. However, the electricity went out while the person whose freezer the specimen was stored in was out of town. Their friend went to their house and did them the very big favor of disposing of everything in the fridge and freezer before they came home. Needless to say, we were just sick. So, don’t freeze it either. Besides that, freezing in a frost-free refrigerator (that by definition defrosts itself regularly) is not the same as freezing a specimen in a laboratory temperature controlled stable environment.
So, what’s the upshot of this?
- Forensic genetics is expensive
- Exhumations are extremely expensive and fraught with all kinds of legal and technical landmines
- There are very few labs, if any, that will process private forensic samples
- When DNA is retrieved from a forensic specimen, it may be contaminant, not the DNA of the person you think it belongs to
- When DNA is retrieved from a forensic specimen, you still have to pay for the DNA testing, in addition – and it may not work
- When DNA is retrieved from a forensic specimen, if it does amplify, it will most likely be mitochondrial DNA
- Using today’s combined genetic genealogy tests, there is almost always a way around the lack of a particular DNA donor, making exhumation and or forensic testing unnecessary
And if you’re considering grabbing a shovel, an urge which I well understand, I’ll leave you with the advice of an ethicist that Family Tree DNA invited to speak at their annual conference a few years ago, “Don’t do anything in the dark of night that you wouldn’t do in the middle of the day.” Put another way, don’t do anything you wouldn’t be comfortable seeing in the headlines, because if you get caught, that’s where you’ll be:)
But then again, those headlines would certainly be something interesting for future generations of genealogists to dig up about you!
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Excellent Roberta.. Fun to read and packed full of good information. 🙂
I remember reading in Lenny Davis’s book “Go Ask Your Father” how desperate Lenny was, like you, to determine if his father was his biological father. There was some question that his biological father might have been his uncle. Both his father and his uncle were deceased by the time he carried out this research. His father had surgery a number of years before he died (for cancer, I think?) and Lenny had found out that hospitals keep a slice of the biopsied tissue frozen for many years. He was able to convince the hospital to give him a piece of the slice of his father’s frozen tissue to bring to a lab that agreed to sequence the DNA. If I recall correctly, Lenny confirmed that the man he thought was his father was indeed his biological uncle; and his father’s brother, the man he thought was his uncle was his biological father. But before you jump to conclusions, it turned out that Lenny’s father could not father a child on his own, so they used a sperm donation from Lenny’s father’s brother.
BTW, Lenny’s book is a good read for anyone interested in genetic genealogy and also about living with deaf parents.
Excellent article–thanks much.
thanks Roberta, great article. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Why do I have visions of ” Young Frankenstein ” in my head ?
A.B. Normal (Richard)
Thanks for my laugh for the day Richard, er, I mean, A.B.:)
“But then again, those headlines would certainly be something interesting for future generations of genealogists to dig up about you!”
Boy oh Boy true words…my greats & great-greats are going to wonder! Got to admit that I’m not leaving an explanation either…LOL
That was fun to read and very educational in a macabre sort of way. ;-}
Barbara
I certainly can understand how you felt. I was never able to test my dad and everything he owned was destroyed in the house fire and then I thought about my grandmother, his mom, but she had died about 5 years before him and she is buried in a mausoleum. I guess I will not be testing that either with all the things you have to go through. The descendant would not be a problem as my brother and two sisters are the only ones. It is the expense of the testing that would make anyone think twice. It is amazing how much your handsome son looks like your handsome father, I didn’t have to read the rest of the store to know how it turned out. Looking at your father and son will tell you how the story unfolds. I enjoyed you post, as always.
Roberta, Your articles are always great, they keep me interested and informed and fun to read Thanks.
Absolutely fascinating!
Slightly off the subject, but how can they establish paternity when ” a woman does not carry the y-DNA of her father”. Are there other parts of the genome that provide a link, or does it come back to finding a male sibling?
Well, it depends on exactly what you mean by paternity. If you mean finding a male that represents the Yline of her father, then yes, a sibling, uncle, cousin with the same surname. If you truly mean paternity, as in “who’s your Daddy?” then autosomal testing is the way to go. Here’s a link to the 4 kinds of DNA testing. http://dna-explained.com/2012/10/01/4-kinds-of-dna-for-genetic-genealogy/
Here’s one about autosomal testing. http://dna-explained.com/2012/08/19/autosomal-results-the-basics/
I am speechless. Thank you as always for a most interesting article. .
Love it, lol. I’ve often wanted to grab a shovel, but for a far more distant relative, my 5th great grandfather. He had 10 kids who each had large families, etc…,I can’t imagine trying to get permission from all of them! I imagine it easily measures in the thousands of people.
As a genealogist and daughter of an adoptee I commiserate. As a funeral director, I say there is a reason it is so expensive, we really don’t want to go there. My soul resonated in total angst as I read through your post and I am so glad you had a great outcome! Loving the informativeness of your posts and blog!
Excellent as always! 🙂
Wow, what an entertaining read! That’s amazing how much effort (and money!) you put into trying to extract a sample of your father’s DNA! I’m sorry about all of the disappointments and roadblocks you hit along the way. I was curious about how successful DNA extraction from the deceased worked. From what you write, I can tell its usually not that successful.
It is unsuccessful more than 50% of the time.
I was thinking of this option the other day wrt my 3xgreat grandfather, George Campbell. I have not been able to find anything on who his parents may be. Since his two sons did not have any children it only left his daughter to have descendants and, of course, none would have his Y-DNA. While I did not investigate the option as much as you did, I figured that since he died in 1850, finding any usable DNA would be difficult. I did get my aunt to do an autosomal DNA test on the off change that a distant cousin from that line has also been tested. Hope spring eternal!
Very interesting Nothing is easy in this world, not even death! Larry D. Duke, Estes Trails 700 W South Park Blvd Broken Arrow, OK 74011
918-451-4097
estestrails@aol.com
Roberta,
Here’s a really good mtDNA story about finding “proof-bearing” DNA in a 500+ year old skeleton … buried without a coffin, yet.
The bones were those of Richard III, King of England … and the last Plantagenet king.
http://www.examiner.com/slideshow/king-richard-iii-s-body-has-been-discovered
Interesting that his name was the last in a relatively short line of English kings to bear two of the syllables that you use so often in your writing:
“GENET.”
The mtDNA survived.
Complete with a video.
Regarding the mtDNA test:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/01/world/europe/search-for-richard-iii/index.html
Regarding the still anticipated Y-DNA test:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/science/more-dna-tests-to-confirm-skeleton-is-richard-iiis.html?_r=0
My mother … and the mother of President Obama, by the way, is descended from John of Gault, third son of Edward III, and the great-great grandfather of
Richard III. He is mentioned in the following linked article about Richard’s DNA. We are descended through the same immigrant ancestor, Edward
Fitz-Randolph, who arrived in Massachusetts on the Winthrop Fleet in 1630.
http://www.abroadintheyard.com/richard-iii-dna-could-unlock-more-royal-genetic-genealogy/
More about Obama’s mama and Edward Fitz-Randolph:
http://lewisathome.com/tag/edward-fitz-randolph/
On page 75 of the of the book “Fitz-Randolph Traditions” [1907], you can find one of the first modern attempts to rehabilitate the reputation of Richard
III. You can download a PDF scanned copy of that book at:
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL23565152M/Fitz_Randolph_traditions
So, last week I did a test with FTDNA since they lowered the price on the mitochondrial test. I thought nothing of doing the cheek swab and sending it back in. I figure that when I get a bit more money I can order an autosomal test. (I did one through the initial testing at Ancestry — I was in the cheek swab group). Fast forward to this week, where my 102 year old grandmother died, as suddenly as someone in advanced age can do. And I suddenly hit myself for not thinking of geting a test for her. (My mother and aunts have been interested, but money was an issue — plus doing a saliva sample was hard. The cheek swab seemed to way to go but we dithered).
I was not at the bedside, but my mother and aunt were. I had told them that sometimes tests can be done after the fact. And recounted what I could remember of this post to them over the phone. They got a brand new toothbrush and scraped the inside of her mouth with it, They put it into a bag, but did not seal it. They also gathered up her hair brush and comb and put it into a bag.
But, what can we do with the toothbrush? I called FTDNA to see if I could send it into them, and of course the sales guy was a little clueless. (He also sounded very young!) Can it be done that way or do we have to go the expensive route? Or not bother at all for any way to get autosomal testing done?
You need to ask Bennett Greenspan. You can contact him at bcg@ftdna.com
Great article Roberta! My mother and I just recently took autosomal tests and are anxiously awaiting the results. All of my grandparents are deceased but my maternal grandmother has two brothers who are still living, so I will see if at least one of them will take a test also. Their mother (my great-grandmother Effie) passed away in 1922, but my mother has a locket that was passed down to her with a lock of hair in it that I believe is Effie’s hair. Unfortunately, the hair was cut so there are no roots. I have read that other parts of hair do contain some DNA, but it is difficult to extract or test. I hope science will one day advance to the point that her DNA profile can be retrieved from one of her hairs. In the meantime I will try to piece the puzzle together as much as possible from clues of the living.
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Your sense of humour infused into your article made it a great read! As someone with no living parents or males in the family, I have gone the autosomal route with 23andMe and now awaiting rmatch results of the transfer to FTDNA, not having found any close enough with 23andMe. I have envelopes with postage stamps from my dad from years ago (he always licked his own), but who knows if easier extraction methods may come along in the near future (hopefully they will). I am wondering if there would be any advantage to taking the FTDNA complete MtDNA test? I am H3g with 23andMe. Would it be possible to get any better breakdown with the full MtDNA sequencer?
The 23andMe haplogroups do not take into consideration either insertions or deletions, so sometimes you get a slightly different haplogroup from a FTDNA full sequence. Also, you get your own personal mutations and a list of matches.
Thanks, Roberta. Your recent “Combining Tools” blog was fantastic, and has convinced me to do the full sequence. (I also ran mine through the James Lick site and came out as H3g3.)
Really appreciate all the information you impart to us!
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Roberta,
Again you have hit home. Sometimes I picture myself at night with an earth auger and fiber optic camera, drilling into that ancestors 150 year old grave site of my 2nd gr grandfather and his suspected father and obtaining the DNA sample needed to penetrate my 20 year old brick wall. Wouldn’t that be grand?
David
🙂
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I’m a genealogist and a bit of a genetics junkie (I wanted to study genetics in college but was steered in the wrong direction by a college that didn’t even offer it!). I have thought along similar lines about exhuming a body of someone I believe in a relative that went missing. Truth is, it isn’t going to change anyone’s life if we know for sure or not. The part that makes me sad is that this poor man died working in a mine, had been there less than 2 weeks and doesn’t have a headstone or anything. Articles in the paper talk about how he had a wife and children but that is it. No names. And I’ve seen so man men buried this way–without real information on death certificates, etc. Who was missing them when they didn’t come home? Did wives think their husbands just left them? That is the tragedy, not that I don’t know if someone is my blood. For what it is worth, I had heard about a company (out of Israel?) that had an ongoing facial recognition system to connect families ( so many points, etc.) the way you sometimes see on shows about outlaws and faked deaths, etc. I am not sure of the name or if they are working on kinks in the system, but it may be another alternative to DNA testing. The system was supposed to be ongoing, always searching as photos are uploaded.
Assuming your brother did his y-DNA, the fact that he had no ESTES matches doesn’t necessarily rule out him being the son of your father. Your father may not have been an Estes. When I did my y-DNA over 90% of my matches had different surnames from mine.
I wanted to have my father and mother exhume, but after reading your article. My mind is change. I want to ask what do I do about a brick wall. I am stuck,
I so enjoyed this read lol. Your comical desperation was jumping off the page. While I’m in nowhere near that mess of twisted tree I was desperate enough to google exhuming your ancestor so I feel your pain haha !
What a fascinating true story. I like the manner you wrote it. I’m so happy for the happy ending. I saw this article as I was pondering,”What if.I…”Now I know I’m not the only one being driven crazy by a DNA family question.
My great grandfather supposedly had parents from India but they lived in Spain. He came to the US and painted murals. He said he was a Hindu turned Christian but his name was Amohamed (?) Our family female genetics don’t pan out and it’s frustrating. I got in touch with a male member of his other family ‘ahem’ and I’m trying to encourage him to get tested. Ancestry says sometimes a line just drops. My next step is spending thousandson an expert researcher. Wish me luck and thank you.
Love the article! We have considered exhumation. We do have 15 year old ear wax on a hearing aide. Do you have a name of a lab that could help us or a contact that could point us to a lab like you worked with?
Determined 😊
Stephanie Ann Fields Carson
Family Tree DNA, I think, will attempt to process ear wax. You’ll need to call them to discuss.
Roberta,
Thank you so much for responding! I will call them! You have given me hope that I may find some answers before my elders, that I am also helping, find out for themselves when they go to heaven! 😇
Sincerely,
Stephanie Ann Fields Carson (4th Great Granddaughter of Stephen Fields 1771-1862 who married Sarah Short) and Stephen Alan Fields (my father) and a lot more Fields Cousins (who have had DNA testing)
I don’t think your father and son look tremendously similar, but what clinches it for me is the hair thickness and hairline. Very similar. Also, the ears are real close. I’d say you definitely got a match. thanks for the insightful article.
Ate you aware of any labs that are still doing analysis of dna from letters. I found two letters my mom wrote, stamped, licked and sealed that were returned undeliverable. They were from 2005.
No, but hang on to them and don’t store them in plastic.
Thanks. If I find one I’ll post it here. Excellent article.
ha! I’ve often thought about digging up some old relatives too (one in particular) but the thought of having to get every single descendant to sign off….impossible! I’m sure I’d be looking at thousands of individuals. My best bet is the Lazarus tool on Gedmatch I think. Need to start asking some ppl to upload!
I have my fathers Denture he passed in 1982, we are sure that his Natural Father’s Sister adopted my Father. This is such an important issue and we want so badly to finally have the answer. Is there ANY to get a DNA off his Denture, needless to say no one put it in there moth, it’s been in a little box safely kept were no one has touched it. Now can I get a sample off the Denture ? I live in Michigan . Help PLEASE 😭
Not yet. But don’t let anyone touch it. Hopefully soon.
I REALLY enjoyed reading your blog. Not only did you answer many of my questions but you gave me some ideas. I am obsessed with my great grandfather. I have been researching him for nearly 30 years. I have MANY old documents dating back to the 1940’s and 1930’s. I have all of his legal papers and I’m betting that these were not handled by a lot of people. I am going to look into having these tested for DNA. When you mentioned the hat I tried to think of things he owned that might work. I am writing a book and this journey on DNA of his papers will be an interesting piece to share.
I did not finish reading your blog but I so understand why you would want to exhume your loved one. I thought I was the only person who thought this way. I still want to exhume my great-grandfather for a DNA sample. He died at age 90 in 1955. I know this is weird but I want to know what else may have been placed in his casket, what he was wearing, etc. So much will explain my feelings but won’t share now.
I have thought this over for a few years. For too many reasons to go into here…I have decided to petition the court for permission to exhume my great grandfather for a DNA analysis. I am writing our family’s story and this answer some heartfelt questions for us all.
Please let me know how it goes.
A side question regarding getting cousins to test, since exhumation is still on the fringes: Roberta, you said you tasted a number of your cousins. I would like to know how you approached them and had them test. For me, when I bring up the topic with my cousins they just stop communicating with me. How do you phrase the wording to get them to agree to do a DNA test?
I begin with discussing genealogy and share with them. Then if it seems right, I move to the topic of DNA.
I loved your clear and thorough blog on this issue, thank you! Just one thing was not clear to me; when you are talking about legal issues, permits & such, are those you mentioned federal or state directives, ie. are they the same all over USA?
There may be state laws in addition to federal. We don’t have directives, so I don’t know about that context. A lawyer should always be consulted.
Even if I wanted to exhume a body for DNA genealogy testing, and I could get permissions which is highly doubtful, I don’t have that kind of money. It’s frustrating realizing that much of my genealogy will always be a big question mark but sometimes one has to accept that fact.
I understand how you feel. I want so badly to exhumed my great grandfather. His DNA will provide so many answers to question from my 30+ years of research. I still may start the process.
Any new developments on sources for get DNA matching (autosomal, Y, anything)?
No, unfortunately. Contamination is a severe issue and the costs are exorbitant.