Two Family Mysteries and their Journeys Toward the Truth

The search for a grandfather  

Mike Holloway, of Willshire, Ohio, is a man on a mission—a genealogical mission, that is. In recent years, his interest in a long-time family mystery found him taking up the search for the identity of his paternal grandfather. I was pleased to make Mike’s acquaintance via an Ancestry class at the Berne Public Library’s Heritage Room. I listened with intrigue as he shared the details surrounding the birth of his father. The story hooked me immediately.

The tale begins in Monroe, Indiana, when a third child, a daughter, was born to John C. and Lula (Meshberger) Holloway on October 9, 1918. Marjorie Mae joined siblings Howard Clayton and Wava Arveda on the family farm west of Monroe. During Marjorie’s senior year, weeks before her graduation from Monroe High School, she gave birth at home to a baby boy. She named her ten-pound son, born at 9 p.m. on May 16, 1935, Donald. Tragically, within hours of giving birth, Marjorie suffered a pulmonary embolism and died at the age of sixteen.

Marjorie Holloway, sophomore year, 1932-33 Monroe High School

While documentation of an adoption has yet to be uncovered, family lore suggests that Marjorie’s parents did officially adopt the infant. Without a doubt, they raised their grandson, affectionately known during childhood as “Donnie,” as if he was their own son. They did so with family and friends fully aware of the true relationship. While Don always considered his grandparents to be “mom and dad,” he too knew the truth about his young mother’s death.

Mike doesn’t recall ever having a conversation with either his dad or his grandparents—who were actually his great-grandparents—about the identity of Don’s father. While Mike suspects that Marjorie’s mother, Lula, and possibly some of Marjorie’s cousins knew who the father was, that information was never disclosed. Don passed away in 2009, and the last relative who may (or may not) have known details surrounding his birth died in 2017.

Don Holloway

For years, Mike pondered the mystery for which no paper trail existed. Several years ago, he and some of his cousins submitted a Y-DNA test to FamilyTree DNA. This test analyzes the Y chromosome, passed down from father to son, to trace a male’s paternal lineage across generations. While these results can be helpful in a search such as this, the Y-DNA test is both more expensive and less commonly utilized, resulting in a relatively small pool of testers. Fewer testers mean a slimmer chance of finding close matches. Mike later took an autosomal test with both Ancestry.com and 23andMe—the most common type of DNA test that 25+ million people have taken. This test which analyzes the DNA inherited from both parents generally returns thousands of DNA matches. For example, as of May 5, I have 1887 4^th cousin or closer matches with a total of 52,799 matches. New matches come in weekly if not daily.

When I met Mike, he’d already spent untold hours poring through his DNA matches, isolating the one unknown line in his lineage: that of his paternal grandfather. He had built an impressive “research” family tree utilizing clues from the Y-DNA test combined with second cousin level matches (and lower ones) on his Ancestry and 23andMe results. This family tree went back several generations, described as “building the tree up,” and then he built the tree “down,” to include living relatives. His extensive research and painstaking efforts had yielded a potential father for Don.

When I reviewed his matches, the family tree, and the collection of documents he’d gathered, I agreed with his conclusion. “I believe you’ve solved it,” I noted in an email to Mike. But when he sought to confirm his suspicions, he ran into a recently-discovered mystery—one that brought his progress to a halt. Now, he’s looking for a “Plan B” path to confirmation of his grandfather’s identity. As so often happens, time is not on his side.

Mike is the kind of historian that every family dreams of having. His dedication to researching his family history can only be described as passionate. I applaud his tenacity and determination. I know from facing similar scenarios how frustrating it is to be this close to “case solved” status but find yourself still chasing the missing last piece of the puzzle. I wish Mike the best of luck in his continuing quest.

The search for a mother

For the past two months, julie and I have been on a quest to find her biological mother. Born in Oregon in 1962 and now residing in northern Washington state, julie (who uses a lower case “j” to spell her name) embarked on a search to find her roots several months before we connected. She requested her original birth certificate (OBC) from the state of Oregon more than twenty years ago. In 2000, Oregon was one of first states to restore access to adoptees’ original birth certificates. 

A first for me, julie and I worked alongside Sarah, a representative from the agency that handled her adoption, some six decades ago, to identify the woman recorded as julie’s mother. Armed with her name, her age at the time of the birth—mom would now be 85—and the city/state where birth mom was born, I dug in. But very soon, I doubted that the name typed on the “mother of child” line was accurate. Julie had shared that a form letter included with her OBC had noted that some birth mothers did not give their actual name. An admission that information on the original birth certificate might not be factual was another first for me. That fact is proven true every day as searching-for-their-roots adoptees discover falsified mother’s names—a practice encouraged by society’s view of unwed mothers and by some maternity homes—as well as other “doctored” information on the one document that should lead them to their biological family.

Ever mindful of the ticking clock, julie submitted a DNA test to Ancestry as we continued to pore through archived records and contact information sites in search of the true identity of her birth mother. Because Sarah had the file on julie’s adoption, she had bits of additional information that she could utilize. When we pooled the accumulated evidence, we suspected a woman with the same first and middle names as had been recorded on the birth certificate, Nancy Alice. The last name she had used appeared to be completely random. After several telephone calls, Sarah confirmed that Nancy resided in an assisted living facility in New Mexico.

We tracked down Nancy’s sister Della, living two hours south of julie, who agreed to meet with her over lunch. Although Della knew nothing of a child placed for adoption at the time of julie’s birth, she noted that years later, hers and Nancy’s mother had mentioned that Nancy had relinquished a child. Julie inquired about the surname Nancy used on the records at the adoption agency. The name drew a “Hmmm . . . ” from julie’s newly found aunt. That surname belonged to the lovely woman who cleaned for the family, stayed with the children (four sisters) when their parents traveled, and was “the best cook on the face of the earth.” What seemed to us to be a random choice was not at all random to Nancy.

When Sarah contacted the facility, she discovered that increasingly, Nancy had been talking about a daughter. The facility’s staff didn’t know what to make of this as Nancy never married or had children, per her personal information on file. Studies have shown that a significant portion of women who relinquish a child do not go on to have more children. The staff then connected Julie with the couple named as Nancy’s guardians. They gave their blessing to julie’s desire to visit Nancy, her “first mother,” a term many in the adoption community, including julie, prefer.

As I write this column, a very excited, slightly overwhelmed julie is driving from Washington state to New Mexico to meet her mother. I can fully appreciate and relate to the mental and emotional processing julie is experiencing as she journeys 1957.6 miles to meet the woman who gave birth to her and never forgot her. Julie plans to arrive by May 9, the birth date she learned only a week ago that she shares with her maternal grandmother. Happy birthday, julie, and safe travels!

P.S. I received a brief, late-night message from julie on the 9^th. “She knew who I was. It was very sweet, like looking into my own eyes. She thanked me for finding her and for coming all this way. I have no doubts about my being here.” I’m so happy for both julie and Nancy.

Keep the mysteries coming! I love hearing from readers with questions or requests to assist in a genealogical search. Contact me via email at bethsteury@gmail.com Check out past articles on the “DNA Sleuth” tab on my website: https://bethsteury.com/.