Paul Hawkins Story

Long read, but well worth it!

Well what can I say? With the help of Maja Newcomb we have found my wife's birth father. My wife tested at Ancestry in 2018. She did not know who her father was. Results came back with 2 significant matches, a 640cM & a 303cM. These matches did not match each other or my wife's Mum. Building some quick trees, I established that the 640 was on one side of my wife's unknown BF & the 303 was on the other. Since then I came up against some brick walls & dead ends. A few months ago, Maja offered to help me. She suggested some target testing to try to narrow down how these matches of my wife were related. We collaboratively shared ideas & hypotheses & I also carried out research in other areas with new information I had found.

My wife's Mum is Spanish & she came to the UK in the 1950s to work as a dancer with Bruce Forsyth before he became famous. Due to issues with her back, she had to stop dancing & she found employment as an au pair in the early 1960s. We were given some photos by my wife's Mum of the family she worked for. I managed to track down the young girl, (who was aged 10 when my wife was born in 1966) that my wife's Mum was employed to look after. She gave us the name of Patrick Meen as my wife's father. I could not find any DNA link for this name. I found him on the 1939 register living with his "parents" in Woking.

His birth date was given as 19th March 1920. There was however, no birth certificate to be found for this name. I found a will for his "father" which showed he bequeathed his estate to his "adopted children", one of which was Patrick William Meen.

With other matches to the 640cM match, we could conclude they were a half 1C to my wife, sharing a grandfather.

Having ruled out the 303cMs match's aunt's (one was too young & the now 94 year old daughter of her other aunt who I met this year had agreed to test), the only possible person was this match's nan.

We were always thinking that the 303cMs my wife shared with this match was a half 1C1R or half/full 2C, but 303cMs is in a low range for half 1C too.

Now we had a DOB for Patrick, we could now focus our search to the March & June Quarters of 1920. Although Patrick was adopted, its very rare to have a different birth date.

We looked for births in these Qtrs for the area the families lived in 1920. Today I received a pre adopted birth certificate for my wife's father. He was born 19th March 1920 in Southwark. No father named, but mother shown as the nan of my wife's 303cMs match!

My wife & myself would like to thank Maja for all her help in getting where we are today. Her assistance has been invaluable. If you are stuck or have a brick wall in your research, Maja will certainly be a great asset with your research.

I have attached a photo of my wife's grandmother with a young girl who is my wife's 303cMs match.