General Chat

I wondered if someone could give me some advice I don’t know who my father was because I was only given a surname but no maiden name I was told he was a Canadian but I have had my DNA done and it came back 54%england and Northwestern Europe and 46% Scotland no mention of Canada does that mean I was lied to ? . If I have not been lied to how is it possible to trace a person with only a surname and nothing else to go on .there is no one alive now that would know anything to help me. Thanks in advance for any advice.Jean

What does it say on your birth certificate, were you a home birth, if so you may be able to find out who else was living there at the time or if you know your mothers maiden name you could for a marriage for her to see where she was living then.

It just gives my mothers name and she was single and where she was living . I was born in an hospital The names where she was living seems like people she worked for I did try and get some info but it was no help I thought it may have given some name who she was going out with but it didn’t . She told me the surname of my father was Dawson .

He could have been Canadian or at least from Canada as his DNA would reflect his heritage which was probably from the UK.
Was he in the forces maybe there's a way of tracing him if he was but with only a surname it would be very hard I would assume...at least it wasn't Smith!

There really is no "Canadian" except for the Indigenous Peoples.

Everyone else is an immigrant, going all the way back to the 15th otr15th century.

So the DNAs will show UK, France, Europe especially northern and Middle European, depending on which wave of immigrants were the ancestors.

So, no, you were not lied to.

If you were born during or soon after WW2, then it is very possible that your father was in the Forces, in the 60s that he was a hippie traveller.

Take your pick!

But it will be extremely hard to find him, especially with only the surname. Canada has no Central Registry for bmds, instead every Province keeps its' own Vital Statistics records. You would have to know in which province he was born or died.

As Caroline says, it may be possible to trace him of he was in the Forces, but the chances are very slim with only the surname and no other information.

The DNA report is unlikely to to have lied. As caroline said, his family may have been from the UK, he might have been 1st generation Canadian. And only half of your DNA comes from your father.

Keep an eye on any DNA matches that you get, lots of folk from Canada and the USA have DNA tests. Put your mothers family tree on alongside your DNA so that any surname matches can be identified/eliminated. If you get any close matches that you can't identify, they may belong to your fathers family.

See if you can upload your DNA to other sites, sometimes you can. Do the same there, there might be a few different folk on there.

grannyfanny ................. he could have been 3rd, 4th or more generation Canadian, and still show only the European ancestry UNLESS there had been a marriage with one of the Indigenous Peoples.

There is an outside chance that your mother married your birth father at some point after your birth.

Yes, I know, sylvia, but I was trying to keep things simple.....

I thought, that might be it, grannyfanny, but unfortunately it can confuse if you try to reduce it to only 1 generation.

I have a daughter, family, friends who are 1st generation Canada and are only just in their 40s .......... which I'm thinking is way younger than the man Jean is looking for. The family members will show UK and Swiss DNA, All married Canadians, and I haven't traced their families, so who knows what DNA mix the children who are aged 13 and under will show??

My son-i-l is the descendant of someone who apparently skipped ship in Newfoundland back in the early 17th Century. The family history is all East Coast Canada, no marrying or other mixing with any Indigenous people.

If Jean gets her mother( if she is alive) or someone from her mothers side of the family to also take a test she will be able to start sorting out which side of the family her shared matches come from.

Thankyou so very much everyone for your advice. Yes he was in the forces. My mum worked at Duxford Aerodrome in the war I was told working on the aeroplanes near Guildford so I assume that’s how she met him. Also as Sylvia has said it has been impossible to find any information from Canada as I do not know enough.in 1939 mum was a domestic servant in Hastings but her name was not on the household members list but there is an address the same year saying mum lived st Leonard’s on Sea at that time. I was born in south land’s Hospital Shoreham by sea in 1945 And the registration district was Worthing. The address given on my birth certificate where she was living was Stroud Green in Wisborough Green.but everything runs cold from there onwards until she married my stepfather in 1946 he came from Sparright near Amberley. But I found out he was not in the forces .but for some reason no information is forthcoming so I don’t know how they met but I do know after the marriage they lived in Greatham between Pulborough and Storrington .thanks again for your advice .and wish you all well Jean.

Just to give you an example, Jean. My mother was Canadian, at least a 3rd generation Canadian. My father was English. My mother's father was Irish Canadian an her mother french Canadian. Ancestry can now give percentages of ethnicity that I inherited from each parent. From my mother I inherited

35% Ireland
13% French
1% Norway
1% Basque

Was you mother in the Airforce or other wartime Service?

If so, have you applied for her Service Record?

If we knew where she was actually working, it might be easier to track which Canadian forces were also there or nearby.

On a diiferent track.....
Were you baptised?
I have known father's names to be included in a baptism record, whereas by law they could not be included on your birth certificate unless your father was present or had officially acknowledged parenthood.

Hello Gwyn that I don’t know mum never talked much about it all she told me was she worked on the planes during the war. And no I was not baptised. I only found out my father was a Canadian because my husband took me to Canada for a holiday when his mother died and my mother said you are only going to Canada to find your father .my reply was how can I find out who he is when you only give me a surname .but she still didn’t give me his first name. In my mind I think she wanted to marry him and he probably didn’t want marriage and that’s probably when the relationship finnished.mum said he was a mummy’s boy. I think that’s why she met and married my stepfather a year later .and when I started school I took the surname of my step father and I was told never to ask any questions because there was always people that would talk and being young of course you listen to your mother . But I wished I did ask now at that age because I have left it to late and the adults that knew my mum are now no longer alive. As I got older I did ask a relation but I could have cried because I wrote her a very nice letter explaining I was searching for my father . And she wrote back and said don’t ever cross my door again I don’t know your mother who told you who I was ..there was no need for that and it put me off of asking other people

During WW11 unmarried women were called to take up posts vacated by men. Think Landgirls & Lumber jills.

It is quite possible that Jeans mother was called up to work with sircraft.

Maybe Jean could do some research into Duxford and the girls working there.

Edit: forgot that Duxford is a museum part of the IWM - so Jean could visit.

I'm just wondering whether your mother was a WAAF, Jean.....they ''worked on p!anes'.
Not sure if civilians would be allowed to especially during the war.

The Women's Auxiliary Air Force was founded in June 1939 to free up RAF personnel for front line duties. By 1943, the WAAF had 182,000 members. WAAFs undertook a variety of roles, including compiling weather reports, maintaining aircraft, serving on airfields and working in intelligence.

If she was you can get copies of service records as follows

Service records (1939–present)
The Women’s Royal Air Force was disbanded in 1920 and then reformed in 1939 as the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. It reverted to its original name in 1949, and finally merged with the Royal Air Force in 1994.

Visit the GOV.UK website for information about how to request a summary of a service record from the Ministry of Defence. These are not available to members of the general public, but next of kin may request access to them.

There was a RAF Dunsfold near Guilford during WW2; could this be the Aerodrome ?Rather than Duxford which, I believe, is in Cambridgeshire

You might like to read the following about Dunsfold as it states the the Air Field was built by The Royal Canadian Engineers in WW2

https://dunsfoldairfield.org/tag/canadian-air-force/

Thankyou very much LondonBelle .yes it definitely was RAF Dunsfold that’s interesting to know that it was built by the Royal Canadian Engineers thankyou