Some of Claire’s family members (Picture: Claire Lindsay)
I’d just added another distant relative to my family tree when a notification popped up on my screen.
Ancestry was giving me a ‘hint’ that there was someone else I was likely related to. As I opened her profile, I was sucked in.
She was my great, great grandmother and after delving deeper into her history I found that she had turned to crime, unable to feed her child who had been born out of wedlock. As a result, she’d adopted many identities over the years.
My heart went out to her and I text my family that we had yet another ancestor with a tragic story. It was news I was now familiar with relaying.
In the middle of lockdown, everyone was taking on new hobbies. Some people opted for baking banana bread, others, like me, took to their family trees.
After I signed up to Ancestry.com and sent off my DNA, I made discoveries that amazed me and changed my perspective.
At first, I expected only to find a few names or pictures of far flung cousins.
Now, if you step into my house, you will see plastered across walls a display of maps, profiles, cuttings and all manner of other information that would put a detective to shame.
Ancestry works in two main ways; you can send in a DNA sample, which will come back with your suspected nationality breakdown and suggestions of other sample-givers that you could be related to.
If you step into my house, you will see plastered across walls a display of cuttings that would put a detective to shame (Picture: Claire Lindsay)
Or you can simply start inputting details of relatives you know of and search through their collection of records to trace your line back and build your digital tree.
I went for the former, and after finding out my ethnicity estimate and contacting a few possible relatives, I turned to my family tree. What I found out really shocked me.
Whenever I pried into my dad’s childhood when I was a kid, asking questions like ‘what was it like when you were a baby?’ and, ‘what was it like for granny when you were born?’, he would reply: ‘My parents didn’t talk about that.’ Not even a couple of whiskies could give me any morsels to go on.
But that all changed when I got access to records. Through them, I learned that my late grandmother, who I never met, had secret battles that my dad didn’t know about - until now.
With my dad’s permission, I did some digging and discovered he had two birth certificates. He had no clue that he had been born in a Catholic mother and baby home.
Most babies born in this kind of environment were put up for adoption due to being born out of wedlock, with many mothers having their children literally torn from their arms.
After I signed up to Ancestry.com and sent off my DNA, I made discoveries that amazed me (Picture: Claire Lindsay)
It transpired that my gran had ended up in one of these homes because her landlady kicked her out after discovering she was pregnant with the baby of a married man.
It was through my exploration online that I discovered my dad’s birthplace in 1945, and we were then able to apply for his file from the mother and baby home.
We were given letters, in which my then 34-year-old gran was referred to as ‘the girl’ by the council, which repeatedly told her of their intention to move my dad to a Catholic household.
Showing the grit I associate with my dad, my granny – a munitions factory worker during the war – fought tooth and nail against a system that made many attempts to take her infant son from her.
Eventually, she would win her fight for her boy; persuading the priest who ran the mother and baby home that he should be with her. This involved her having to declare in writing that she would bring her son up as Catholic.
Since my dad couldn’t be less religious, this carries a certain irony for us.
Claire’s maternal grandparents on their wedding day (Picture: Claire Lindsay)
I was then able to piece together the reason for my dad’s second birth certificate. My gran married my dad’s biological father (after the breakdown of his first marriage) and now they were wed, she could add his name to the birth certificate.
I never met my gran, yet reading this material filled me with rage on her behalf, and I couldn’t be prouder of her that she battled a system so against women.
Having seen her actual handwriting has made it much more poignant than just a simple anecdote. It may have all been intriguing and exciting for me, but at times this was overwhelming and quite emotional for my dad to find out about.
I am not exaggerating when I say that her story has changed my life, inspiring me to be even half as strong as her should I come against adversity.
My gran’s story was just the beginning though.
Having become acquainted with my gran’s story, I managed to track down a cousin of my dad’s and he had plenty of stories to share, as we got talking via handwritten letters, a keepsake I will cherish forever.
Some of it painted my great grandfather in a nasty light: an abuser, gambler and alcoholic who lost the family fortune. My dad was unsurprised by a lot of this; he had known that my great-grandfather had abandoned his family.
Then I found out more about my mum’s side of the family.
Mum once told me that one of my grandfathers had been abandoned by his parents – a fisherman and fisherwoman from Aberdeen – but when I looked at censuses, it became clear that there were a lot of discrepancies.
In the 1901 census, he was listed as the adoptive son of a couple called William and Jane, while in the 1911 census, he was listed as their nephew.
This prompted me to order his birth certificate, which showed that he was actually the son of Jane’s sister, Mary; no father was listed.
Claire and her husband Duncan (Picture: Claire Lindsay)
It seemed to be becoming clear that the original tale passed down was far from the full story. It’s a mystery I’m still trying to get to the bottom of; was this Aberdeen fisherman the father, and where did this account come from?
My mum certainly doesn’t know, but the high percentage of Scottish in my DNA results means there must be at least some credence to the Aberdeen link.
My next step is accessing ship manifests and continuing to dig into who this fisherman, seemingly the missing father, was.
This is something I will continue to be desperate for more information on. I’m hoping that new DNA matches will be flagged on Ancestry so that I may contact currently unknown relatives who may have the next piece of the puzzle.
That is part of the excitement of the process, you just never know when someone new might pop up.
The beauty of such a hobby is that whenever you make a breakthrough, a huge sense of achievement is felt, but also a whole new chapter and avenue opens up for you to explore.
It is a lifelong journey that can be paused and revisited at any time and, keeping what I often consider a chaotic brain occupied, it has done wonders for my self-assurance and helped me quell feelings of anxiety.
The one thing I can thank lockdown for is a gateway into a passion that will stay with me, and an opening for something that bonds the whole family together.
The WhatsApp group that I created for our family history is still thriving with activity. For my birthday in May 2022, my mum and I even went on a road trip across the country, visiting landmarks, former homes and graves of our ancestors. It was a surprisingly emotional, yet peaceful, shared experience.
We’re all shaped by our previous generations, and discovering stories – both positive and negative – makes a lot fit into place around why my parents are who they are and furthermore, why I am who I am.
I feel I have an all new understanding of myself and I am excited to think that, one day, future generations of my family will experience the same thrill of finding out about me.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
Share your views in the comments below.
MORE : DNA study makes it easier to guess how tall children will grow up to be
MORE : At just 10 I was sent abroad so I could support my family back home
MORE : From ‘dognition’ to DNA family secrets, these are the best ideas at New Scientist Live
We discovered that my dad had been born in a mother and baby home.