Mom's Grandfather, part 1

My grandfather James Loren Savage (1928-1993) was born in Des Moines, Iowa and adopted as a baby by his maternal great-uncle James Savage and his wife Mary Lucille Keck.  His biological mother was Margaret Van Billiard (1911-1949). Until recently, I knew his biological father to be James Edward Huiatt (1904-1966). Margaret married Huiatt in May 1928 and son James was born in August. 

In September, James was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church.  At a month old, he was listed as James Huiatt, with parents James Huiatt and Margaret Van Billiard.

For twenty years, my mother and I have been researching the Huiatt family.  I've had lots of success with a few brick walls and it's been especially fun because of the unusual spelling of "Huiatt."

DNA tests can have unexpected results. After quickly looking at the ethnicity results, I moved on to her matches.  These matches are all the people that have tested that share enough centimorgans of DNA (cM) to be considered fourth cousin or closer relationships to her.  My goal was to confirm all of her ancestral lines.  There was no problem finding her Van Billiard and Savage cousins.  She has first cousins once removed (1C1R), a second cousin (2C) and a second cousin once removed (2C1R). Easy. Then, I looked for Huiatt cousins. Nothing. No Huiatt, no Durrett, no Lankford, or Raney. Wow. I suspected something was amiss and I wanted to confirm my suspicions. I got in touch with two Huiatt relatives, a second and a third cousin and had them both test. Test results came back and they are both related to each other, but neither is related to my mom. This was confirmation that my mother's biological grandfather was not James Huiatt.  Second cousins will always share some DNA. I "manage" this second cousin's test, so I can see all of his matches. He has all the cousins that my mom should have. There are connections to Huiatt, Durrett, Lankford, and Raney. It was bittersweet viewing his results. He had the relatives that my mom and I should have had.

I felt connected to the Huiatt family because of the hours researched and connections made, but I never knew my supposed great-grandfather Huiatt. Neither had my mom. So, we have a fairly close NPE (non-parental event), but are spared the feelings of loss and betrayal that others often discover with unexpected DNA results. Now, I'm given the opportunity to research new ancestral lines. It's rather exciting! I've started the process of sorting through all of the cousin matches and I'll begin that discussion in another post.