Our story is very much like the many DNA mysteries discovered each day when the DNA testing company informs donors that their DNA results are ready. Usually, the person’s first quest is to learn about their ethnic make-up. Then there is a realization that ethnicity predictions
My husband and I ordered genetic DNA tests in hopes of determining who his paternal grandmother was. We had a few clues and wanted to see if DNA could help us find her. Little did we know, answering this question would lead us to more unanswered questions and thus our journey of discovery, enlightenment, and acceptance began.
My husband’s father was James Patterson Hill, Jr. He was born in 1926 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Jimmy only had a few memories of his mother from when he was a young child and he knew very little about her. Jimmy died in
The birth certificate listed James Patterson Hill, Sr. as the father and Susan Lloyd as the mother. Susan was born in 1903 in Minnesota. The certificate of baptism listed his mother as Katherine Lloyd.
I researched the name Susan Lloyd in Minnesota with the birth year of 1903. I found one woman in several censuses’ who met these criteria. I reached out to a gentleman, Shawn Lloyd via Ancestry messaging and asked him about the Susan Lloyd in his tree. Unfortunately, this Susan was his grandfather’s sister, and the family didn’t have much information about her.
The DNA test revealed that Shawn Lloyd was my husband’s second cousin. The Susan Lloyd in his tree was his mother. Although the DNA was helpful in determining who is grandmother was, my husband had no DNA connection to the Hill family.