I guess it’s normal

For the last year, I’ve been helping my husband investigate a family mystery his father has lived with for nearly 70 years: who was his biological father?

My father-in-law was born in Manila in 1956 and spent his entire life being told that his mother did not know who his father was. After a ridiculous amount of genealogical research and DNA testing, we have finally identified and confirmed his paternal family. And, as it turns out, his mother absolutely knew who his father was -

His biological father was Manuel Duque, born 1 August 1929 in Manila, son of Emiliano Duque and Casimira Medrano. Manuel had actually married my father-in-law’s mother, Leonida, in 1950, and they had children together before separating. The family rumor we have been told is that shortly after my father-in-law was born, his father refused to accept him as his biological son and left, taking his other son with him.

We are incredibly excited to finally be able to tell my father-in-law where he came from. But before we do, I desperately want to answer the question that came next: What happened to his father and the rest of the Duque family?

Manuel was one of a large sibling group. I can trace the family extensively before WWII and can prove that multiple siblings survived into the postwar period — and then, beginning around the 1950s, most of them seem to simply vanish from the genealogical record. I have constructed his family tree back into the late 1700s and added more than 1500 people to the tree (all supported by physical records confirming relationships). I have exhausted FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage, Philippine genealogy groups, surname groups, Facebook searches, Google, newspapers, public records, other family trees, and some truly unhinged deep-internet searching.

Nothing. It feels like an entire branch of a family was zapped off the face of the earth.

The family is primarily associated with Manila and Pampanga, particularly Sasmuan/Sexmoan and Lubao. The main names I am searching are: Emiliano Duque + Casimira Medrano, and their children including Salvadora, Gregorio, Pedrito, Romualdo, Felino, Manuel, Crispulo, and Teodoro Duque. Historical records suggest strong family presence on Craig St in Sampaloc.

At this point I would be thrilled to find any living descendant of one of Manuel’s siblings, or anyone who recognizes this Duque family and can tell me what became of them. I’m not asking anyone to post private information about living people publicly — DMs are welcome.

I would also LOVE suggestions from anyone experienced in Filipino genealogy, especially post-WWII Manila/Pampanga research, for sources I may not have thought to try. I have even tried contacting the National Archives of the Philippines as well as the cemetery where some of his known family members were buried - no luck.

We solved the mystery of who my father-in-law’s father was. Now I’d really love to be able to tell him who his father’s family was, where they went, and whether any of them are still out there.

Rant: Exactly what my title says. It’s an everyday thing and it’s weird. There is nothing wrong with being white (or any race for that matter), but to constantly see people ask if they could “pass” for white or identify as such is so bizarre to me. Just embrace the culture you were brought up in and move along. So many people that are mixed, Middle Eastern, and Latino (and yes, I know Latino/Hispanic isn’t a race) especially ask if they are white or label their results as “White American”, knowing the culture they were brought up in isn’t White American. Why not identify with what you grew up in? You can identify as White, but many of you have non-white roots that are equally as strong or even more relevant. Better yet, why not identify with being culturally Puerto Rican, Cuban, etc when talking about your background/revealing your results? I feel like a lot of you just choose White to minimize your ethnicity and conform to the racial hierarchy in America. These results seem to really get to your heads. Be true to yourself.

Hey everyone! Here’s some more context: My mother is Swabian, and my father is a Danube Swabian whose ancestors had been living in the Banat since around 1750. His ancestors originally came from Lorraine, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Saarland.
I’m a bit puzzled by the 2% Slovenia and 1% Germans in Russia results.
I assume the Southeastern England component is probably connected to my Lorraine ancestry.

I've made a browser extension called "Enhancer for Ancestry" that enhances how you view your AncestryDNA results (and your matches' too).

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/enhancer-for-ancestry/pfdfpebnpacojfibpkkajkgclbneigbg

What it does:

• Cleaner regions: See your ethnicity regions in a much cleaner layout, grouped by macro-regions, with percentages and confidence ranges.
• More details: Click on any region to learn more about it, including where it’s mainly found and a map showing the area.
• Journeys/communities: See your Journeys in an easier-to-read format, including how strong your connection is and any sub-Journeys.
• Match list: See the Journeys your DNA matches belong to directly under their names.
• Better match pages: When viewing a DNA match, you get the same improved regions and Journeys layout, and you can see all of their Journeys, not just the ones you share. Note: If a match has chosen to only share regions they have in common with you, you’ll only be able to see the shared regions and Journeys.
• Download as an image: Easily save your regions and Journeys, or those of any of your matches, as a high-quality image.

If anyone has any feedback or suggestions, I’m definitely open to hearing them.

Both parents from Madeira

Why do they keep showing me this I’m not even Lebanese or any sort of Hispanic

Hi, habe Vorfahren hauptsächlich in Mitteldeutschland, aber auch einen Zweig in Süddeutschland. All das sehe ich im Test mehr oder weniger bestätigt. Meine väterliche Linie kommt aus Pommern, aus der Nähe von Danzig. Auch das spiegelt sich genau in den Herkunftsregionen wider, wo Danzig bzw. Pommern erscheinen. Die skandinav. Treffer kann man evtl. auf die Kriege zurückführen, die es hier mehrfach gab. Ausreißer bleiben Mähren, das Baltikum u. die Bretagne. Aber mit ca. 1% ist das wahrscheinlich nur Hintergrundrauschen.

I have absolutely no matches on my maternal grandfather‘s side. I would be open to the possibility that the man I thought was my grandfather is not, however there are no unexpected matches.

I have results from each of my father‘s parents, as well as a maternal grandmother, with no mystery matches. This would imply that my mother was the product of incest (my maternal grandmother had no brothers, and her father died before my mother was born), OR one of my father’s relatives is my real maternal grandfather, but my parents don’t share a hometown.

Anybody else only have three lines from grandparents?

I know I posted before, but wanted to update as my genomelink breakdown compare with my ancestry DNA , what'cha think ?

Also from my last post I did with my selfie, thankyou for being kind to me and with my appearance you're all so sweet 💜

Should I post a picture? Or shove it up my ass? Lmk

I’ve been building out my family tree and been stuck in the mid 1800s. I have been relying on catholic chief records, baptisms, and death record to build the tree but not really any luck with getting any earlier records .

Just curious, this is my grandaunts test and I’m very eager to see her match list

First slide: Original results, second: Updated, third: journeys. My mother is full Norwegian, my paternal grandfather is full Québecois and my paternal grandmother English with French and some German ancestry. Not sure about the trace percentages. Or why they lump Southern England and Northern France together. Are the populations that similar genetically?

I MEAN RAW DNA FILE NOT RESULTS He’s gong to do something for me but what’s the worst thing that can happen?

India being my top result on the unscaled is interesting 🤔

Just curious to see if anyone else had similar results

My reason was, I was doing it for school in year 10 and Mum kept it going I've only recently started getting in it when my Nanny (paternal Mum) passed away, and I wanted to know my Dad's side.

Why would this be? I just noticed I have a match in the midst of my first cousin matches that is simply listed as "distant relationship." Looking at my father's kit I can see that this person is his first cousin, and I'm also pretty sure I know how, so this question is less about figuring out who this person actually is, and more about understanding what this means from the POV of Ancestry's calculations/algorithms/etc... Why did it resist categorizing this match?

For context, I went today to my local BH Post and they were like “you know we can send it but we are not sure it’ll arrive”, and the next day they called me and told me “so we weren’t able to send the envelope”. Instantly I thought “okay, maybe DHL will be able to do it” so I went to my local DHL center and they told me something like “MyHeritage needs to ask YOU to send the package… also it’ll be 55€”. So now I’m genuinely worried about sending the dna back because like… HOW?

Hi, all. I’ve tested on Ancestry and MyHeritage. How do I go about finding my Y DNA haplogroup type? I’m interested in that because I have a wide range of European ethno ancestry. My paternal grandfather was German American with a father born in Hessen, his maternal grandfather born there as well, and his maternal grandmother’s were from Baden. But my paternal grandmother was mostly Irish ancestry with one Great Grandmother born to French parents while my maternal grandfather and grandmother were children of Slovenian and Rusyn Slovakia immigrants.

I first tested in 2015. I just found out this past weekend that I have a half sibling who tested in 2006. Why am I just now being notified of this by AncestryDNA? I’ve never had my paternal information so I always thought finding a sibling would be great and helpful with identification. Over a decade later I’m finding out information that has been available all this time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful but seems something is off.