Caroline's Family Ancestry Reveals More Than Expected | My Family Secrets Revealed | Ancestry

Caroline has come to the My Family Secrets Revealed team wanting a question answered once and for all - what was the name of her great-grandmother and why was her name such a mystery? But what Caroline is about to find out is more than just a name...

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Bringing together science and self-discovery, Ancestry helps everyone, everywhere discover the story of what led to them. Our sophisticated engineering and technology harnesses family history and consumer genomics, combining billions of rich historical records, millions of family trees, and samples from almost 10 million people in the AncestryDNA database to provide people with deeply meaningful insights about who they are and where they come from.
We’ve pioneered and defined this category, developing new innovations and technologies that have reinvented how people make family history discoveries. And these discoveries can give everyone a greater sense of identity, relatedness, and their place in the world.

Connect with Ancestry:

[ThatBlackPiano]

Sad Mary had to give up her baby. Astonishing the upperclass father was willing to not only acknowledge the child as his, but also was willing to keep her as a legitimate child.

[angharadswansea]

My family has just begun to do our DNA on both ancestry and 23 and me. Ancestry is a much better tool. I found my family has spread from Ireland to Scotland, Wales, England, Italy, Australia, Canada, and USA. I found second cousins living in the same city as me now which is quite impressive because I am an immigrant to this country. I found my grandmother gave birth to a child while living in the Poor House, I found a bigamist, and one particular man seems to be quite a philanderer. I’ve connected with my second cousins in various countries and we are now friends on Facebook. This is so much fun!

[MandyJMaddison]

Well, I must say that the young man in this story was much more responsible than the one who begat a child to a servant girl in a family I was reseaching.
In this instance a girl from a family of farm-labourers in a village in Surrey went to London and became servant to a wealthy family. When she became pregnant to the son of the family, they then sent her back to Surrey, and sent him to New York where he married an heiress.
But on the Baptismal register in a little church in Surrey, the Vicar recorded in black and white that the baby he Christened was "the base born son" of that not-quite-so Honourable gentleman.

[Juliemorgana]

This video shows how it's worthwhile to look at the census and see who lived next to your ancestors. In one branch of my family, every father and son in the neighbourhood is listed as a fisherman. So you learn more about your ancestor's community.

[Cyberlucy]

It's too bad this series is not playing in the US. I would love to see it.

[s.k.]

I found through Ancestry that my grandfather was a stranger, not my grandmother's husband.

[monicagomez]

‘Wicked!’, she says. How very British.

[TheShmoo]

We have got 4 Ancestry DNA testing kits to open on Christmas morning this year, 3 different generations with very different roots, this should be very interesting for my 19 year old son and his 87yr great Grandmother., we have Indian and Jewish brought together by myself and my partner. I am also trying to find siblings, as I was adopted as a baby, Iv found a couple of sisters but know I have a brother a year older than me who was privately adopted at birth so I’m hoping that my missing siblings family may be doing the same thing this Christmas. So excited to get started and see what we find out🙋🏽👍🏽

[laman]

Papa was a rolling stone and he rolled it right into the house next door and hit the servant.

[dianajusselin]

I too used ancestry to help me find the many ancestors who were my family. I found some easier to locate others. Ancestry helped so much. I searched for many sites such as census, obituary and marriage certificates information about my family. Wow, was I surprised by numerous knowledge and to back up the many claims. Thank you ancestry.

[laughingnow]

Loved that story. After wrecking my brain over some DNA results, and trying to break my wall through not one, but three adoptions, I have all but given up. Have recently asked for some help - but stories like these at least help me feel, like there is hope for answers.

[DoloresJRush]

Here's a perfect example of needing at least three records to prove a name of an ancestor! :)

[ericaghelfi]

Ancestry is so awesome, I found an auntie that I never knew I had.

[saraanderson]

Even now days placing a child for adoption is a hard decision, so I know how Mary felt. I made that very difficult decision 34 years ago.

[mycentstoo]

So I wonder how he explained taking in this servant's child? Was he just seen as being a compassionate, benevolent neighbor? I'm sure some people had their suspicions.

[AshlitaKLaGrangeGA]

I was disappointed in my Ancestry.com results. We were 100% caucasian & apparently predictable & not risk takers. I guess loyalty was the best outcome. We do know that my aunts twin was stolen at birth, so we've been hoping to get a genetic match to prove it. My grandfather was in Italy fighting in the war when my granny had my aunt & uncle. My granny named him Melvin. She said he was healthy & then gone. They cremated him w/out her consent & she never saw his body. She spoke about him til she was 86 yrs old.

[JJSoileau]

My mother and I bought the Ancestry DNA test. It verified what we had been told all of our lives... we are direct descendants of Edward Plantagenet King Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth I. Amazing family tree!

[songsandstories]

This was so interesting and helpful.
I have also been able to piece together gaps in my family ancestry by looking through the names of neighbors.💜

[siusaidhchaimbeul]

Would love to get this kind of help. While my grandmother (born in Dublin in 1896) did have a birth certificate, have come to suspect the names of parents given on it were false.

[robertab]

Looking at the illegitimate daughter as an older child with her father and step-mother is quite surprising. A 'reputable' family would often have nothing to do with the child and the woman would be held to blame, and if no family of her own (who also might refuse to take her in - poverty or 'shame') maybe ending in the Poorhouse. The taint of illegitimacy would affect marriage prospects etc so however Caroline came to be living with her father it is no wonder the mother's name was never mentioned. Wilkie Collins wrote a novel about two adult sisters whose parents died on their way back home and apparently the parents had just got married. The sisters were born illegitimate and the girls lost their fortunes as a result. Different times