Using Ancestry as an adoptee

[PurpleOranges]

I joined Ancestry a couple of days ago and I'm eagerly awaiting my DNA test kit. I'm adopted with very limited information to put on a family tree.
I'm not sure which name I should use for myself as I've had three - name given at birth, name given by my adoptive parents or my married name. My adoptive parents changed both my first name and surname, so I've had two different first names and three surnames.
Any advice please?

I would use a fake name to protect my privacy

Assuming you're looking for birth parents/relatives you're best to use your birth name as (hopefully) they'll be some points of reference if any matches show up. Having been through this rollercoaster for both parents it can be a long (or very short!) process. Best of luck 😊

I'm half adopted (yes it's a thing). I have separate trees for biological and adopted family. For my biological trees I put 'DNA' in the name so it's clear to other users.

It doesn't matter what name you put in your tree(s). To answer a PP's point, in Ancestry living individuals are only shown to other users as 'Private' unless you give them access to your tree.

What you might want to consider is what you put in your user profile. Eg, "I was born [original name] in [place] and I'm looking to find out more about my biological family". You'll be in good company, there are many others in a similar position.

Use your birth name. You can set your tree to private. You will need to begin to create your tree with birth family information to get the most out of the DNA results. At the very least, complete your birth mother and father’s names in your tree if you know them. Your DNA test results may flag up relatives, usually cousins. There is something on Ancestry called ThruLines which helps link your DNA matches with others’ trees and their connection with you. Good luck.

I find Thrulines really inaccurate, to the point that I never bother checking it now.
You might get a very close match immediately, or something might not spring up for a year or so, but second/third/fourth cousins should be showing up and you can start to make sense of your tree by comparing theirs.
Good luck OP.

Agree about Thrulines, especially the further back you go (in generations) as they rely on other users' research which can be utterly dire.

This is a general point but having a DNA connection isn't enough in itself, you need the paper trail to support it. (I have a distant DNA connection to whom I have three different ways we are related by marriage, but cannot find the DNA relationship! ) It's probably pretty accurate for immediate relatives (I don't have any on there that have tested) but the further out ones you need to treat with caution until you establish the paper trail.

Thanks for all this good advice, I'll use my birth name then, which will be weird as I can't remember ever being that person. Hopefully I'll find out a bit about myself. Thanks again, I appreciate the advice.

I really hope you get the answers you are looking for, @PurpleOranges . Few points from the perspective of someone who has helped people through this in the past.

Firstly, don't get your hopes up about finding very close family right away. You might hit very lucky and find that a half-sibling has done a test but you are far more likely to find more distant relations. And with an adoption scenario, half relations rather than full relations. This complicates matters and you really need someone on board who understands centimorgans and things like WATO (what are the odds) and DNA Painter's shared centimorgan tool. You don;t have to pay for this help, there are lots of Facebook groups with experts who can help. An Ancestry test cannot tell you how two people are related - they just tell you how much DNA you have in common, and what the possible relationships could be. You still need to build trees and work out what is going on. Not always easy.

Secondly, have you had any adoption counselling? Again, sometimes this works out really well, the adoptee goes on to have a positive relationship with birth parent(s), siblings, extended family. Bit other times not so much for a whole host of reasons. Or maybe the parent has died already, one parent has committed an awful crime, or they just don't want to know and tell you never to contact them again. You really should be having professional help to work through the "what ifs".

Good luck, and let us know how you get on.

I'm a little bit late to this. I would really recommend what @Stroopwaffels said above.

Although I haven't met any people through Ancestry, 23andme etc who were adopted, I have come into contact with a couple of the children of adoptees (is that the right word?).

In the first case I found, through a DNA test (it was actually on 23andme rather than Ancestry, but I've done tests on both sites), that I was related to an American woman on her father's side of the family. Her father knew that his mother had been adopted while living in England but that is all. The adopted child later married a US serviceman and emigrated to the USA.

After we worked out how closely we were related, combined with what little information they had about his mother, I was able to identify who she was (it turned out that his mother (the adopted child) and my mother were cousins) and gave him a whole load of information about his family that he had no idea about.

It absolutely blew him away. He had resigned himself to never really knowing anything about his mother's birth family (she died quite young) and was overwhelmed that just from his daughter doing a DNA test he was able to find out about his real family.

In the second example, a DNA test showed that I am related to a woman living in London whose mother and aunt had both been adopted. It has been an interesting story to unravel.

She was keen to find out who her mother's birth parents (her grandparents) were.

It turns out that the grandmother was born in County Galway, Ireland and then married while she was living in Wexford.

Her husband was a policeman who had recently returned from China where he had served for six years in the Shanghai Municipal Police (many Shanghai policemen at this time were Irish or British).

However, it appears that life in County Wexford might have been a little too quiet for him as the following year he joined the British East African Mounted Police based in Nairobi, in what is now Kenya, and her grandmother went with him.

Unfortunately he died two years later and her grandmother returned to the UK.

About five years after his death, her grandmother gave birth to two daughters (my relative’s mother and aunt) and they were both adopted at an early age.

Normally, if a woman was unmarried then no father would be shown on the birth certificate. But in both cases her widowed grandmother gave the name of her deceased husband as the father. In reality, given the DNA test, it appears that it is some relation of mine that was the father.

They were fostered for a while in another part of the country before being adopted and returning to London.

So, we have been able to trace a lot of the story of her mother’s birth family although I’m still working on exactly which relative of mine might have been her grandfather.

Just a couple of random stories about my experiences on Ancestry and the other sites like 23andme and MyHeritage

I've recently found a half brother of my mother on Ancestry. The name meant nothing but the DNA match was so strong I eventually worked it out.
He is 81 years old, only found out he was adopted when he needed his birth certificate to get married. The birth certificate only showed his mother's name.
OP regardless of what name you use if your DNA brings up loads of matches who have matches in common you will most probably find your answers.

I have personally found ThruLines accurate for my needs. I established the identity of my great great grandfather through matches in the US. Luckily I had tree, census data and family lore which backed it up so I agree you need extra info and not just the ThruLines. My husband is adopted and we have found Ancestry / Ancestry DNA useful.