Can someone please help me work this out?

[TurquoiseThings]

I'm being driven slightly mad by a DNA match on Ancestry. Sorry if this might be a bit long and complicated.

I never knew who my grandfather was. Anyone who did know is dead.

My father was conceived in 1950, UK, and he had a British mother.

I have two paternal DNA matches who are American. They don't fit anywhere else - they have to be related to my grandfather.

Ancestry tells me X is a 2nd-3rd cousin with 165cM. And Y is a 2nd-3rd cousin with 287cM. But I also have a (known) 1st cousin once removed with 254cM so I’m wondering if Ancestry is wrong about Y. Could Y actually be a closer cousin do you think?

My second problem is how to work out who my grandfather is via these two matches. I have managed to build their family tree. X is my generation and Y is a generation above.

I have looked at their fathers and uncles, and their grandfathers. What I haven’t looked at, and am not sure if I need to, is their uncles’ wives’ brothers? Do I need to?

I’m struggling with who to rule out. I’ve looked at everyone’s ages in 1950 and I think there are only two possible men who could be my grandfather. But how/why would they be here in England in 1950?

My grandmother does have previous when it comes to American servicemen during WW2 😬 and lived near several airbases, but in 1950?

Any insights appreciated, I’m so confused with it all.

There were plenty around in that era. Look at the dates from wiki. Did your family live near any of those bases?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_in_the_United_Kingdom

The bases at Bentwaters, Woodbridge, Chicksands, Greenham Common, Sculthorpe, Wethersfield and Upper Heyford were closed by the end of 1993. Alconbury's flightline was closed and its base support functions were taken over by RAF Molesworth.

In January 2015 the US Department of Defense announced through their European Infrastructure Consolidation programme that they would be withdrawing from RAF Mildenhall, and activities at RAF Alconbury and RAF Molesworth would be moved to RAF Croughton.[1] In 2020 it was announced that Mildenhall would remain open.[2]

Thanks @AutumnFroglets yes my grandmother did live near one of those bases. I didn't realise there would've still been Americans there after the war.

I think they stayed because the Cold War developed with Russia and NATO was formed. But yes, it doesn't seem real. Was very surprised to read they were still here in 2015.

There's a base near me where the American contingent didn't leave until 1995.

Just to help a bit with the cM, I have a known first cousin once removed and we share 377cM, so it sounds like you and your first cousin once removed just inherited less of the same dna than average.
There are a lot of Americans on 23 and me, so worth signing up to that if you haven't already.

“I have looked at their fathers and uncles, and their grandfathers. What I haven’t looked at, and am not sure if I need to, is their uncles’ wives’ brothers? Do I need to?”
People who wouldn’t share any of their DNA. No. You don’t need to.

They are good matches so I would recommend using WATO (What Are The Odds).

You plot in matches into a tree and it calculates the hypothesis. I've done this a couple of times for unknown parentage and it's been very helpful.

You need to have built out the trees for the matches to transfer to WATO. Be sure to use their shared matches too but not ones with less than 40cM although they can be helpful if they have trees but don't include the match in WATO.

Great tips there, thank you all!

I hope you are not planning on reaching out to these people as you could blow up someone's family! Let things lie. A lot of shame regarding illegitimacy in ghost days.

Not that it's any of your business, but no. I'm not going to "let it lie" either. I'm entitled to know where I come from. I can find that out without blowing up anyone's family. Maybe tone down the aggression, you don't know me or these people. You could've just scrolled past seeing as you didn't have anything useful to add.

My grandmother does have previous when it comes to American servicemen during WW2

^

God love your grandmother.

I have nothing constructive to add, but my grandma also used to bike around 50 miles on a Saturday to go to dances at The Tower in Blackpool to run into Americans!

@coxesorangepippin 50 miles! That's some commitment How much easier we have it these days!!

I don't know if it oulf help make sense of things but have you checked all your dna matches and cross checked those? The LEEDS method, I believe its called.
It helps to show patterns and likely ancestor links.

Sorry, I know I'm very late to this thread.

I'm likely a generation older (or half a generation?). My mum was born in 1940, the youngest of five children. She had two older sisters born in 1930 and 1935. The family lived in and around Gloucester (actually near Tewkesbury).

Her eldest sister was one of the earliest war brides to go to the USA**. She got pregnant sometime around Christmas 1945 to a 19 year old US soldier when she was 15. They then got married in June 1946 just before she got on the boat as a war bride when she was 6 months pregnant. She then gave birth in August of that year in the USA to their first son.

Interestingly, I've seen her immigration and arrival documents on Ancestry and on all those documents she claims to be 19 rather than 16. But I've seen her birth certificate so I know that wasn't true at all. Whether she lied to her hubby about her age or they both conspired together to hide the truth, we'll never know.

Getting on to the case that is perhaps more relevant to the OP, my mum's other sister also married a US soldier. She got pregnant in 1952, at the age of 17 to a US soldier stationed at a nearby US base. The soldier then transferred back to the US and she followed later in 1953 (with a six month old son) as an unmarried mother - that was an issue back in those days.

They got married in the US later in 1953 however it did, many years later, cause some problems for their eldest son as no father's name was recorded on his birth certificate so he had to get DNA tests and a lawyer to prove that he was a US citizen.

My mum also has a number of cousins, and even an aunt, who also married US servicemen in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This was not uncommon at all in areas where there were US bases.

Basically, just about every female member of my family who could get their hands on an American serviceman did so and left for the States in the late 1940s or early 1950s. My mum was too young for that so she feels that she missed out a bit.

Back then, even after the war, Britain sill had rationing and the US was definitely seen as the land of plenty.

** She left on 20 June 1946 but the first ever war brides left the UK in January of that year. There were 452 women, 173 children - and one man (a husband of a female service person). There was a film based on that subject made in 1949 starring Cary Grant and Ann Sheridan called "I Was a Male War Bride" based on the biography of a Belgian guy who married an American nurse.

In total, there were 37,000 war brides from the UK and 59 war husbands that emigrated to the US after the war.