Since doing all of this sleuthing on my mom and the hunt for her birth father, I have read over and over again that the DNA does not lie. I believe it. But people lie. And that is what makes this so hard. Why would people lie about things that were so important? Even not telling anyone is a lie so why? I understand in the thirties how this would have been a problem but to keep the information all of your life well past the turn of this century does not make sense. Honestly, for a long time I thought the possibility was that my mother might have been the product of incest. I can understand how someone would want to keep that private. Fortunately for GEDmatch, the test, "Are your parents related?", ruled that completely out for my mother.
So, here we are again, why not tell the truth? Here's the truth because the DNA does not lie. My mother's birth mother is Nellie Melrose. We knew this as she was able to obtain her initial birth certificate in the fifties where it listed Nellie as her mother (plus, the Blanchard postmistress knew the story about Nellie's pregnancy--small town gossip can sometimes be true). The father is listed as "unknown". In addition, her half-sibling took a DNA test and showed up as "close family" with extremely high confidence results. In my mother's case, this only confirmed what she already knew about that side of her family. Through her first cousin match on the paternal side, we were able to determine that she shared the same grandparents and his maternal grandparents are the relation. The maternal grandparents only had three children (two twin fraternal girls and a boy). So the boy is her birth father: Marion Alonzo Holden. He was 18 in 1932 in Blanchard, Oklahoma. He either graduated in 1931 or 1932 from Blanchard High School. Nellie graduated in 1932. Nellie became pregnant in March of 1932 (my mother was born December 28, 1932).
Either Nellie did not tell him she was pregnant or refused to marry him. We are sure from the Holden family members that Marion's mother (Electa) would have required them to get married. It's possible Marion was already going to school at Oklahoma A & M (going to college was also an Electa requirement) so maybe that would have taken Nellie too far away from her family. In addition, we understand that Marion had an aunt and uncle that had moved to Alaska with the promise of the government giving them land. Marion had desires to move there, too (and did after school). Alaska was a wilderness then (and much of it is still now). If Marion had made these wishes known, it's possible that Nellie just didn't want to have any part of it.
Because of this, maybe that's why Nellie pinned the birth father on Homer Pilgrim. The only information we ever received from Nellie or her sister, Leona, was this: Leona said the birth father was the tallest boy with blonde hair and blue eyes in Nellie's graduating class and that she told her daughter, Joyce Ann, that he had died in a car wreck. Honestly, it's possible that Nellie did not even tell her sister who the real birth father was. Nellie only said once to my mother, when she asked, "I can't give you the name of a dead man." That could apply to Homer or Marion. But if that is what she told people back then, then there was no way for her to get married to Homer as everyone knew he had died (and she would have gained a fair amount of sympathy from relatives for this kind of loss, rather than getting pregnant from someone who she could have married).
We know that Homer died February 29, 1932 and never graduated high school. We aren't sure how he died although I have been able to confirm the date through the state. It seems a bit early since we calculated that Nellie did not get pregnant until March but it's possible they fudged on my mom's birth date. Things like that happened back then. We saw the high school picture and, indeed, Homer was the tallest. However, Leona didn’t say he was the tallest boy in that picture. The tallest boy might have missed picture day. In the picture, Homer was not listed as graduating.
Marion was not in the picture nor listed as a graduate for 1932. We didn't look at 1931 but do plan to go back and do so. But none of Homer's ancestors match in my mom's DNA. I've gone through three family trees and cannot find any matching grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great grandparents nor great-great-great grandparents. However, on Marion's side, we have matching grandparents through the first cousin, great-great grandparents (through three second cousins) and great-great-great grandparents (through three third cousins). The DNA does not lie. So there you have it, it's Marion Alonzo Holden.
My mother, since she believes Leona, thinks there is a glitch in the DNA but when I compare her DNA directly against her first cousins in GEDmatch, they match in large segments (large enough to be first cousins) on almost all chromosomes. That isn't a glitch, it's the reality. I personally think Nellie didn't tell Leona the truth either, for whatever reason. I am sure Nellie would roll over in her grave if she knew we could simply buy a DNA test and it would tell us the secret she kept so long.
My mom can be proud that she came from a family like Marion's. They seem so similar to the Buckner family. Well-preserved pictures of large family get togethers just like our Buckner family. And he died serving his country during WWII at Guadalcanal--how honorable is that? He didn't have to join the navy, he volunteered. And for this service, he was honored with a purple heart. I can't think of a better person to call my grandfather, for my nephews to call great-grandfather and my great-nieces and great-nephews to call great-great grandfather.
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