NPEs - non-paternity events

[ElizabethHerts]

I have been reading about NPEs and it really got me thinking.

I have no reason to suspect that any of my ancestors were not the children of the father I have recorded for them, but realistically the chances are that I do have some NPEs in my tree.

While I was awake in the middle of the night, I was thinking that DNA testing has proved the accuracy of my research for some of my lines and that perhaps I should record this in some way. This in turn will highlight where I need to focus my attention to investigate lines where I don't yet have DNA evidence.

Some time ago I made a list of all my direct ancestors from my tree as a Word document. Now I am simply highlighting in red the lines where DNA matches proved that my research is correct. Obviously, it will get more difficult the farther back I go, but it should be a helpful tool.

I am, however, very frustrated about the lack of matches I have hitherto found for my mother's tree, although there are a few good ones. I have realised that on my maternal grandmother's side there are lines which died out as children either didn't marry or married and didn't produce children. This has had the effect of reducing the number of people who could now take a DNA test from her ancestors.

[Merry]

I have tended to assume where I have a DNA match and my tree also matches with the other person, that my research is proved correct, but when you think about what it actually proves there are lots of scenarios where there could be a different father (or even a different mother!) along one or both lines and you wouldn't recognise that from the DNA relationship, that it makes my head spin!

[Merry]

I suppose it's the other way about that DNA is more useful. It's much easier to prove someone has the wrong tree information if they don't have a DNA match with you when their tree says they should have.

You might need a lot of connecting people to have also done DNA tests to work out who has the error and where.

[ElizabethHerts]

I have started marking people and it has occurred to me that although paternity might be safe there is no guarantee that the reputed mother is the birth mother! However, I think that might be a very cynical approach.

[ElizabethHerts]

For the most accurate results, Y-DNA testing would be required.
Hopefully my rather crude approach will at least highlight where I need to do further investigations.

[Phoenix]

I agree about lines dying out. You only have to think of the huges numbers of medeavil surnames that have gone. I think it was reckoned in Tudor times that approx 50% of families fizzled out without descendants. This is likely to happen in my own branch, where sib's child is the sole great grand child from our side of the family.

A friend, who has a better scientific background than I, points out that some genes overwhelm others. Not talking about recessive genes, and I haven't a clue at which stage this happens, but at some stage one of your parent's genes is more likely to go forward than another.
The majority of my matches are with Dad's side. Clearly this means that more of Dad's relatives have tested than Mum's.
Granny came from Norfolk, with the vast majority of her ancestors from within ten miles of Holt. I must have less than a dozen verified matches for her side, and all under 10cM.
She came from traditionally large families, so I feel there must be more factors at play than just an unwillingness to be DNA tested by my Norfolk relations.

After all, NMEs are far less likely to occur than NPEs!
I am marking my tree where I have a DNA match

[ElizabethHerts]

Phoenix, my grandmother was an only child. Her father was the second son, but the elder son has no living descendants, as far as I am aware. Out of three children, only one produced a child, a daughter, and although she married she had no children.

Her father's mother was one of three children, but one died an infant and the other child, a son, married but produced no children.

A generation further back should produce living descendants, but I haven't established any matches yet.

[Nell]

[QUOTE=Phoenix;360882]I agree about lines dying out. You only have to think of the huges numbers of medeavil surnames that have gone.

By chance, I'm reading a biography of William Marshal [sic], The Greatest Knight, by Thomas Asbridge. In the epilogue it reveals that although William built up a huge portfolio of property and had 10 children to continue his line, none of the males (5 sons, one of whom had to leave the monastery when the elder 3 died) had legitimate heirs.

Lots of surnames in my family tree have died out as the male heirs have died without other male heirs to inherit the name.

[Merry]

I have started marking people and it has occurred to me that although paternity might be safe there is no guarantee that the reputed mother is the birth mother! However, I think that might be a very cynical approach.

Well, I have copies of three birth certificates where the mother named is 100% not the mother of the child. Two are half-siblings to each other (most likely) and the other one is completely unconnected. In the first two cases the named mother was far to old to be having children and in one of those cases I believe I know who the biological mother is. In the third case the named mother was already dec'd some years before the child was born. As it happens, none of these people are my biological relations. I also have a father on a birth cert who had been dead almost 20 years, but I'm guessing that's more common! Of course we only study these things where it's very obvious that something is amiss!!

[Olde Crone]

I have a similar scenario. I am 99% sure of the identity of the father of my 2 x ggf and I have worked up a very good tree for him. He has no known living descendents though, so the tree remains an academic theory.

My family started to die out round about 1900. Huge families but many never married and those who did either had no children or just one child who in turn didn't produce. As far as surnames go, when my brother dies and my first cousin dies, that will be the end of over 1000 years of Holdens, although of course the name carries on elsewhere.

OC

[ElizabethHerts]

Well, I have copies of three birth certificates where the mother named is 100% not the mother of the child. Two are half-siblings to each other (most likely) and the other one is completely unconnected. In the first two cases the named mother was far to old to be having children and in one of those cases I believe I know who the biological mother is. In the third case the named mother was already dec'd some years before the child was born. As it happens, none of these people are my biological relations. I also have a father on a birth cert who had been dead almost 20 years, but I'm guessing that's more common! Of course we only study these things where it's very obvious that something is amiss!!


I don't have any suspicious circumstances like those in my direct line, although in other branches there are some later children who might not be children of the parents in whose families in which they grew up. Of course, prior to civil registration everything gets a lot murkier!

[HarrysMum]

I don’t know much about family history DNA. My interest has been in health issues.
I do however, have a birth cert which has the wrong name for the father. I have checked it’s the same on the original record, and it can’t be changed, but it still annoys me.

[Olde Crone]

Another of my 2x ggf has his uncle and aunt named as his parents on his birth certificate. I only stumbled across the truth when I found his baptism. A similar sense of shock I am sure to finding such dna evidence, but would that show up if you weren't looking for it? After all, we don't know what we don't know!

OC

[Phoenix]

I have been suspicious about my grandfather's birth certificate. He was the youngest of a very large family, his birth registered at the very last date, and his mother - who signed the register at her rmarriage - merely made her mark as informant.

But DNA would merely introduce some unknown matches, quite possibly 4th or more remote cousins

[kiterunner]

They changed "NPE" to be "Not Parent Expected" some time ago, didn't they? So it can apply to either parent, mother or father.

[Kit]

I've been confirming Dad's tree via DNA not very scientifically but I figure if we connect at certain point then the lines below must be correct.

One of Dad's Indian lines is a bit blurry back towards the 1800s. I know the last confirmed person but haven't looked too hard into going further. The words harem and one of 3 brothers has been floated around by descendants but I've not looked into it.

Dad has a match though which proves it is the right family at least as she does not have an Indian connection but a rather elaborate tree for the father of the 3 brothers.

So the family rumours just might have at least a grain of truth in them.

I thought NPE was Non parental event.