When I was checking DNA matches a while back I noticed a very close match. This was a good match for me and a great match for an Aunt. He is predicted to be either a great-grandfather or great-grandson, great-uncle or great-nephew, or 1st cousin of my Aunt L. First cousin seemed to be the most likely since the other relationships seemed impossible since my Aunt was born in 1937 and the match was born in 1934. A grandson of this match also tested at the same company. A son tested at another company and a granddaughter of the match tested at a 3rd company.
The chromosome browser below illustrates how much DNA my Aunt shares with this match we will call Mark Smith. They share 13.0% (924.8 cM) of DNA.
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I’m predicted to be a 2nd cousin or 1st cousin once removed to Mark Smith. I share 3.7% (261.1 cM) of DNA.
I was able to narrow down this match as descending from a particular set of great-grandparents Frank Kappel and Mary Kurta of Chicago, Illinois. These great-grandparents had 11 children and I had no idea which of the daughters might be the mother of Mark Smith? I believed it would have been a daughter he descended from because he didn’t share my great-grandparents surname.
I contacted the match so I could attach his results to the correct parent relationship. I was surprised when the match messaged me and said he didn’t know how we were related? Being an obvious first cousin, how could that be? The match seemed uninterested in delving any further into this so I moved on and just figured his mother had a different maiden name because of a divorce or something? Also possible his father had a different surname for the same reasons.
A mutual match asked me if I knew how this match was related to our mutual families? I said he was definitely a first cousin of my Aunt L. I then decided to see if I could figure out which of my great-grandparents' children our match Mark Smith might be the son of?
My assumption was there was a surname change involving his parents for some reason. I quickly found out I was wrong about that. Mark Smith’s mother was 19 and father listed on the birth certificate was 21 when Mark was born. We’ll call his parents John Smith and Jane Jones. They married a month after Mark Smith was born. The surname on Mark’s birth certificate is Smith even though the couple wasn’t married at the time of his birth.
It would be unlikely for such a young couple to adopt a child. The most likely scenario is that John Smith isn’t Mark Smith’s father. Jane Jones gave birth to someone else's son in 1934. Either she told John Smith Mark was his son or John married her knowing he wasn’t his father.
Obviously one of my Great-Uncles is the father of Mark Smith. Jane Jones and my great-grandparents lived in the same city. There were two sons of my great-grandparents close to Jane’s age. Herman Kappel and William Kappel are the best candidates to be the father of Mark Smith. William was killed in Germany in WWII and left only one son. Herman had several children. DNA testing of descendants of these men could establish who the father of Mark Smith was.
In 1940 Jane Jones was in a State mental hospital. Her son was not living with John Smith. He was living with her Jones family. Her husband was back living with his Smith family. The couple divorced. Mark Smith wasn’t mentioned in the obituary of John Smith; the only children mentioned were from his second marriage.
I have the Kappel family Y DNA haplogroup. If the son of Mark Smith would make his haplogroup public at 23andMe we could further confirm our relationship.
I now feel my previous conclusion that this match was a first cousin of my aunt has been strengthened by this research and documentation. I can now tentatively assign these matches through this family as descending through one of the sons of Frank Kappel and Mary Kurta.
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