We don’t know who my husband’s biological grandfather is but we’ve isolated the Hyams line that he’s from through a 3rd cousin match. And he really doesn’t have many relatives that are Hyams descendants. There’s one with a pretty detailed tree, the others barely started their trees or only have private trees but have been inactive for a long time.

The initial tree is a bit muddy, so I want to start fresh and build it around only dna matches. But I’m not sure that’s really possible since we know nothing about his paternal line past his dad….who was in British children’s homes from 2-17 years old.

All we have is the name Albert Hyams that he was told was his father from his bio mom. But the only Albert Hyams in that line that we’ve confirmed died too soon to have been the father. There is an interesting bit that complicates this thing even further.

My father in law changed his whole name from his given name after aging out of the system. He was actually born Charles Joseph with his moms surname and the Albert in that line we’ve found A dna match with is documented to having two sons one of which was named Charles Joseph Hyams. Who would have been the right age to have fathered a son the year my husband’s dad was born. But Charles has no documented children as of yet. I did find a descendant to his brother that hasn’t tested yet. Hopefully she will soon because I’m now worried that there may be some information that’s inaccurate based on what she told me about her dads stories about their family.

Another issue is I’ve found some more distantly related cousins that have Hyams in their tree that I’ve not yet come across in the line that are I’ve been focusing on.

So I’m not sure how to go about making a dna tree when we’re missing an entire generation or two of information.