DNA Family Secrets: What happened to my father?

Podcast: Bill's story https://youtu.be/pdvwrvnDF7o

https://turiking.co.uk/
Around a million of us in the UK grow up without any contact with our fathers. 75-year-old Bill has never met his dad.

During World War II 240,000 African American GIs were stationed in the UK, many had relationships with local women, which resulted in the birth of two thousand mixed-race babies. Bill is one of them.

I do remember that my mum had a photo of my dad. So, I had this photo and I used to carry around with me all the time, even when I was little, you know. I had it and I lost it. That's all I had of him, and I keep having these flashes like that, yeah that's what he looked like, but I can't remember him in the flesh, you know, I can't. I sometimes wish that I'd started earlier, to find out things, when I was a bit more healthier.

Hi Stacy.

Since they last met Turi and our team have been analysing Bill's genetic code, trying to track down any DNA matches and find his family in America.

I'm really looking forward to see what Turi can tell me.

Yeah, we'll stay here and are you happy to go through and…

Yeah.

Hello.

As a Geneticist I can actually tell you it was a joy looking at the DNA that must come from your father's side and that's because it actually gave really quite clear and detailed information. Now because it was from your father's side, I thought well I'll have a look at his Y chromosome type. So, the Y chromosome, putting it really simply, it has on it the gene for maleness. So, the Y chromosome that you get is from your father, which came from his father, which came from his father, so on back through time.

So, the largest number of people who are carrying this type of Y chromosome in Africa are coming from, sort of, Congo, Cameroon, so West Bantu speaking individuals and for me that's quite interesting because we know that actually that's where the slave trade really started, was in this area.

So, you are actually getting matches with people who arrived in the US in the early 1700s, in North Carolina and Virginia, but it's likely what was happening was they were working on the tobacco and the cotton farms, probably until slavery was abolished in 1865.

You're then getting matches with people who we know moved into Texas in the middle of the 19th century. So, finding those matches actually helped us to find even more information about your father and his family.

So, we know that your father was actually with somebody before he met your mum, and they had a child. This would be your half-brother; his name is Don.

Yeah, that’s news to me, I thought it might be somebody when he went back, yeah, that’s quite a revelation that, really.

So, Don was born in 1933 and really sadly he passed away about 11 years ago, at the age of 76.
I know your big question about your father was why didn't he come back for your mum and for you.

Now even if he had wanted to, come back, and marry your mum and bring you over to the US with him, it would have been impossible for him to do that. Back in the 1940s, in Texas, it was actually illegal. Interracial marriage was a crime in Texas in the 1940s, you know, people went to jail.

I suppose the other thing to remember is that even if your dad wanted to marry your mum in this country, he would not have been allowed to get married, his commanding officer would have refused it.

Oh right, so it wasn't really a choice that he could make.

Turi, I really do appreciate what you've done.

Take care.

Bye.

Big hug.

Representation: https://www.josarsby.com/turi-king

Видео DNA Family Secrets: What happened to my father? канала Professor Turi King