At the age of 18 Richard Hill, author and creator of DNA Testing Advisor.com He found out he was adopted, which led to a decades-long search for his parents. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, he was the first documented case of an adoptee using DNA to discover the last name of a biological parent. Since then, Richard has made it his personal mission to share what he learns with other adoptees and genealogists. In this interview, Richard shares insights from his amazing journey and key advice on finding family.
Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what inspired you to create your website DNA Test Advisor?
I was an adopted child who spent decades searching for my biological father. I finally identified him through genetic DNA testing. It changed my life for the better and was a huge success that opened doors for millions of adoptees to find sealed birth records and identify their birth families. I created DNA Testing Advisor to share what I had learned and continue to learn with adoptees, genealogists, and others.
Your book, Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA, details your fascinating search as an adoptee, which included using DNA testing to discover your biological family that denied you sealed birth records. Is. What insight do you hope readers will gain from this?
This book shares many tips for DNA testing and routine research. Additional insights include the importance of persistence, realistic expectations, and a positive attitude toward everyone involved.
Where do people new to genealogy start? What do you call “step 1” in discovering their biological origins?
Step 1 is to log into all five autosomal DNA databases that report your genetic match to other users. The least expensive route is to test at AncestryDNA and 23andMe…then download your raw data from one of these tests and upload it to Family Finder, MyHeritage DNA, and Living DNA for free.
How likely is it that someone can find their parentage through a DNA test?
According to a mid-2019 survey, 64 percent of adoptees had identified their parentage using DNA testing.
What other options do people have if the DNA test is not successful?
Look for the services of a search angel to help you search for free.
How long did it take you to find your biological family?
It took less than a year to identify my mother. But he had passed away and it took about 25 years to identify my father’s family. It then took a few more years for better tests to become available that would allow me to positively identify which of the five deceased brothers was my father.
Was there a point where you wanted to give up on the search, and if so, how did you overcome it?
There were many times when life got in the way and I had to give up my search for a while. But in the end I chose the path again and continued forward. I guess it was just a determination to never give up.
What changes in technology had the most impact during your journey?
- Internet development
- Availability of genetic genealogy DNA tests
The discovery of DNA and the development of the Internet have significantly changed family history research over the past few decades. What do you predict will be the next big impact on research?
We now see powerful tools that automate various steps of working with genetic matches, for example the automatic clustering of matches into groups with common ancestors and the triangulation of matches that share parts of a chromosome. Other tools combine DNA with family trees to find possible pathways by which two matches are linked. Still more tools are discovering how to build experimental family trees from genetic data.
