Today, genealogists seek out vital records that can help them to determine who the father of a particular ancestor was. Technology has changed in ways that could impact the way that future genealogists do this type of research. Sperm donation, the use of frozen sperm, and paternity testing could make things a bit more complicated.
What happens when you aren’t sure about who the father of your great-great-great-great- Uncle George was? You start doing some genealogy research. One way to answer this question is to locate his birth certificate. Both of his parents should be listed on it.
What if you can’t find a birth certificate? In that case, his mother’s marriage certificate might help you to answer that question. At the time that your great-great-great-great Uncle George was born, it was extremely likely that the man who married his birth mother is his biological father.
Future genealogists are going to face added complexity when they do their genealogy research. Technology has advanced in ways that can make it much more difficult to determine exactly who the father of a particular person truly is.
Sperm donation did not exist when your great-great-great-great Uncle George was born. Today, it is possible for a woman to have a pregnancy that started from donated sperm.
In most cases, she will not know the name of the man who donated it. The name of the baby’s father will not appear on her child’s birth certificate. The woman might not be married, which would mean a future genealogist could not use a marriage certificate to help figure out who the baby’s father was. Or, the woman might be married to a man who is not the biological father of her baby.
Today, you might be able to find out who the father of great-great-great-great Uncle George was if you can find the birth certificate of one of his siblings. Chances are, the father of that sibling is also the father of great-great-great-great Uncle George. This is especially true if the two siblings are close in age.
This technique will not work for children who were born from sperm donation. That child could have several dozen half-siblings. The child will share a biological father with those half-siblings, but, again, the name of that man will be unknown to them. Research of future genealogists will hit a “brick wall” at this point.
Even situations that do not involve donated sperm can be much more complex today than they were in the past. A survey conducted by Idenigene found that 12% of men, and 10% of women, have personally been in a situation where they felt that paternity testing was “appropriate”. Identigene is a company that makes direct-to-consumer DNA tests.
In other words, there are situations where the name that is listed as the father on a child’s birth certificate may not be the child’s biological father after all. It isn’t because someone intentionally falsified the document, but rather, because the true biological father was not known at the time of birth.
Another thing to consider is frozen sperm. It is now possible for a woman to use the frozen sperm of her husband to conceive a child. She can do this after the husband has died. In those cases, a future genealogist may come across a death certificate that shows that an ancestor’s biological father died several years before that ancestor was born. I imagine this would be quite confusing.
Image by Apokolokyntosis on Flickr