By TENA L. COOK, CSC Marketing Coordinator
CHADRON – Dr. Ann Buchman, Professor of Physical and Life Sciences, enjoys volunteering. She plays in a church bell choir, has been an instructor in a medical school in Nepal, and conducted science programs for children at the college and at the Chadron Public library. Recently she’s begun to volunteer with Search Angels, a non-profit organization that assists individuals seeking their biological family roots. Buchmann has completed five cases over the past two summers, helping adult adoptees find their biological relatives.
Buchmann said volunteers from every walk of life work with clients to find relatives based on DNA testing.
The most memorable case she Buchmann solved so far, was a father of two, who had just turned 30. Buchmann mainly worked with his wife.
“He came from a huge Texas family. Families that have 10 to 12 kids are really difficult [to research]. I had information from this client that his birth name was Tyler, which is no longer his name. When he was given up for adoption, his mother left him a note saying he had siblings and their names all started with a T. So I looked and I looked to find his family and when I found DNA connections that led me to a particular woman I saw that she had had four children all with first names starting with the letter T and one with the letter C,” Buchmann said.
What Buchmann found especially interesting was that his birth name, Tyler, was listed in his birth mother’s obituary. She thought it was either a mistake or maybe his mother had named a subsequent child after him. But the client’s wife contacted his half siblings and they confirmed the relationship.
“They knew he existed, they had always been looking for him, and they purposely listed his name in their mother’s obituary because they wanted to connect with him,” Buchmann said. “His mother reluctantly gave him up because the father was abusive and she was afraid the father would kill him. She always celebrated his birthday. It was a lovely story with a nice ending. I think every adopted child probably wants to know they were loved by their original family and that was the fact in this case.”
Buchmann said those considering becoming volunteers may find it helpful to have a bit of expertise in genetics, but it’s not necessary.
“It's really a logic puzzle so anybody with good logic and database skills could do this. You would just need a little training and much of that is available online. I learned along the way,” Buchmann said.
Her research depends on which DNA testing service the Search Angels clients have used.
“There are pros and cons to each service. I like 23andMe because it shows a lot of details. You can see the chromosomes and how yours match with others. GEDMatch, used by law enforcement, contains DNA results from anyone who wants to contribute their information. Many people use Ancestry.com because it links nicely to people’s family trees,” Buchmann said.
She has also utilized Facebook, BeenVerified, MyLife, white pages, and similar websites.
“They oftentimes will give you a list of relatives, or friends in the case of Facebook. They won't tell you the relationships, but you can make a bit of an educated guess. If you look them up on other sources you can often confirm who are the parents, who are the grandparents, and who are the kids, at least with some reliability. It involves a bit of detective work and guesswork,” she said.
Buchmann found Search Angels when she was looking for a way she could volunteer.
“When I resumed teaching genetics, after not teaching it for a long time, I wanted to know how people were using personal genetics to find relatives,” Buchmann said.