Finding biologic parents of adopted grandmother

Question

Rita Eileen Friel was believed to be born on 12/3/1918 and adopted in Philadelphia by John J. and Rose (Irwin) Friel.  The Freil family then moved to the Barberton, OH area.  She married my grandfather, Richard Edison Coleman, and gave birth to my father before dying of breast cancer at the age of 24.

I've been unable to find any information about the biologic family of my grandmother and am not sure where to research from here.  Any suggestions are appreciated.  Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Have you had a DNA test yourself?  You should have the same mitochrondial  DNA as your grandmother which would reduce greatly the people you'd need to check for. An Autosomal  DNA test (which can sometimes be done on the same sample will further decrease the possibilities.  And even if there's no direct match to your grandmother, you might get a connection to an unknown relative who could have information on the adoption.  Finally you might want to check with the State officials (in PA presumably) and see what you have to provide them to be allowed to see the original adoption papers.

Comments

It is the paternal grandmother so mitochrondial  DNA is different.

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I wondered about that after I posted.  But didn't have time to check and edit.  Thanks for checking.

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Thanks for your replies, Timothy and Dave.

I will call the adoption agencies in PA.

My parents did the DNA tests through ancestry.com -- do you know if there is a way to merge the results to Wikitree?