Looking for info on great grandfather

Question

I'm looking for information about my great grandfather on my mothers side. My great grandmother (Virginia Mary (Arp) Swanson) went to her grave carrying this secret. All she said was he was an airman and was killed(WW1 maybe). Virginia married Charles Swanson, who adopted Virginia's daughter, Mable Swanson. Virginia and Charles had 7 other children.

No one alive in the family has any idea who Mable's real father was. There are rumors that it was incest or rape but no evidence for either (that I know of) has ever surfaced. Its a big family mystery. Hopefully someone could help me finally solve it.

Comments

Is this Mable ?

 

Name:	Mable John
Date of Birth:	23 Sep 1931
Age:	0
Gender:	Female
Tribe:	Ojibwe (Ojibbeway)
Reservation:	Red Lake
Agency:	Red Lake
State:	Minnesota
Last Census Number:	752
Census Date:	1 To 31 Apr to Mar 1931 To 1932
Neighbors:	View others on page

Source Citation

Year: 1931 To 1932; Roll: M595_422; Line: 12; Agency: Red Lake

Source Information

Ancestry.com. U.S., Indian Census Rolls, 1885-1940 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.

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I don't think so. I just found her obituary, it lists the birthplace as Warren, PA

Updating the info on her profile

Answer 1

The best thing to do is to have Mabel, if she's still alive, do a DNA test, and if she's not then DNA test one of her children.

Comments

Mable already passed. So if I have my mother (Mable's daughter) take a DNA test, would it tell us who her father was? Or at the very least would it be able to tell if it was incest?

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Have your mom test and upload her DNA to Gedmatch. Then run the "Are my parents related?" tool which will check for what's known as 'runs of homozygosity' which will reveal any incest. Incest is the nightmare scenario in these cases, but from what I understand, it's uncommon.

DNA and some sleuthing will uncover the real father in time