Douglas Woodall's biological ancestry

My AncestryDNA matches provide strong evidence that the family tree that I compiled after retirement is biologically correct for several generations back on my mother's side. But in June 2015 (at the age of 71) I discovered that I am illegitimate: my biological father was not the man married to my mother and named on my birth certificate, Arthur Joseph Woodall 1910–1981, but his academic colleague Alan Ernest William Smith 1904–2000. (There is more here about Alan's wider family, specifically his paternal grandparents and their children.)

I took a Y-chromosome DNA test in late 2011 and an autosomal ("Family Finder") DNA test in July 2014. I am enormously grateful to eight people who kindly took a total of nine DNA tests at my request (three Y-DNA and six autosomal) in the period up to June 2015. Only the last matches me. By September 2012 I had proof that I am not descended biologically from my great grandfather Robert Woodall 1835, and I explained this by assuming that my grandfather Joseph James Westray Woodall 1881 was the biological son of Charles and Kate Westray (see here for details). However, by January 2015 it was clear that I did not match three people whom I should be related to through my father's mother, which strongly suggested that I am illegitimate.

Alan Smith was a colleague of my father Arthur. (They were lecturers in metallurgy and physics, respectively, at the same college.) He lived with my parents en famille for 20 years, from 1941 to 1961, staying with them through two moves of house. I was born in 1943, and Alan was like a second father to me. I also look quite like him. (Someone seeing us together once asked if we were brothers; at the time, I was 48 and Alan was 88!) Despite this, it did not cross my mind that Alan might be my biological father, until after I had retired and started work on my ancestry. Even then I did not take it seriously until the evidence that I am illegitimate grew too strong to ignore.

Eventually, through the Ancestry website, I contacted someone whose grandmother was a sister of Alan's mother. In June 2015 we discovered that we are a fairly close DNA match, in the first–third cousin range. It seems clear from this that Alan was my biological father. (One would get a similar DNA match if my father was Alan's brother Oswald, but I discount this as there is nothing to link my mother with Oswald, or with any of Alan's other male relatives; indeed, I am not sure whether they ever met.)

I never got the slightest hint from any of the people concerned that I might be illegitimate, not even from my mother after my father's death, nor from Alan after both of my parents had died. There is more than one possible explanation for this. The obvious one would be that they simply did not know. Perhaps my mother and Alan had a one-night stand, and did not realize (or would not allow themselves to believe) that I was the product of this and not of her conjugal relations.

However, I prefer a different explanation. My mother was a very determined woman. If it had turned out that Arthur was unable to father a child, it would have been entirely in character for her to persuade the two men that Alan should give her a sperm sample that she could use to inseminate herself. This is pure speculation; but if that is what happened, they evidently decided to keep it secret, as on my birth certificate my father is given as Arthur and not Alan. Perhaps, out of consideration for Arthur's feelings, they agreed that nobody should ever know about it, not even me, in which case it is perhaps not surprising that nobody ever said anything. But I will never know for certain what really happened.

Douglas and Alan 1944	Douglas and Alan 1992