February 23, 2025
Birch Bay, Washington
Four years ago I posted the following blog update revealing my DNA findings on the allegation raised (during a heated argument when we were married) by my ex-wife, KIYO that “Your not George Hodel’s son, your father was film director, Rowland Brown.” (See 2021 full blog HERE.)
Bottom line in doing my DNA analysis way back in 1999 using samples submitted to me from my half-brother, Duncan, my full brother Kelvin, and my half-sister, Tamar the results were as follows: Tamar was my biological half-sister, Kelvin was my biological full brother, and Duncan was not biologically related to any one of us. (I kept this knowledge secret from Duncan for twenty years and only informed his son, after Duncan’s passing at age 91 in 2019.)
George, Emilia, Duncan Hodel circa 1932
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Duncan Hodel 1949 George and Duncan Steve, Kelvin, Michael circa 1944
Thanks to a comment received yesterday from a blog reader, Mike C, we now have documentation and a possible name of Duncan’s biological father.
Here is Mike C’s comment as sent to me yesterday.
I followed Mike C’s lead to the Family Search link and obtained the below two separate birth certificates on Duncan. One lists George Hodel as the father and the second lists Donald H. MacBride as the father. Duncan was born at Los Angeles General Hospital on March 25, 1928. As I read it, Emilia Lawson initially claimed the biological father was Donald MacBride, then apparently three years later, in 1931, as Emilia Hodel, submitted the “corrected parentage” claiming that George Hodel was the biological father.
March 30, 1931 “Corrected” and sworn and signed by both Emilia and George Hodel as affiants that Hodel not MacBride is the father. ![]()
Since we know that my DNA testing has eliminated George Hodel as Duncan’s biological father, then with this new evidence, it would seem that the likely candidate falls back to Emilia’s original claim that “Donald H. MacBride”, owner of a bookstore, was the father. Though without DNA confirmation we can only go with a “probable.” Interestingly, at the time of Duncan’s birth in Los Angeles in 1928, both George Hodel and Donald MacBride were “students attending studies with a residence address of “500 Riverside Dr., New York, NY.”
I have yet to research “Donald H. MacBride, but we do recall that according to June Hodel “George and Emilia owned or were working at a bookstore in downtown Los Angeles before moving up to San Francisco and starting college.” Her statement could well have unknowingly referenced “MacBride’s bookstore”?
The post Duncan Hill Hodel – A 97-Year-Follow-Up Identifying His Possible Actual Biological Father-Another Riddle, Wrapped in a Mystery, Inside an Enigma appeared first on Steve Hodel.