Duncan Hill Hodel – A 97-Year-Follow-Up Identifying His Possible Actual Biological Father-Another Riddle, Wrapped in a Mystery, Inside an Enigma
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
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”?
Another tantalizing new lead of possible parentage for Duncan. Updates to follow, I’m sure. Coincidence?? Both had the same address???
500 Riverside Drive is International House New York in Morningside Heights, near Columbia University. Founded in 1924, it houses both US and international students attending a variety of NY schools. So it seems we have GHH spending time in both New York and Massachusetts in the 1925-1928 interlude between Caltech & the LA Record and starting at UC Berkeley, only we don’t know what he was doing in either place exactly. He certainly got around. Incidentally, Mimi Boomhower (Emily Luhan) lived in New York in this period, so they could have crossed paths there. -LW
Today I believe you must have a bachelor’s degree to be admitted into medical school in the US. In some other countries, including the UK, that is not a requirement. However, things used to work differently in the US. I found a discussion of a book called “How to Become a Doctor” that indicates that even as late as 1949, most US medical schools did not demand a degree, although they generally wanted some college credit. Would not be surprised if schools of dentistry and pharmacy tended to be less demanding. Perhaps GHH, the dentist’s son, was trying to fast track back into the professions after quitting or being kicked out of Caltech, then changed his mind and came back to California to go the distance and get an MD from the top-flight UCSF medical school after doing a full bachelor’s at Berkeley. Again on the Boomhower angle, I note that Mimi had a sister who was professor at Columbia’s school of dentistry around the time period in question. -LW
Reading up on the International House New York on the web site (www.ihouse-nyc.org) and in contemporary press articles. Sounds like it was quite a privilege to be admitted there. Perhaps this is where the “person of the world” thing came from. -LW
Do we know what the “H” stands for in Donald MacBride’s middle name? Hill? I always wondered about George’s middle name and it’s interesting that Duncan’s middle name is Hill. Why/Where did George’s parents get the name Hill? For that matter, it’s still not known where the name “Hodel” came from and why George’s parents changed from Goldgefter to Hodel after they came to the USA & were living in LA/Pasadena.
A.Amulis-Hodel:
No, I don’t know where the Hill came from? George Sr. didn’t use the name Hill in his name, but don’t know why they gave it to their son?
My understanding is he just selected HODEL after fleeing Russia. Don’t know grandfather’s source on the name.