Wiesbaden / Roxboro (internet-zeitung) – Ernst Probst, a German journalist and author from Wiesbaden, born in Bavaria in 1946, experienced a miracle. Shortly before his 80th birthday, he solved the mystery of his father’s identity. A DNA test of his saliva, sent to Ireland, revealed that he was fathered in April 1945 by the American soldier Woodrow ("Woodie") Bradsher Davis (1914–1971). Woodrow was one of the numerous US soldiers who captured the town of Neunburg vorm Wald in the Oberpfalz without a fight a few months before the end of the war. The American moved on, unaware that his affair with the German office worker Erna Probst (1923–2001) had resulted in several kilograms of birth defects. Erna took the secret of her son's father to her grave. After his mother's death, Ernst learned from an aunt that his father was nicknamed "Woodie", had a large head and was married in the United States. After many inquiries proved unsuccessful, Ernst contacted the website „Wer weiß was?" in 2025 to ask how he could find out something about the unknown US soldier. They recommended he get a DNA test. The results came back after about ten days.

The DNA of American Brad Davis (born 1954) in Georgia, who had also undergone a DNA test, matched Ernst's by 29 percent. According to Ancestry, this could mean he was a half-brother, which turned out to be correct. Brad provided Ernst with a wealth of information and photos of his American family. Their father "Woodie" had died in 1971 at the age of 57 in Niagara Falls, Niagara, New York, USA. He was laid to rest in an honorary grave of the U.S. Army in a cemetery in his birthplace of Roxboro, North Carolina. Ernst was warmly welcomed by his "new family" in the U.S. (his brother Brad, Brad's wife Barbara and their four children Melinda, Michael, Mark and Matthew). The Davis family is distantly related to many famous figures, including 25 U.S. presidents, authors (T.S. Eliot, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain), actors (Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, John Wayne, Buster Keaton) and members of the nobility (Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth and Diana, Princess of Wales). As a young child, Ernst Probst mistakenly believed he was a king's son.