Very nice and very real. Thanks.
3
Duh. Answer: A lot. Biology 101 teaches that with a few tweaks to DNA, that highly-anticipated offspring could be a bouncing baby tree sloth.
2
I am related, through marriage, to Abe Lincoln. He is my (who knows what?) I wonder who he was related to.
1
My father's identity had been a mystery to me for 73 years, an anonymous man who met my mother on a train in 1944, took her to a hotel on 57th street, then returned to the war. Sometimes it was a confounding and consuming mystery, other times forgotten. I learned his identity last year through DNA and some second cousins who started to appear in my Ancestry results. It turned out that though I had been born and grown up in other places, he had been born and grown up just 50 miles from where I have lived for the last 40 years. The newly discovered cousins are precious to me. I write books, and this will be my next one, though I haven't yet figured out what the story really is.
17
This was such sweet story and cuts right through all this preoccupation with scientific connectivity through DNA, etc.
We are meant to be together after all, to love and support each other. It's so simple and doesn't have to be complicated.
13
I am in favor of DNA testing of everyone at the time of birth. The test should be done concurrent with a social security number being applied for and assigned. The data would prove a person’s identity, whether they are a citizen, who the father is, and used later to solve crimes. Obamacare covers all preexisting health conditions so there should not be concerns that the many different proposals by Democrats to eliminate or change healthcare coverages will be affected.
1
I always knew that I was adopted, and was never concerned about it. By anyone's measure, mine included, I have had an extraordinary life given to me by my adoptive parents who loved me unconditionally, as I did them. I am by nature curious though, so after their passing I had both Y-DNA and autosomal DNA testing done by 5 different companies in order to compare results. What I found was both of my biological parents, who were not married to each other, and 11 half siblings, all living. I called one of them, at random, to set up a meeting so we could at least meet once. When I walked into the room and saw my half bother it was like looking in the mirror. Same hair, same coloring, same smile, same build, same curiosity. After talking a while it was clear we had similar temperaments, and the same optimistic outlooks. To this day we still communicate regularly, although that meeting was the last face to face meeting. I did explain to him that even though we shared a mother, I already had an extraordinary one, as well as an extraordinary family. DNA testing and the results can be both eye opening and surprising - you just have to be open minded about what you find.
115
My life story was changed dramatically by DNA Testing.
In 1972, I arrived as a 7-year-old Korean Amerasian (Biological American Father and Korean Mother) adoptee from South Korea. For over 44 years, I didn't know who my father and mother were.
From August 2016 to October 2016, I took 3 DNA Tests and the clincher came from Ancestry DNA. 325Kamra, a non-profit group that helps Korean Adoptees to find their parents, had good news for me.
On December 1, 2017, 325Kamra called me. They had found 2 American Brothers who had served in U.S. Army in the 1960s. They asked me to send for information on the military records in St. Louis Missouri. Sixteen days (December 17, 2017), I was looking at 2 documents. One was my father and one was my late uncle.
In January 2018, a woman took a DNA Test. On February 23, 2018, Ancestry DNA confirmed that she was my younger half-sister. On that day, I talked to my 2 paternal aunts for the first time in my life. They had known about me since my birth in 1965.
On April 15, 2018, I met my biological father for the first time in Ohio. Also met my half-sister and my 2 aunts. I saw my mother's handwriting on the envelope sent from Ft. Knox, KY to my paternal grandmother. This confirmed the adoptee agency story that she had gone to the USA.
Over the past year, I have seen photos for the first time of me sent from South Korea. My uncle, half-brother, and a paternal 1st cousin took the Ancestry DNA Test and further confirmed of my DNA Family links.
87
I did Ancestry and discovered that my late brother had fathered a child 55 years ago that he never knew about. My nephew, who had been given up for adoption, also tracked down his biological mother which was far more complicated and time consuming. Both biological parents had passed away before he got to know them. We have been very happy to connect, and it has been very gratifying for me to fill in the blank spaces for him. They definitely look alike. I also have connected with previously unknown cousins on both sides of my family. I have been very pleased with the experience.
127
I have taken the 23andme test, and for me, it has been a godsend. I didn’t take the test to find an “imaginary” parent who would have treated me in some magical way that children often fantasize. Instead, I wanted to learn about my family’s stories, their actions, the course of their lives.
I was separated from my father and his entire family when I was a toddler. I was forbidden to have any contact with any of them throughout my childhood. I went off to college, and by then, I’d made peace with the fact that half my family would always be a mystery to me.
Fast forward 25 years, and the Internet. There was an explosion of genealogy sites of all kinds. I knew my father’s family were ethnic Assyrians who’d come from Iran, but that is literally all I knew outside of his name. So I began my search.
I learned that my grandparents were among the lucky survivors of the Armenian Genocide (in which tens of thousands of Assyrians also died), and that my grandmother fled on foot from Urmia Iran to a British refugee camp in Baquba Iraq. I obtained her original inheritance and property deeds. Through this history, and my dna search, I’ve found second and third cousins who live all over the world.
My father was the son of these immigrants, graduated high school at 16 and obtained an engineering degree before he was 20.
And learning of the bravery, the determination, the resilience of my family has meant more than I can ever explain.
221
@Anton Colic's "And learning of the bravery, the determination, the resilience of my family has meant more than I can ever explain."
Why? I don't ask facetiously. What do those qualities, invested in people you didn't even know, have to do with you? (Do you get the same feeling from an inspiring biography of someone definitely not biologically related to you?) Everyone knows salt of the earth, or supremely talented, or brilliant people whose progeny or ancestors were the opposite of that.
To me, we are only our experiences and the people and ideas and things we love. We are not those biologically connected to us, whether near or distant, whether renowned or horribly notorious, or somewhere in between. Thinking otherwise, to me, is either vanity or self hatred or something else that is self-deluding. Taking credit or blame for your brother, no less a distant ancestor, is fantasy.
17
@BG,
I don't know what I expected to find out. But I know I never expected to learn of the kinds of heroics they were capable of. I never expected to learn that they possessed these qualities in the face of such adversity. And perhaps, as you say, my blood relation to them means nothing. But nonetheless, I do feel incredibly honored to learn that I am descended from such people. I hope, then, my vanity might be forgiven.
72
@Anton Colicos All refugees should be DNA profiled, so separated families can be reunited.
12
Being a parent is actually being a parent, day in and out, the sex part is very incidental. Yes we all can imagine "what if' about our lives but except for health issues DNA is not important.
7
I think there is a serious problem with dna testing that doesn’t get discussed. Testing only traces the outer branches of your family tree. Your mother’s father and his ancestors and your father’s mother and her ancestors cannot be revealed when the test can only follow the paternal links through the Y chromosome or the maternal links through the mitochondria dna. Just because dna test doesn’t validate your family oral history doesn’t mean it is false!
3
@Terry G, this idea seems to be common but is incorrect. You're confusing the Y chromosome (paternal relatives) and mtDNA (maternal line) tests with the common test offered by Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilyTree DNA, and others. I've found about a dozen matches to second cousins on both sides of my family, both known previously and unknown, as well as a branch from a great-grandmother's second wife that my side of the family knew nothing about.
4
@Addison you missed the point. I'm not arguing that you cannot find relatives using the tests. Rather, the tests do not help you find relatives for the inner branches of your tree. The test does not invalidate your family lore. If you are female, the only way to follow you paternal relatives is via a known male relative. This is what the ancestry sites help you do. My concern is that you dismiss your family history based on lack of confirmation from the ancestry site.
2
Yes, family resemblances can be real. But the truth is, pick any random person out of the phone book (back when we had phone books, that is), and that person will likely have some uncanny similarities to yourself. Maybe he always mentally counts the steps as he goes down just like you do, he loves Wagner operas, he is tall and prematurely balding. If you were told you were genetically related, you could believe it and start feeling kinship with that person.
I do family research and I think your ancestry is like a tree in more ways than one. Those names are a structure on which to hang your family's story. Does it matter whether your chromosomes came from this one or that one? Possibly, but not very much.
4
Hmm. Didn’t test Kale, himself? Another explanation is possible?
1
@VaDocThe story says that Kale died in 1959.
2
I have often wondered if the secret pregnancy was due to rape.
There are any number of reasons not to tell the real story of how a family was formed. Rape is part of that story.
17
Sounds like Granny looked carefully at her little boy with his knobby knees and inquisitive mind and decided which of her lovers had to be his natural father.
She was wrong.
I feel sorry for her. Like many young women, she married a man who turned out to be awful. Unfortunately she did it in a judgmental era when it was tough to be a single parent or rid oneself of a horrible mate. Too bad it was the son who left.
3
My sister and I spent $100 with ancestory.com to find out my ancestry on my father's side of the family only to find out we were of European ancestry. What a waste of money! We already knew that.
3
Perhaps the man his mother married strongly suspected that the boy was not his and that he had been trapped by this woman to cover her pregnancy, resulting in him taking his anger out on the boy...
11
Be careful who does your DNA testing, and the honor system isn’t the best way to verify that the saliva sent actually came from the person in question.
2
Re: "Unless the testing company was totally incompetent, our families were not connected by DNA. "
The author may be carrying lots of DNA that came from Kale. Her lack of identical DNA (i.e., "matching) with Kale's relatives does not imply that she is not related.
The problem here is one of genealogical information, not DNA. Unless Judy (Kale's niece) is carrying DNA from Kale, she would not going to show any identical DNA with Rex's family.
4
Actually, we are all related to Kale Binder. The world's shared ancestry is much more recent than one would imagine. Watch this video by Numberphile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm0hOex4psA
5
I had my DNA tested recently -- seems like I'm 49% Norwegian and 16% Swedish. Would write more but I'm headed out to look at Volvos and then to IKEA for some meatballs! Hey, why not?
18
Pursuing a “relationship” with a biological family.
Trying not to laugh.
Really.
I think I might try and pursue a relationship with my biological “family” from the village in Wales where my father’s ancestors lived.
I hope they don’t mind me not booking a return flight.
For my next trip, I might head to Africa to get to my real family members before I went and got all White on them.
10
My DNA test shows that as my father always suspected, his parents weren't his parents, though his birth certificate shows he was his their natural-born son. His mother evidently found an orphaned baby and passed him off as her own, which wasn't difficult to do in New Orleans during the early 1900s. His birth certificate is a "delayed birth certificate" issued by a New Orleans court a year after his birth.
My grandmother, who really wasn't my grandmother, was something of an early women's right advocate. After amicably divorcing my grandfather, she shot and killed two men, one of them a lover and another a second husband.
She was charged with murder for killing her lover in St. Lous, but was acquitted after a her lawyer convinced a jury he deserved it. My only photo of her is a photo from the front page of s St. Louis newspaper that shows her being hauled away in a police paddy wagon. In the photo, she is elegantly dressed.
The police who investigated the shooting of her second husband, which happened in San Francisco, decided it was self-defense. She paid for the funeral, and then married a wealthy San Francis restauranteur who survived her.
When I was a child, my mother told me she would one day tell me something bad about my grandmother, but she never got around to it. I found out through Ancestry.com
18
The one and only biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species began in Africa 300, 000 years ago.
There is only one race aka human.
There is only one national origin aka Earth.
What we call race aka color is an evolutionary fit pigmented response to varying levels of solar radiation at different altitudes and latitudes primarily related to producing Vitamin D and protecting genes from damaging mutations in ecologically isolated human populations over time and space.
What we call race aka color is a malign socioeconomic political educational demographic historical white supremacist nationalist right-wing American myth meant to legally and morally justify black African enslavement and separate and unequal while black African in America.
Despite my paper and genetic documented white European, black African, brown Native and yellow Asian heritage, I am defined as all and only black African in America.
Yet I have learned more than a few troubling and surprising family secrets and lies about my ancestors and ancestry over the last 3 years. That lay dormant for decades until exposed by genealogy, genetics and oral history
See ' The Race Myth: Why We Pretend That Race Exists in America' Joseph L. Graves
10
I found out that the man who was my father, wasn’t. He and I had a close relationship not without it’s problems. We worked in the same industry often as partners. I got to really know the man. On a level we were friends. My mom passed away in 05 Dad in 15.
He and I were very different and many people noticed and often said so. But to the point,my father was what I call a hammer and pliers man.
Very inept with tools not a mechanical bone in his body nor any of my brothers and sisters.
From the time I was a child I took things apart loved machines and grew to be able to build many of the things that people need in life.
I have most tools any person could need to do just about anything.
When my DNA results arrived I discovered that I was not my father’s son. My actual father was a man I knew as child and his children my brothers and sisters that I hadn’t seen since 1965.
When I tracked down and talked to my sister a crane operator who was into engines and motorcycles.
And found that my actual father was a SeeBee for the entire Pacific War and spent his life in heavy construction.
I became one of 11 siblings not the six I started with. I discovered a older sister who was unknown till after she passed and that I look exactly like Grandpa.
It’s a small world I have two ancestors who had personally met George Custer under very different circumstances.
Nature Nurture is a question that will perplex me till my end.
52
The last sentence says it all. DNA and blood make little difference. Who you grew up with, who you loved, who you held when they were sick, who kept you up at night is all that matters. It's all about wanting what you have. One could argue that a harsh father brought out the real Rex.
3
To those who are pooh-poohing geneology testing sites, read:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/science/science-genetic-genealogy-study.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
and;
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/science/gedmatch-genealogy-cold-cases.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
to see what is happening, other than finding previously unknown 3rd cousins, read those articles and other the NYT has published. To me, its fascinating new science.
5
As to the last sentence of the article: Good.
1
It does not matter who you are related to. If that knowledge changes your life you need to reevaluate your own life. You are who you are, there is nothing magical in the "blood".
5
I don't buy the Jenny Field's approach to life (Jenny Fields was the mother of the main character in "The World According to Garp." Men are more than just sperm donors.
2
As human beings have more than 99% of their DNA in common with chimpansees, and 70% with worms, I don't see how you could ever link DNA to "life story".
1
We seem to be obsessed with the exceptional and ridiculously minuscule events in our society.
After we have hunted down a few more obscure relatives from out-of-wedlock trysts, maybe we can turn our gazes to something more virtuous. And common.
I immediately wonder how Grandma in this story lived her life, knowing the lie about her child she kept from her husband. And we constantly mock the presence of Hell as some place with a devil and pitchfork.
Smiling each day toward my wife with the knowledge that I maintained such a lie would ruin have ruined our relationship, not to mention making a sham of our vows to each other.
2
Is it possible that the DNA is the best way to tell our stories and that the DNA is most important to survive is the purpose of all?
We are just one of the many vessels it uses to continue.
2
A close relative took the Ancestry DNA test for a laugh as she knew the results would come back 50% Norway and 50% Swedish, the birthplaces of her grandparents. She was shocked to discover that one side of the family was not Scandinavian, but from another ethnic group! She had her sister submit a DNA sample and this confirmed her sister was her half-sister! This meant her father was not her biological father. The woman was very upset since both parents were deceased and no one could help her understand this dilemma. That said, she felt this fact may help explain her father's hostility and cruelty when she lived with the parents!
She continues to care for her "father's" brother and his wife even though a DNA test confirmed there is no biological relationship. The Uncle and Aunt have loved and supported her for 50+ years and she continues to care for them! The bottom line for our cousin was when she said: "I was upset to learn that I am not who I thought I was, BUT otherwise I would not be here today. IMHO DNA may help us better understand medical issues, but it is the people who love us and are in return loved that are most important.
24
@EDH
Actually, to date, females only get results from their mother’s side of the family, as only mitochondrial DNA can be used. The two may well share a father. I think you’d have to look at the grandparents, or conclude there was an error in the analysis.
2
@Lindah, I don't know where you got the impression that women only get results from their mother's side for the test the author had done. That test gives matches to both sides of the family, as well as generalized regional origins.
You are correct only about the mtDNA test. In the same way, a Y chromosome test that only men can do will find relatives on the father's side.
6
@Addison
Ancestry’s results are specifically limited in the case of females. Men get results from both sides of the family, but females do not. It could be that a more comprehensive test can be done, but it isn’t done for the $59 - $99 testimg done by Ancestry. They are quite upfront about it.
1
According to the company that analyzed my DNA (through National Geographic), it is not possible to determine one's country of origin through DNA testing, only geographic regions. For instance Northwest Europe, Eastern Europe, the Jewish Diaspora, Southeast Asia, etc. One of the popular companies reported that a friend is 90% Italian origin, even though her mother is Portuguese (100% according to a different popular company) and her father is second generation Armenian American. One other thing, the way inheritance works it is possible to be a blood descendant of a family member several generations back and share none of their DNA.
4
Finding out I was 20 pct. Tuscan really really made me appreciate just how good prosciutto is.
17
Hilarious!
6
Knowing one's DNA is mainly useful for the knowledge of inherited tendencies for diseases that it may convey. But inherent in DNA research is the eventual reality that we will be discriminated against on DNA bases, once a tendency has been uncovered. Given the rolling back of environmental protections by Trump, isn't it inevitable that our privacy protections are also next to be written off in the name of profiteering insurance conglomerates?
11
Here is a very simple fact: We’re all connected! While it might be helpful to known certain DNA traits health wise, Spiritual Goals and destinations are far more helpful!
5
My niece and nephew acted on whim and submitted DNA to 23 and Me. The results were heartbreaking, upsetting, disrupting, funny, startling, and warm and welcome at the same time.
It became clear our father had a liaison when he was about 48 years old and he fathered another child. We're not certain if he knew the child was his. Fifty years later by accident we learned of this because of my niece and nephew. The first thing that happened after they contacted our new sister was that my original full sister and her daughter both called me. My sister demanded to know if I had sex with an older woman when I was in college. She asked me about who I had sex with in college (more than 50 years ago) and if I remembered a certain woman. Yikes! My sister believed I was the father of a child I knew nothing about. Ouch! Well, there were possibilities of that but not with the woman they believed was the mother of our new sister. In fact I did know the mother and recalled that she worked at our father's business, a dress factory in central PA. I also recall her being pregnant the summer I worked there. I had no idea this was dad's work. I wonder what I would have said had I known.
Our father had left the family once but mom and dad reconciled after 4 years. They remained married for 28 years until his death at age 49. Mom believed that his infidelities were over. She's 96 and we're not telling her. I wrote of this earlier but left out that originally I was suspect of being the father.
21
I feel more kinship with my pets than with many of the actual heretofore-unknown relatives I've located on 23andMe and Ancestry.
23
I have been doing genealogy for 30 years. The best part is a deeper understanding of history and the excuse for trips to little towns in search of evidence and understanding. The Civil War, for example, becomes far more than words in a book when seen through the eyes of a gggrandfather - through his records including the many years trying to get his $12/month pension and descriptions of his desperately compromised health.
DNA just adds more dimensions and more understanding. I found that my “brick wall” great-grandfather had changed his name to one that sounded French (DeLong) from one that is Irish (Irish) after his family arrived during the Great Famine. Only the earliest census records shows his birthplace as Ireland. The name change may have enabled him to get the good job he had and the wife who was probably would not have considered him.
Also discovered that one of my other great-grandfathers is not who I thought he was. My grandfather, the youngest son, was the product of an NPE (non-parental event). My 2nd cousin who has long researched with me, said “Oh Molly would do that; she went to church.” (I chuckled.)
What great insight into who we are - our prejudices and the stories we tell ourselves about the history we have each been given. I have no interest in proving that my ancestors were royalty or other historical figures. But I do want to know the stories of these folks who went through so much to put me on this planet - ALL of the stories. They humble me.
25
Dynamo, you just articulated what I find so valuable about ancestry work. Thanks!
4
My Dad was adopted from a home for unwed mothers in K.C., Mo. around 1925, by a wonderful, Swedish family that taught at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kan.
The actual birth records being sealed, we only had a rumor of the surname of my true paternal Grandmother.
My Mother's people here, have generations of regional history, with no gaps or unknowns, yeoman farmers and shop owners, Confederate veterans and hard workers.
But nothing was known about my Dad's real family.
He was a genius, an accomplished man who wrote for established newspapers and a lot of short fiction for western short-story mags that proliferated back then, with an important history of having worked in the Naval Intelligence photographic shop in Honolulu during WW2. But some mental problems that surfaced after honorable discharge with high-level disability income, continued to afflict him up until his death. It was always a great mystery to me.
So after doing DNA testing, I am amazed at the findings.
It seems that the rumored surname of my Grandmother was correct. On the Ancestry comment site I exchanged info with some very close kin, who I suppose knowing the nature of my questions did not want to go into great detail.
But it seems that my true paternal Grandfather was an itinerant preacher that roamed the mountains of W. Va. confessing Christ and sinning at every opportunity with available young ladies, one of whom was my Grandmother.
Mississippi and West Virginia! Where do you go from here?
15
Our DNA history has shaped where we came from, but not who we are. Our genetic background makes our bodies, but our relationships identify us. Those people who have been there for and cared for us are our loved ones.
As for ‘Kale’ and other similar mystery figures - well, they are often more intriguing in mystery than satisfying in real life. It’s sometimes better to enjoy the fantasy of a person than to bond with them in actuality, whether or not there’s a blood connection.
38
I remain mystified about people's longing for confirmation of their genetic roots. I, for one, have zero interest in this, even though my wife is doing serious genealogical research and has become very strict about lines of proof.
I am who I am. If I were different in heritage, I would still be who I am.
The only real justification is for those who have been adopted, and long to solve the mystery if there are others they are related to, and if so would they wish to make a connection to share family backgrounds.
Otherwise, it is not satisfying to know you are related to someone who you had no connection with through time, nor do you want to share things that you couldn't already share with others if you so chose.
I am apparently in the minority but if someone I did not know walked up and told me s/he had proof I was a brother or sister that my father conceived, it would not make me want to travel long disatnces to see them, or compelled to write holiday cards to them.
I think much of this, other than for the adopted as I mentioned, is stirred up by the incessant ads for the recreational genetic matching companies who wish to extend their market further, and by doing so unavoidably increase the forensic data base for law enforcement.
Please, I live my life as I was given it and am satisfied. Don't expect me to do things any differently if someone has a nose shaped like mine, or knobby knees that many of us share.
106
@reid
I don't feel the way you do. I would also say that I know who I am. That said, I'm a history buff and have been enjoying the activity of the hunt. I just find it all interesting.
It's also interesting to figure out whether family stories about where we come from are rooted in fact. I am not so invested in them that I'm bothered if they're not - just curious.
As to family/relatives: while interesting on paper I have kept my research private. There is one other searcher I may or may not contact, but that person is in a family of 2nd cousins whom I met a few times as a kid. Like you I would not feel connected to someone simply because we shared lots of DNA.
I found your statement "the only real justification..." a bit judgmental. You don't want to do it - fine. Others want to do it - fine, too. No one needs "justification."
58
@reid I couldn't agree with you more. Well said.
10
Yours is the very definition of privilege: Those who are privileged are so privileged that they cannot recognize their own privilege. Those who were not adopted (or donor-conceived, a population that is largely ignored) and were lucky enough to grow up without conflicts between nature and nurture are blind to their privilege. Sadly this so often makes people judgmental, as evidenced by comments such as yours, against a population they are by definition unable to empathize with. I can only ask that people listen, really listen, to the voices of adoptees and the donor-conceived, suspend all judgment, and try their best to understand that understanding whom were are like and whom we come from is not about finding the identities of strangers, it is among the deepest of human needs.
28
Last year I found my birth mother. I was 57 years old. My adoptive parents are deceased, and I had a bit of a bond with my adoptive father, but my adoptive mother did not like me much. Yet I never held much stock in DNA until I found out more about my genetics. I have a high IQ and the adoptive parents did not know how to cultivate it. It turns out both of my birth parents are highly intelligent. My birth father was accepted to university at age 12. So now I am the village idiot in my biological configuration!
While I am unlike each parent in some ways, I share many traits as well. I can imagine what it would have been like to have been raised by them, and it's not all good. What has been my life thus far has value, and as a lesbian feminist, I have found "family" in a myriad of ways throughout my life. In a sense, I have been free to simply be. In another sense, I will never fully belong anywhere and that feels painful at times.
Both my mother and I were born in Pittsburgh, and yet she has lived in eastern Massachusetts for all of her adult life and I have been in western Massachusetts for most of mine. We have been 80 miles apart--so close and yet so far.
I am glad I found her and that I have a half-brother as part of the package. He is delighted not to be an only child.
DNA does not change our life story necessarily but it does have impact. I have questions answered that I did not know I had! What is family? Love and kindness. Wherever it is.
53
For me, DNA was life changing. I found my origins, my story, my birth name, my health history, my birth parents pics/our resemblances. ( both were deceased).
I have/had wonderful, encouraging supportive adoptive parents.But there is absolutely nothing like knowing where you came from...and ultimately who you are.
97
I found out almost a year ago, at the age of 49, after doing Ancestry DNA, that the man I had always believed to be my biological father is not. It was the shock of my life, but I’m glad I didn’t live my whole life not knowing the truth. My mother and my biological father are both dead, so there will never be an answer to my questions, but I’ve come to accept that. I decided not to pursue a relationship with my biological father’s family. Some people close to me don’t understand that, but for me just knowing the truth is enough. I have a full life, and those test results don’t change who I’ve been for the past 50 years
87
"Until . . . my father’s doctor told us he was dying of pancreatic cancer. . . . my sisters and I decided it was time to give my father the gift of genomic closure."
These words from Karen Brown's article read to me like code for "I sought through DNA testing a possible extension of family members as my father was soon to be lost in death," which is why the end result and the futility of this endeavor (despite the author's claim to having made new friends of these non-family members) made me shed a tear.
5
From the article it appears that the Swedish geneologist made the connection from the name and that no DNA testing was done until after the supposed family had been contacted. When the tests were done, they were found not to be related. Grandma must have been wrong about the paternity.
2
A friend of mine was told she was Hungarian her hole life by her mother, grandmother and aunts. She learned Hungarian customs, traditions, stories and recipes. She passed these down to her daughters.
Then she took one of these DNA tests, which said she was not Hungarian. Was this an error? Who knows? Did it change anything in her life? No. She still tells everyone she is Hungarian and kept the DNA test from her daughters.
You are the life you make and, like Rex said, the people you love and who love you. We all should focus less on the places their ancestors may (or may not) have been from, and more on the places and people in our lives today.
9
@Jack Sonville, I am relieved to hear I am not alone! I just discovered through a DNA test through Ancestry.com that I am not French, as I had always believed. Threw me for a loop at first but I have decided I am going to “identify” as French anyway!
1
I too have done the test and other than my close family the rest of my DNA matches are distant. I have no children and it would be stressful to find out that I had an adult child that I never knew at this point in my life. Having never raised any children it would be odd to suddenly be a biological parent.
2
The practical value of DNA testing in building a story of one's identity, as summarized by a dying man:
"He patiently explained that he had already loved all the people he would love, blood-related or not. As for the damage his coldhearted father had done in childhood — well, no DNA test was going to reverse that."
21
While DNA is interesting, one should remember that without water, a rose will not bloom.
13
Looks like the real story is that grandma didn't like her husband and wished she had stuck it out with the med student. She was the one with the fantasy.
25
Some stones are best left unturned. I already know enough of my family's history to realize that I do not want to know any more. My family is the one I have now.
16
To the author: I read words literally.
Consequently, when I read
".. grandmother, Diane, finally admitted that Kale Binder, an American medical student she had met at a party, got her pregnant shortly before she met her husband."
I thought, Kale was a woman, and had assisted the grandmother in getting pregnant. I imagined that the grandmother wanted to be pregnant for some reason, although it was in the fifties. I assume that the grandmother was in medicine like "Kale" her friend, a female friend.
I am not going to instruct the author on how to write, but I had to read this article in order to disambiguate much of its contents.
It was unclear to me that the FATHER named REX might be named 'KALE'.
You wrote "..that's the name his mother gave him.
Further you went on to state that 'KALE' was a "sperm donor" to add to the confusion. He wasn't a Mystery sperm donor. He was known as the person who might have made the grandmother pregnant (at that point in the article).
What is horribly unclear is why the grandmother would ever presume to have been made pregnant by another man well in advance of her marriage to a cold uncaring for children man.
How could she have made that mistake?
Did she have more relations with other men? It seems so.
When I read "met at a party", I don't immediately think, oh, after the party the unknown persons were intimate: unclear in the article.
Additionally, the article is unclear about the tracing of the family lineage.
11
@Pablo Casals there's this thing called "reading between the lines". as an avid reader, it was clear to me. it's not the author's fault you made your own assumptions.
8
Yup - DNA can upend your lineage and self image. I discovered that my actual grandfather was not the Wyoming rancher to whom my grandmother was married but a fellow from California - George Campbell - she met while on a visit out there back in the teens of the last century. Now a mystery near first cousin has turned up as a match - Michael Hass - and if we ever connect we'll see how our lineages align. This was a deeply hidden secret which my cousins - who knew - confided in me as we reviewed the DNA results.
7
I loved everything about this beautifully written essay.
But to the author and commenters who've taken DNA tests, just curious if you worry about your privacy? If you use your real name, couldn't an insurance company one day refuse to cover you because, say, your DNA revealed a high likelihood of getting a certain terrible, expensive-to-treat disease?
10
@sg I weighed all the risks before I decided to do DNA testing, including the risks of health insurance or life insurance companies misusing information, of law enforcement gaining access to my profile, to family relationships, etc. I decided it was worth it in my case because I was trying to trace a great grandfather who vanished a century ago and whom I knew little about. I still haven’t found anyone related to him, though I did find other distant cousins and, for the most part, confirmed a written family tree that goes back 500 years on some branches. There were no true surprises. My parents are my parents, all of my grandparents and great grandparents were my grandparents and great grandparents. I have no horrid diseases lurking in my gene pool aside from the ones that most people have. None of my close relations are likely to have done something that would make the cops go searching through the GED database, though I won’t be uploading my DNA profile there. 23andme doesn’t turn over information without a warrant and I would sue them if they did. Had I trusted my family less or been less certain of my family’s health history, I might not have done this. I would agree with the author that DNA and family are often different things. Identity should not be based on genetics alone.
7
People who think. DNA testing will help them know who they are are simply unhappy with who they are and hoping the DNA will make them some one else. It won’t but it could hurt a lot of people.
Whole sale DNA testing isn’t all that helpful and it brings with it all sorts of risks. What it does do, something that doesn’t benefit those tested, is make billions for the DNA testing companies!
19
Life is the journey, just enjoy it the best you can. The most important people are already in your life; love them.
54
I appreciate this article. We place so much value on the outcome, that we often neglect the journey. It seems that 2 biologically unrelated families will have a permanent connection. It's a cause for celebration and joy.
32
Beautiful story. The truth is, we all share DNA - and not just with humans.
43
I'm with Dad on this. I am happy to be a member of the human race, family is the people I have known all my life. Do we share DNA? Don't care.
74
Have you considered the possibility that Kale wasn't Sandy's biological dad? There could be more than one “nonpaternity event" (to use genealogists’ polite term) in the families' past.
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@Joanne Doesn't the author mention that possibility? "Perhaps my grandmother had more than one liaison in late 1932..."
3
@vt chef
Joanne is suggesting the opposite possibility that Kale was Rex’s father but not Sandy’s.
7
@Joanne: Then why did Judy and Sandy match?
2
When my father was dieing a maternal cousin helped me build a rudimentary family tree including both sides. I posted what I had on a generic genealogy website and pretty much forgot about it.
Then out of the clear blue a paternal second cousin three times removed contacted me to collaborate with him and a very close friend who was a whiz in genealogy.
The adventure since then has been mind bending discovering all sorts of things about early settlers here in America and Revolutionary War heroes.
What it has really done is give me a then distant relative who has become like a new brother to me. His genius level friend has worked miracles in telling both of us who we are, where we came from, and how we got here which is an All American story I could never have written alone.
Thanks to my great-great-great-great grandparents for leaving behind a mystery story with a very happy ending.
49
Excuse me but I was wondering if the author and Rex (father) matched genetically? The article focused on distant matches but the author-father match missed me.
5
Perhaps I'm reading this incorrectly; but if my mother waited until I was 50 to tell me who my real father was I would be furious. That's not exactly a minor detail. How would it feel to be the grandfather?
19
@Randeep Chauhan I suspect he would have understood that for his mother to reveal that she had had sex outside of marriage in that day, would have been shameful. It was surprising to me that she told him at all.
5
Thanks for writing this. It's so nice to read a good story in the Times. Very appreciated.
20
This is a great story with excellent plot twists!
13
Excellent! I (JC) learned I was donor conceived, went sleuthing through the relevant medical school year books and directories, sent a whole bunch of letters, got a reply from the widow of one of them saying "He said he had done this while in medical school." Oh wow! Met his sons, we clicked, then we tested - nada. We're still in touch and still friends.
Eventually some experienced "search angels" used DNA matches (same methodology used to find the "Golden State killer" to ID another med student from the same place/time. He had also died. Reached out to his two kids. Son was very communicative; daughter wanted nothing to do with me. Apparently the guy was NOT a good father. I ended up concluding I had been lucky to be raised by my "birth certificate father."
No one in that family would agree to test. I'm able to find some "second cousin" matches on one branch of that family but not the other. Probably yet more "NPE" ("not parent expected"). Conclusion: families are VERY messy.
65
My "nephew" had genetic testing to find out who was his real father. (my husband's uncle married a woman who had my "nephew") He finally found out who his father was a few years after he died. But his other children embraced my "nephew" and now went from a child with two half siblings to a man with a huge family of half siblings. He is very grateful for the DNA testing that helped him find out who his real father was. He has had several meetings with them and they are all happy.
37
It's a beautiful story about how the heart, and the bonds it forges, are ultimately more meaningful than any blood (or DNA) relationships. Something to remember in these times when tribal affiliations are on the ascendant, at the expense of the 'other', non-familial outsider.
As for the DNA testing: I intentionally submitted as little information about myself as I could to 23andme, to maintain my privacy; I was only interested in genetic makeup, not family trees. My brother also did the same a little later, also to 23andme, but using his actual identity. While his report included a whole slew of possible familial matches (none of whom included me!), mine didn't include anyone at all. Being male, his report also had a slightly different genetic makeup due to the Y chromosome from our Dad, which didn't show up in mine.
17
@ml: Thank you, I posted a comment elsewhere, but I want to acknowledge that it's indebted to yours.
6
You should have, at least, gotten a match with your brother.
1
@ml You may want to consider changing the settings on your 23andme profile. The company made some changes so that those who wish to maintain their own anonymity will not be shown their own dna matches and don’t show as matches to others.
4
As with many other modern tools, DNA testing can be a double-edged sword; users should prepare themselves for all possibilities before they send off a test sample.
In this particular case - since the generations are only trying to identify a fairly close ancestor, not a relative from 5-6 generations in the past - it's unlikely that both the author and her sister would each fail to share DNA with such close supposed relations.
That said, as the author found meeting her supposed relations, we're all cousins to each other and should treat each other as family.
9
@R. Law - That depends on how we treat family.
7
DNA tests have forged long-awaited and happy meeting for one of my sibs. The others, not so much. It's mildly interesting to find a common love of dogs, but gee.
More interesting to me is growing insight into my parents, who were dishonest, angry and hateful toward each other and almost everyone else. DNA testing ripped open a charade, giving us a better look at who they were, the challenges and heartbreaks they endured, and the culture that bent them into hollow conformity. I still don't understand it, but I resent them less than I did before.
104
My thoughts on this are more philosophical than scientific. I believe that when a man and woman procreate, they only produce the physical child which, of course includes the DNA of both parents. The soul or mind of that child, which makes it human, comes from God and is the part that eventually returns to God. My wife and I had only two children. Left to nature, we probably would have several more. I often wonder where those souls ended up; those that would have inhabited the bodies we would have produced, and what kind of people they turned out to be.
9
@Aaron Adams
If you accept the concept of multiverses, they are out there somewhere. According to quantum mechanics, anything that can happen does happen and these almost infinite universes exist side by side with ours in parallel dimensions. So whatever choices you made in the past or make tomorrow, another nearly infinite number of copies of yourself will not make, in fact branching off into different alternate realities.
I have only one wish: If you find a way to communicate with the children you never had, please let me know how you did it. I want to build my own transmitter into these parallel dimensions and find out what else is going on in alternate universes where Trump has gone bankrupt for real and is now enjoying a brilliant career in the janitorial sector.
36
@Aaron Adams Indeed. I think there is a line of souls waiting the body for them - and those who leave dead bodies get to the back of the line.
2
@ Kara Ben Nemsi: I hear you. I’ve been saying that everything was motoring along just fine in my universe until late 2016. With the election of Donald Trump, my reality seemed to bend off course and I don’t much like the direction in which the world around me is going. All fine here in my immediate environs but, holy moley, there are storms a-brewing on the horizon.
28
"the results came back. There was no genetic match"
Stories like this one cause me to doubt the business and technology of the testing.
I've encountered testing problems before. I recall one case of a positive test for cocaine use, in which we learned the test samples were prepared and handled by the tester's pre-teen daughter, out of school that day and so with Mom at work. An MD with a very different test was able to contradict that result.
I've seen paternity tests come back "yes" from one service and "no" from another. Self testing is especially a problem, as done here.
So I trust the knobby knees and behavior similarity over the distant corporation's reliability.
43
@Mark Thomason If it was only one test, I'd surmise that samples got mixed up, but multiple people doing the same test with no matches tells me there really is no match.
27
@NMY
The real test for accuracy, albeit a little pricey, is to send in samples from the SAME donor 10 times. If those don't come back 9 times identifying the donor as a twin of sample #1, then the lab has more than a serious problem.
13
@Mark Thomason Thank you for raising that point. I have heard too many stories of empirical evidence, anecdotal accounts with letters, photos, and first hand eye witness stories being discounted completely because of one DNA test. Do these companies possess a back up? They make a pronouncement and it is taken as gospel.
As the writer noted, maybe her testing company was "incompetent." I make no judgments about competence, but question the infallibility of what are basically very informal tests.
5
This article seems to sum up the DNA ancestry business as currently situated:
People who send in their DNA expect a comprehensive search will reveal truths from interconnected DNA databases, while in reality there are numerous disconnected DNA databases, making any revelations happy accidents at best, misguided at worst, and questionable in the main.
Whether seeking fantasy or clarification, caveat emptor - buyer beware - should be the only guidance to keep handy.
21
Turned off by the first sentence. Cannot relate at all. Never fantasized about having different parents and feel sad for those who have.
16
But because human nature is what it is, some people are brutes and their children might have every right to wish for different parents.
I was lucky with mine. There might have been times as a teenager that I wished for different parents, but . . . .
And gosh, I would miss them more than I do if so many of my gestures, expressions, and ways of walking didn't remind me of them.
32
I was fortunate to have an attentive aunt and uncle who provided different stimulation and feedback than I got from my own parents. Since I was getting extra parenting from extended family I too never wished for new parents. But I have no trouble imagining that lots of people have this fantasy.
16
@Eleanor Kas -- "feel sad for those who have"
I feel sad for those who had to.
11
Love the first sentence where we fantasize about having different parents. I think however most of us fantasize about having different children.
82
@Tom I fantasized about different parents, but never about different children. I have been very blessed.
42
@bsorin2 i'm perfectly happy with both parents and the children. it's a different wife i fantasize about, but NOT in that way. it was a decades long missed connection. my sisters are both very much into searching our family past and have turned up multiple third cousins all over the area. i suppose that's to be expected when your great great grandfather from ireland had 14 children who lived and gave him 76 grandchildren.
15
I didn’t get the idea of fantasizing about different parents. But if this many people fantasize about having different children, then yeah, I get the first point too.
3