34 Stories About The Shocking Results Of DNA Testing That Created Or Destroyed Families

Found out my dad's father isn't his biological father through my matches. With that, I'm not as Irish as I thought lol. Only 6%. I'm from an area where Irish heritage is apart of the culture. I'm covered in Irish flags, Celtic god of war, all sorts of stuff. Turns out I'm actually french and Ashkenazi Jewish. I'm excited to learn about these new to me cultures. Pretty cool but yeah... Don't get tattoos kids. 🤣

I was working on figuring out (to my best ability) the origins of distant generations. One day an anthropologist from Australia reached out because I was a distant match to her husband.

I was an outlier as the only American in their own studies. They didn't even have many real life American connections. We worked together. She sent me a ton of information and data only professionals could put together.

It turns out we did share ancestry! We found the exact point our lineages lined diverged. This connection validated many distant generations! It was crazy, so much information snowballed.

Their ancestor ended up in Australia. My relative ended up landing in America. Two brothers landing in two separate continents where they became the progenitors of their own separate lineages.

After a year of spitting into tubes, scraping cheeks, and waiting for DNA results, my wife finally got a sample that worked. Both my dad and her dad were adopted, so we were a little nervous that we might somehow be related. My wife was convinced that God didn’t want us to know her results, given all the delays and complications.

When the results finally came in, we were relieved to find out we’re not related. But there was something immediately interesting in her matches. She had connections to both her birth parents' sides, which was a surprise because her dad has no history of his birth family. He knows he was born in the same state we live in now, but that’s about it—nothing more is known about his biological background.

Intrigued, my grandpa, who is a bit of an ancestry wizard, started digging into family trees. What he found was shocking. It turns out that my mother-in-law’s grandpa is actually my father-in-law’s great-grandpa. This discovery completely blew our minds, and it would undoubtedly devastate her parents if they ever found out. For that reason, we’ve decided we’ll never share this information with them.

Ive always been the guy who says, "I dont want to give the government my DNA" As I came to terms knowing if they truly wanted MY DNA, they'd have it by now. Lol

I decided to go for it because my curiosity got the best of me. My wife, has a long history of their family. At Family reunions they share and go through 100's of years of their ancestors so, I almost didnt buy one for her.

There was a 2for1 special at the time so, I went ahead and ordered 2. We both began playing around with our Family Tree's based on the information we knew was true. We never expected anything crazy to come about this.

She gets Her mom and Dad down, and keep in mind her father passed away at 10 years old. It always been just her Mother and her older sister and older brother.

Her DNA Results begin to become analyzed and everything on her fathers side begins to flip to "Step-Father." We go through and try to figure out what we messed up but, the strange thing is her closest family tree is a person she has never heard of before. Her results fully come back and still, its holding to step father. We put it down for a few days.

Her family knows we are going through this process and all seem very excited, yet standoffish.

Her brother, who hasnt been around in the last 20 years much due to being in out of jail. She gets a text at 9 am on Monday from him saying "Will you be free to talk this afternoon?" She reluctantly says yes not knowing what it could possibly be this time.

We got on the phone and this guy just RIPS the bandaid off and tells her his father is not actually there father..

She doesnt really buy into due to him being strung out 24-7. I go to the other room, call her sister and it's all true..

A few days later we get the full truth. Her mother had an affair outside of their marriage. The other guy wanted no part. Her FATHER, says keep my name on the birth certificate and we take this to the grave..

Well AncestryDNA uncovered a 30 year secret that she may not of ever been told.

I recently received a message from a women wanting to know if we are related (I did the ancestry DNA test). I know exactly who she is. My grandma gave her up for adoption & later on regretted it deeply, she would confide in me about this all the time. The thing is, my grandma (her mom), grandpa (her dad), my mom and aunt passed away (her sisters) I have nothing 4 her, just me. Isn’t it better for her to live with whatever fantasy she made up in her head? Selfishly, I want to tell her and finally have someone for me. I’ve been so lonely since the women in my family died. I’m torn. I don’t know what to do

My wife during covid asked me to spit in a cup and now I have 5 matches. Me and my brother were put up for adoption at 7 and 5 together our other brother at 3 stayed. I got a match with my mother's side she has 500 people on her tree. I thought it was strange she didn't reach out after 4 months so I reached out to her. She said she never heard of me and my brother but would ask her family. She got back to me to tell me my mother didn't want to move forward. I find it strange people can't face what they did but there family has something to talk about now anyway. The black kids auntie gave up. Why don't you think she wants us on her family tree?

I'm almost 60 yrs old and found my biological father through Ancestry. I reached out via phone, never expecting him to answer - who has a landline anymore?? - but answer he did. Now I feel like I disturbed this poor old 80 yr old man who knew nothing of this. I feel pretty guilty about disturbing his peace for something I'm not even sure I wanted to know. How do others cope with this kind of information?

I recently decided to do an Ancestry DNA test, hoping to find some answers about my biological father’s side. I grew up knowing who I thought was my dad, but only for a few years before my mum remarried (I was about 5). My “dad” never knew his own father, and there was this mystery around one of my grandparents that bugged me. I figured maybe I’d find a DNA match that could help connect some dots.

When the results came back, I was shocked. I matched with someone on my stepdad’s side – his cousin, specifically. I couldn’t work it out for a few days and assumed it must be some strange coincidence. Maybe the mystery grandparent I’d been curious about was actually my step-grandfather? It was confusing, to say the least.

Eventually, I reached out to my mum, even though we don’t have the best relationship. I asked if she thought it was possible my step-grandfather could actually be my real grandfather.

Then my mum dropped a bombshell. Turns out, my mother had an affair with my stepdad’s brother, some years prior to her getting together with my step-dad. So, my “stepdad” is actually my uncle, and his brother – who I always thought of as my “step-uncle” – is actually my biological dad. In one revelation, the man I’ve always wondered about, who I thought was my biological father, turned out not to be related to me at all. My half-brother is actually my three-quarters brother, and my four “step-cousins” are actually my half-siblings.

My mum’s asked me to keep it quiet because it would cause issues in the family if this came out. Now I’m stuck in this bizarre situation where everything I thought I knew is suddenly different, and I’m supposed to just sit on it and carry on like nothing’s changed. I honestly don’t know what to do with this information.

I just found out my husband of 17 years is my 4th cousin.

I grew up with two fathers. They were childhood friends because of their parents and my Dad and Mom let my step-dad stay in our basement while he got custody of his kids (my older siblings). My dad left my mom when I was two and she always told me he cheated on her. Both my dad and step-dad are my father in my heart. They both raised me, I just never thought my step-dad could be my actual father and his kids have always been my siblings. Nothing changes that but I don't know how to handle this.

My wife is very involved with genealogy and history. We travel all over the US to see where her ancestors settled, once finding a 300 year old log cabins buried under heavy brush.

She led us up a dirt road several hours for miles in West Virginia where her Rucker ancestors charged toll to go over their property into today’s West Virginia.

One day, ancestry notified me that a DNA match through my Herndon 2x ggf led to another Herndon—married to a Rucker. I was excited to go back a few generations and discovered those new ancestors were already in the tree.

Then I discovered a big surprise that shouldn’t have been one.

My wife and I are full blown 6th cousins.

I found out last night that i am not actually biologically related to the man that's been my dad for the full 50 years of my life.

None of his people are on my paremt 2 dna, instead it's full of the people related tona guy my mom dated briefly while my parents were broken up for a while.

My husband and I both uploaded our DNA to ancestry about a year ago - we’ve both enjoyed seeing our family members pop up and seeing distant matches with vaguely familiar surnames get connected to us. We did find it odd when his origins results came back without any German - something his grandfather was proud of.

Recently, we helped my husband’s maternal grandfather complete the DNA kit. He texted us saying that his results were in - and he was enjoying reading the origin stories and exploring the traits part of the app… awesome! Or so we thought.

The problem is that he never connected to my husband. Grandpa hasn’t put two and two together yet, but it is making us question some things about whether he is biologically my mother in law’s father.

We got the results back for Grandpa around March. The match should’ve been immediate for a relationship that close, right? When I got my results back, my grandmother was already part of my family tree and I could see her DNA immediately.

Any clarification would be helpful! To my husband, this changes very little if anything - it just might help with some health history information.

Context: Never had a father in my life, luckily don't miss one and my Mum had a (very?) short term relationship / lovely evening with him. Ahem. She passed away young about 20 years ago and didn't know / pass on his name. I think he knew about me, but was told the baby (me), wasnt his....

About 10 years ago, I did a DNA test but only recently started looking for clues. Didn't 100% know his name but had a great great great grandfather DNA match through other matches. Well, it took a few hours, as had to go down each and every daughter / son line from about 1870. So many children - one far flung aunt had 11 children! But, by process of elimination, traced it back. Now have a name / address / maybe photos (thanks Company House and Facebook. Scary.) and a whole other paternal family out there. Geography / timings / dna matches make sense. Unfortunately, it's fairly rocket-proof.

I'm not gonna destroy their peace with a letter or appearing out of the blue, even if invited. This is what can destroy a family - God knows how his wife and kids would feel. I do, however, have a child, who may feel differently if they found out that I didn't at least try to contact their grandfather / uncles / aunts / cousins etc as they have a right to a family too.

Oh boy. I'm just happy because i know, 45 years of wondering now at rest. But, if i know - should others now know? What if it all goes wrong, but also - what if it goes right? Another offer of Xmas dinner, lovely :) Oh boy.