71 Times A DNA Test Revealed Something People Never Saw Coming

My mother got an extra half sister, about the same age as her younger sister, and turned out they were in the same class at school and there is one photo of them together in a school photo about age 15.
No big dramas, grandfather who did the dirty has been [gone for] over 30 years so he escaped it. Surviving siblings were a little miffed and my mother recalled a temporary split of her parents, but it caused no big drama.

Not destroyed but... it's odd. I learned my father was not my biological father. He [passed away] a few months before I took the test but apparently, he knew and didn't want me to know. I didn't get the chance to tell him it didn't matter. Also apparently, my Mom doesn't know my bio-father's name either it since it's been over 30 years.

Wasn't even an affair, she met dad like a month later. The math of the pregnancy had always been tight so it makes sense, but now I wonder what to do. 23andme has 3 close family connections supposedly and no one on moms side has used it. I wonder sometimes about opting in.

I told my grandma I did 23 and me. She promptly freaked out and sat my dad and I down and said that she did not birth him, but also did not adopt him. A doctor at the hospital she worked at gave him to her, and she had to keep it a secret or multiple people would've lost their jobs. I'm not sure what I believe at this point.

Husband found cousin who informed him of the passing of his estranged father. Father had some money in bank, family fought over the money.

So, let me preface this by saying that I was adopted in an open adoption, and so have maintained some contact with my bio family my whole life. They're wackos, but you know, good to know in case of health stuff.


So my bio-uncle gets a DNA sequencing thing done last year as a weird sort of Christmas present and let me tell you, if you're racist, at all, this is the sort of thing you should either do to fix your personality real fast or never ever do because you're going to be *upset*.

My birth mom hates All Brown People. This is remarkably stupid because we're part Hawaiian, and in Hawaii, mixed-race relationships were/are SUPER DUPER COMMON. Apparently bio-grandma kept this on the downlow and maintained that we were 'pure Native Hawaiian', and also 'of royal blood'. (No.)

So the results came back, and with mildly comedic predictability, clearly stated that not only were we *not* 'pure Native Hawaiian', we had recent African, South American Native, Japanese, and Korean ancestors, along with Native Hawaiian and Irish (bio-grandpa was Irish and the reason why I look like Moana color-swapped with Belle).

Well. Bio-Mom believes in the One Drop Rule, and was raised in rural white trash Tennessee. (Bio-Grandma was born in Hawaii, married a serviceman, and he got transferred to Tennessee.) The meltdown she had upon finding out that she's about 90% 'inferior genetic material, and not even really Homo sapiens' (I swear, she's a nightmare) was enough to get her dropped in for a 72 hour hold.

Now, I had a kinda rough childhood, since my adoptive mom was an alcoholic, but I only had to deal with a narcissist having an affair with Two Buck Chuck, and not that kind of a [nonsence]. I haven't really talked with any of them since.

Two of my cousins found out by Ancestry.com they had two different fathers. One is in their late 40’s and the other one is in her early 50’s. All of their life they thought they were half Italian. They both did Ancestry.com..fast forward to a couple of months and they both get their results a few days apart. My cousin that’s in her late 40’s her’s comes back as half Cuban & European my other cousin in her early 50’s comes back as British, Irish and West European. [Chaos ensued] when they confronted my Aunt. While my uncle(their dad growing up) was overseas in Vietnam my aunt had two separate affairs and had of both them by two different men. Things have quieted down since then but when it first happened I felt like I was on an episode of Maury.

By the way he does have a daughter with my aunt so it’s three of them with three different fathers.

I was contacted by my FULL OLDER BROTHER two years ago.

My parents gave him up, got married a year later, then had me and my siblings. Mother took the secret to the grave.

I thought I was the oldest all my life - named after my dad. Now I find out I had an older brother all along!

Both sides of the family were affected by it.


My dad, who passed away 15 years ago, fathered a kid when he was 19 and never knew about it. My half brother found out and reached out to me on Facebook. We’ve actually developed a neat relationship even though he’s 20+ years older than me.


My mom’s sister found out that my grandfather (now deceased) was not actually her dad a couple of months ago. She’s actually been kind of accepting about it and has reached out to her biological father’s family. On the other hand, my 90 y.o. Grandmom is absolutely devastated and embarrassed about a mistake she made 50 years ago has come back to haunt her.

A certain genetic disease runs in my family, and it’s basically a coin flip at birth whether or not it progresses into something fatal as you grow from baby to child. If caught early enough it can be treated, and we have learned (as a family) through a lot of death what the symptoms look like. Basically if anyone under 6 in my family starts having pneumonia symptoms, we immediately test them for this family disease. If they test positive for it, the issues with the heart and lungs can be fixed through surgery. It’s always fatal if it progresses, but treatable if caught early enough.

My uncle fathered a son while deployed in Japan. He had no idea, and we didn’t as well. 45 ish years he did a 23 and me test and connected with my grandma. He only ended up reaching out to us (my mom cause grandma was pretty lost to dementia at this point) because his son was hospitalized with a strange form of pneumonia that wasn’t improving. My mom immediately gave him all the information on the disease, treatment plan, and diagnosis. His son made a full recovery, and he was grateful to my mom. But he doesn’t want anything to do with my family, and is understandable pretty bitter towards my uncle.

EDIT: took a while cause I had to talk to a few family members but the disease is called pleuropulmonary blastoma. It’s genetic (and recessive fortunately) and I could be a carrier but I won’t know unless I get tested for it specifically or have a child that has this cancer. Probably unlikely because non of my siblings, nieces or nephews have the disease.

The family wasn’t destroyed but my dad found out he has a 43-year-old daughter he never knew about that was conceived when he was 16, (I was his oldest, I’m 23) and my mom found out her grandad had an illegitimate child there was no record of. Wild.

Actually wasn’t destroyed, added an aunt that was older than my grandparents’ relationship so it meant no cheating. I’m just sad that she was never given the opportunity to meet her dad. She is an extremely charitable person and I am excited to meet her at some point.

My story has a rough beginning, but a happy ending. I apologize, this will be a bit lengthy.

I ordered 23andme to try to figure out “what” I was, not to track down any long lost family members. I had known since I was a teenager that my dad who raised me wasn’t my biological father. I used to ask my mom if I was adopted because I don’t look like anyone in my family. My mom is almost 100% Irish and my dad (who raised me, he is and always will be my dad) is also Caucasian and I look a bit ethnically ambiguous. Olive (but fair) skin, dark hair, and green eyes; no one else in my family looked like me. My mom finally told me the truth when i was 16.

When I got my report back, I was mostly European by my breakdown, I was still confused. I had several cousins show up, but contacting them didn’t interest me at all. One day I got a notification that I had new relatives and a half sister popped up. This caught me completely off guard and I didn’t know what to do...because I wanted to contact her. For the first time ever, I wanted to know more. I messaged her, not telling anything about myself, just that if she’d like to know more about me, I would be open with all that I knew. I never got a reply, this kind of broke my heart if I’m being honest, but I accepted that she probably knew nothing of me and that the revelation of my existence may have hurt their family horribly.

A few months later a second cousin popped up and she was shown to be the first cousin of my “half sister,” this confused me even more. Why was she my second cousin and my half sisters first cousin?She contacted me because she thought I may have answers for her, I told her that I had tried to contact my half sister but heard nothing and apologized for not being able to help her. (Her story is oddly similar to mine.) She also told me that she had communicated briefly with her first cousin, but after bringing me up, she cut off contact with her. That made me feel horrible. But through our brief interaction, i realized that the three of us were connected through my “half sisters” maternal blood line. I know my mom is my mom, there’s no question there, so I started thinking, how could this be?..then I realized that my “half sister” was actually my aunt, my biological father’s sister. Half-siblings, aunts and uncles, and grandparents all share 25% of their DNA, all the connections on these websites are based on probability.

I messaged her again and told her that I thought she may be my aunt and I told her more about myself...my birthdate and where I was conceived, and that if she had a brother who was in that area at that time, he was my biological father. She messaged me back in no time. It turns out that my paternal grandfather had passed away years ago and when she got the first message and saw the half sister connection, she assumed her father had a child that none of them knew about. I’m younger than her and her siblings, obviously, so I would have come along after them. She didn’t contact me because she didn’t want to hurt her mother, and I’m sure she was hurt by this too. I understood, completely. She then went on to tell me that they all knew about me but didn’t want to disrupt my life. She said my biological father never forgot about me...I had always thought I was his dirty little secret. (He and my mother were both married to other people when I was conceived..that’s another long story.) Anyways, my husband, children, and I have since met them all. I actually have three half siblings that also knew about me. It was so strange to finally meet people who I resemble. I’m a spitting image of my paternal grandmother when she was young, they were all blown away by that. We stay in contact and I couldn’t be happier that I bought the 23andme kit.

Not “destroyed” because I’m the only one beyond my husband who knows, but I may eventually tell the [woman] who birthed me (if I ever have the serious displeasure of speaking to her again, so likely never) that the reason she doesn’t know who her birth dad is is because he’s also her great uncle.

Back when 23andme and DNA testing kits were just getting popular, my dad got one just to see what he was. my mom thought he was gonna use it to prove my mom wasnt biologically my mom so he could get custody of me. My home life was terrible to begin with and that made it hell.

My grand mother found out she was adopted and had two sisters with kids who also.... have kids. Opened some new chapters and closed some too. She is 76 years old.

My paternal grandmother and her younger sister either aren’t related to their six siblings or someone is a cheater.

I was the first in my family to take it. Found out my uncle had a daughter he never knew about as a result of a brief fling in his twenties. (He wasn't married, didn't walk out, just knocked a girl up and never knew...they met on vacation).

Only told my parents so that my dad could tell his brother.

Uncle pretty much refuses to acknowledge it and is super weird around me now. I told my dad to warn him that a lot of my cousins were super curious about doing a test themselves and it's probably better he let his kids know rather than finding out they have a half sibling after spitting into a tube. (At the time I was encouraging cousins to take it, the long lost cousin in question hadn't reached out to me yet so I didn't know she existed).

I can see now his daughter (my cousin who I grew up with) has taken the test. No idea what's become of it due to me living a few states away, my uncle not really speaking to me and general distance I've created with that side of the family post 2016.

My uncle found out he had a son who was 20. The son took a 23andMe test and found my uncle's contact info. The son lived far away, but was literally invited to move in with my uncle's family. I have no idea how my aunt was okay with this, as they were married for 30+ years, meaning he must have cheated on her.

So that 4 bedroom house now houses the grandma, my aunt, uncle, my uncle's son and wife, and in total, 6 kids (4 my cousins, 2 my uncle's son's kids). They have 9 cars in a house that only has a 4 car driveway, so the entire road is filled with cars.

The worst part is that they're getting all of this money from my grandmother, who is hiding all of this. She bought them 3 cars, one being a 50k lexus, the other being another expensive Mercedes, and another being a new Toyota Camry. Meanwhile my grandmother never bought us anything, not even floor mats for mine or my brothers cars. And we only have 3 people in our family, being my mom, brother, and I. She gives all of her money to my uncle, and constantly asks us to do favors for my uncle too. She asks us to go bring her food shopping because she doesn't have a car. She'll use the food we buy at the store to make food for my uncles family and give us the leftovers.

Basically that whole family is chaos, and I'll just keep out of it. Not much of a social person anyway.

My husbands family is die hard Italians. I mean their identity is all about their Italian heritage. We are talking salami - olive eating, speaking with hands, shouting, flashy accessory Italians.

23&me revealed they aren’t even 45% when they decided to get everyone the test. Mayhem and tears weeks after the discovery along with a lot of loud phone calls to everyone ensued. Meanwhile, My husband also discovered he is a large part African so logically goes and buys some expensive Jordan’s (being Italian means he must be flashy with everything), Shows up at the in laws and more tears and loud screaming happen in a typical Italian family fashion. (Just imagine 10 people screaming at once- complete mayhem)

The in laws decided 23 is “junk” science and clearly the results are mixed up with another unsuspecting family (all 19 family members results must be wrong) and now they are even more Italian than ever. But they know the truth and we are banished from bringing it up or wearing Jordan’s in their sight.

Turns out my father is not my bio father. Apparently my mom’s cousin is my bio father. So my second cousin is now my half-brother/second cousin and my sister is now my half-sister/second cousin. Both my bio parents are considered my first cousins once removed as well.

My dad has known since I was two years old but still chose to raise me. I just found out last year. It was a big family secret that kind of split the family which is especially unfortunate because a lot of people did not know about this situation which means they did not know why the family split. My half-brother still does not know about me.

We also learned that both my grandfathers are not my great-grandfathers bio sons. They still share a dad, but it turns out my great-grandfather met and married my great-grandmother while she was pregnant and decided to raise the two boys as his own. He unfortunately passed away two years ago and it was a complete secret from everyone.

Now there are multiple generations in my family all figuring out how to go about having new siblings and new bio parents.