1. Girl Next Door
My best friend and I met when we were little kids and she just happened to be my next door neighbor. This meant that we were inseparable and we experienced all of life’s big moments together: our first kiss, prom, and graduating high school.
Even though kids would sometimes tease us for being so close we didn’t care. We supported each other through thick and thin always making sure to attend each other's sports games and activities.
One weekend after graduation we hooked up accidentally and ended up starting a relationship. Both of us were staying in the area for college so it was perfect we could continue to see each other.
A couple of years later we decided to try a DNA test since we’d never done one before. We would’ve never guessed what was coming next. She was my half-sister on my dad’s side. Turns out her mom and my dad had an affair back in the day and she had gotten pregnant.
Now both our parents are in the midst of nasty divorces and things between us haven’t been the same since.
2. The Day After Thanksgiving
Who doesn’t love Black Friday? It means the holidays are here and there are always amazing deals. I was looking to get a new blender when I stumbled upon an ad for Ancestry.com
I had never done a test like this before so I decided to purchase one. My mom had died over a decade ago and my dad passed during the beginning of the pandemic. With no other siblings I was interested in seeing if I had any other family out there.
I was shocked when I received the test results. Someone in a neighboring state was my biological father. I wasn’t sure what I should do. But after a few days I decided I wanted to contact him.
What should I say? Would he even want to know me? All these questions raced through my head. I ended up calling him and found out that he was my mom’s boyfriend before she had met my father. I had no idea and my biological father had no idea that his then girlfriend had gotten pregnant. I wonder what type of conversations are going on in heaven!
3. My Life Was Ruined
My older brother and I got DNA tests from his girlfriend as a Christmas gift. I had never done one before so I was super excited. My mom was skeptical and she said that she doesn’t believe in all that science mumbo jumbo.
I wish I had listened to my mom and just threw it out. Those test results messed everything up. A few months later my brother said to take the test and see if we have any relatives. He even said we may be related to someone famous.
After a few weeks we got the results. My brother told me to come over to his place and that it was very urgent. It turns out we were half-brothers. Our mother was the same but we had different fathers.
I was in utter disbelief.
After I took a few moments to process we called our mother to get to the bottom of things. She told us that my father was a longtime family friend who she had an affair with. He passed a few years ago.
The father who raised me from birth has no idea I’m not his and I don’t think I can ever tell him. He’s been through so much since having his stroke that I’m not sure how he would handle it.
I can’t even look at my mother anymore. The thought of what she did makes me sick. I now only go over to the house to see my dad when mom is at work. That DNA test destroyed my relationship with my mom.
4. My Scummy Father-In-Law
DNA tests have been all the rage lately so my wife decided to take one. She got a match that didn’t make sense to either of us. She reached out and found that she has a long-lost brother that she never knew about.
Her father had cheated on her mother when my wife was only a child and had an illegitimate son.
This honestly wasn’t super surprising since my wife’s parents ended up getting a divorce because her father was cheating. Turns out he was a serial cheater. My wife actually has reached out to her half brother to see if they can form a relationship.
Since her parents have been divorced for decades there hasn’t been any weirdness or awkward moments. In fact, we’re actually having him over for Thanksgiving dinner this year. Since my wife didn’t have any siblings it is really nice for her to have found him.
5. Deep Dark Secrets
I recently discovered that I had a half-brother that I knew nothing about. Turns out my dad who has been dead for 15 years had a son when he was 19 that he never knew about. Out of the blue someone reached out on Facebook claiming he was my half brother.
Although I was skeptical at first, after he showed me the results of the DNA test I knew he was telling the truth. Even though he’s 40 and I’m only 20 we’ve still managed to form a good relationship.
After I found out about my half-brother my mom decided to do a DNA test as well. She found out that her father (my grandfather) was not actually her biological father. This has been a tough pill to swallow as my grandfather passed away a few years ago and she can’t talk to him about it.
She decided that she still wanted to try and see if her biological father is around and has reached out to his family for more information.
My grandma on the other hand is absolutely embarrassed. I now know why she had always told my mom that DNA tests were a scam and unreliable. She didn’t want her dirty little secret. You know what they say the truth always comes to the light.
6. Not So Merry Christmas
My brother and his wife are a family of 5 with three teenage kids. They decided it would be fun to try out 23 and Me. The results were supposed to come around Christmas. Normally the kids would rush down to the tree to open their presents but today one of them decided to check their email for the results.
They were completely shocked to find out that their older sister only was a match on their mom’s side.
It was revealed that my sister-in-law had an affair with another man during her engagement to my brother. I never knew why she had canceled the wedding in order to elope. It finally made sense. She knew she was pregnant and didn’t want to be pregnant as she walked down the aisle.
Instead of a merry Christmas my nieces and nephews don’t even want to speak to their mother. My brother also decided to file for a divorce. Christmas will never ever be the same.
7. Is that my uncle or aunt?
My dad decided to do an Ancestry.com test for fun. He didn’t expect anything weird and just wanted to try it because all his friends were doing it. He decided to check the box that allowed “close matches” to reach out to him but didn’t expect anything to happen.
A couple days later he gets a message from some lady who lives across the country and said that they were cousins.
She also told my dad that three of her siblings didn’t have the same DNA results as her. Unfortunately, her parents had passed away so there was no way for more to get any clarity on the situation.
They kept in touch via email and eventually discovered that they were actually born in the exact same city. Then she sent my dad a photo and he showed it to me. I said, “Is that Uncle Ralph?”. My dad replied “No, that's your aunt”. I burst out laughing. She looked exactly like Uncle Ralph but with a wig.
8. In The Future
I grew up in the same neighborhood as my uncle on my dad’s side. We each had four kids in the family and all were about the same age. It was awesome to have our cousins so close. We played and hung out together all the time.
Eventually, both my parents and my uncle and his wife ended up getting divorced. However, what was really strange is that my dad and my uncle just mysteriously stopped talking to each other out of the blue.
We (the cousins) all stayed in contact and still made plans together from time to time. One random day we decided to just do the 23 and Me test just for fun. The results came back and everything seemed to make sense.
I told my dad about it and he was surprised. He said, “Johnnie’s test results showed that he is your first cousin.” I said “Yeah why wouldn’t he be dad”.
Turns out his brother had accused him of sleeping with his wife and that’s why they stopped speaking and everyone got a divorce. If only they had just done a DNA test earlier all of this could’ve been avoided.
9. Divorced Cousin
I seemingly have the perfect life. I’ve been married to my amazing wife for over two decades and have two incredible daughters who are excelling in college. We decided to research our family ancestry and what we found left my wife bewildered.
It turns out that we are sixth cousins and even have a common grandparent. My wife freaked out and immediately ran to the bathroom and started throwing up. She was inconsolable.
She didn’t even want to look at me or talk to me. She packed a bag and said she’s going to stay with her sister for a while.
I told her that we should go to therapy and work through this but she refuses to listen to me. I tried to reassure that being sixth cousins doesn’t matter because the degree of separation is so large.
Even though we’ve had an amazing marriage and family life up to this point I don’t think things will ever go back to normal. I wish we had never done that stupid DNA test.
10. Truth Potion
One night at 2AM my dad calls me crying hysterically telling me that there was important news that he had to share, and my brother and I should come to the house right now. Even though it was the middle of the night, my brother and I drove over as we’d never heard our dad so panicked.
He had done an Ancestry.com test and found out that my brother and I weren’t his biological children. We sat there stunned. How could this be? My parents had divorced a while back and neither had remarried.
This made it clear that my mother had to have been cheating on my father when they were married.
After taking some time to process the magnitude of the situation, my brother and I decided to confront our mom. She initially denied everything saying that the test results must be bogus and the company must’ve made a mistake.
We called the company and they ran the test again and assured us that if there was a mistake they would’ve caught it the second time around. This confirmed that there was no mistake.
With this newfound evidence our mom finally broke down and confessed that she had been sleeping with her boss all those years ago. She said she thought our dad was the biological father but she’d always been too scared and embarrassed to check.
While we don’t know if we can ever forgive our mom we still love our dad and don’t have any interest seeking out our biological father.
11. The Hospital Did It
A couple years back one of my friends found out that the parents who had raised him from birth weren’t actually his biological parents. The family did a DNA test and they were all shocked when they got the results.
His parents had wanted to see who their ancestors were and possibly even find some distant relatives. He was enraged that his parents never told him he was adopted. The more shocking thing was that his parents didn’t know he was adopted.
They said that there had to be a mix up because he was their biological son.
His parents were going to get to the bottom of this. They thought the company must’ve mixed up the test results. However, after checking with the company the test results were 100% accurate.
When he was born there was a massive mix up at the hospital and they ended up taking him home instead of their biological son who was raised by someone else. This news was heartbreaking and shocking to all parties involved.
In a surprising twist, the two families got together and eventually formed a good relationship. They also made sure to sue the hospital for every penny they were worth.
12. I Don’t Believe It
My mother’s adopted coworker decided to do a DNA test to find more of her blood family. She ended up finding 4 siblings and one who was a 100% match. She reached out to her siblings to learn more but wasn’t able to piece together all the details.
The sibling who was a full match passed on her biological parents info to my mom’s coworker so she could reach out and learn why they put her up for adoption. However, her biological parents claimed that she wasn’t theirs.
However, her biological father finally admitted that she was theirs but they were super young at the time and not ready to raise a child.
They decided to put her up for adoption in order to give her a better life. It was easier for us to pretend like it never happened. So after the day we gave you up we just decided to move on and live our lives.
However, while her biological father is accepting and acknowledges her, her biological mother is adamant that this stranger isn’t her daughter. Due to a psychotic break earlier in her life there is little hope that she will ever accept or acknowledge her has her biological daughter.
13. Who’s Your Daddy?
Two of my cousins decided to try Ancestry.com to learn more about their family and found out that their fathers were different. On top of this neither of them were a match to the father who raised them.
Both my cousins are older with one being in their 40s and the other in their 50s. Their whole lives they had thought they were half Italian.
The DNA test results were eye opening. My cousin in her 40s was half European & Cuban while my cousin in her 50s was West European, British, and Irish.
They decided to confront their mother (my aunt) and this is when things got messy. The father who had raised them had been away fighting the war in Vietnam during the 1960s. During this time my aunt had two affairs with two different men.
This initially caused shockwaves throughout the entire family, but after a while things went back to normal. I felt like I was on an episode of Jerry Springer. Also, in case I forgot to tell you, my uncle and aunt have a 3rd daughter as well. So all 3 of my cousins have 3 different fathers. Talk about wild stuff.
14. No One Would Listen
When my aunt was 18 (she’s in her 60s now) she said she was assaulted by her uncle and that he got her pregnant. No one in the family believed her and after she made her declaration she felt totally isolated. She decided to move away and cut off all contact with the rest of the family.
She is my mom’s half-sister as they share the same father but have different mothers and therefore doesn’t share any blood with my maternal grandmother’s side of the family.
My aunt decided to keep the baby and ended up having a daughter. When she was old enough she decided to take a DNA test to learn more about her extended family.
You can probably guess what happened next. She’s related to my grandmother who had also happened to take a DNA test.
All these years later my aunt was finally validated. She had been telling the truth all along. Her uncle did actually assault her and get her pregnant. The proof was in the pudding.
15. 13 Kids!
I grew up with three other siblings and thought I had a big family. Boy was I wrong! Turns out that I had twelve other siblings. That makes thirteen of us in total. All of them are related to me through my father.
My dad even named four of them with his exact name even though two of those that he named are girls.
Through further discovery I found that many of the siblings are close to my three siblings and I in age so there must’ve been a lot of affairs behind the scenes.
There was also a daughter he had who was even older than my mom. This was absolute madness.
I wanted to meet all of them and eventually I did. Some of them even grew in different countries which means they had completely different upbringings and even sometimes spoke completely different languages.
Some things were the same though. For instance, we had similar laughs, mannerisms and the same taste in food too. Even though my dad is a horrible person for cheating on my mom it was nice to meet other people out in the world who shared the same DNA as me.
16. Can You Keep A Secret
My grandmother who is nearly 80 recently got some extremely shocking news. The father who raised her from birth was not her biological father.
Her mother had an affair with the family’s physician and never told a single person.
The family doctor was not only her biological father but he also delivered her and all her other siblings.
Through more thorough investigation it was found that he had gotten many of his patients pregnant. My grandmother found out that she had a number of half brothers and sisters all of whom she had no idea about until just recently. This came as a surprise to her and many of her newfound siblings.
Man my great grandmother sure could keep a secret.
17. You’ve Got Some Explaining To Do
My husband recently discovered that his dad wasn’t biological father. The test he took showed that there was no DNA overlap between him and his dad. His mother had always presented herself as a devout Catholic who followed and abided by the principles in the bible.
Because of this the news was shocking to say the least. My husband called his mom a hypocrite and because of that their relationship will never be the same. His biological father tried to reach out to him but my husband wants nothing to do with him.
We also found out that my husband’s mother still talks to the man she had an affair with over 40 years ago. My husband is so fed up that he has severely limited his contact with his mother.
He doesn’t have the heart to tell the father who raised him about what he found out. He still continues to love his father and their relationship remains strong to this day.
18. Bad Omen
DNA tests have become so popular recently because people want to find out who they’re descended from. I hope my kids never get the itch to take one of these tests.
I’ve been hiding a big secret and I don’t want anyone to find out. One of my sons is not my biological son. His father assaulted many women before he died and his mother is one of the victims of his abuse.
For over 10 years we’ve successfully hidden this secret. However, anytime I see a commercial for Ancestry.com I begin to get emotional and start to cry a little.
This is especially pronounced around the holidays where I see ads about families taking DNA tests around Christmas and sharing the results with one another. Even though we’re not a DNA match, he’s my son and I am his father. It’s as simple as that.
I treat him just like his sibling and I love them both equally. I would take a bullet for him in a heartbeat. I’m so afraid of losing our relationship if he ever finds out the truth.
19. She Gets Around
Recently my mom took a DNA test and found out who her actual biological father is. My grandmother had been married and divorced so many times that her children didn’t know who their actual father was.
She did this in order to force the kids to be dependent on her since none of them had a father figure in her life. Yes, my grandmother is quite manipulative.
My grandmother had gotten around back then. Even the men who she claimed were the father of her children said that she was sleeping with so many men that how would she know who the real fathers were.
My whole life I thought my grandfather was my biological grandfather. After my mom’s DNA test my mom found some cousins who shed some light on the situation. With new evidence she confronted her mother (my grandmother) about the whole situation.
My biological grandfather had actually passed away 10 years ago. Sadly, neither I nor my mother will ever get a chance to meet him. He actually helped make special effects widespread throughout Hollywood.
Seems like a really cool guy. I now understand where I got my love for films and movies.
20. LinkedIn
My father knew from an early age that his dad was not his actual biological father but never wanted to find out any details.
Later in life he decided that he was finally ready to learn more about the possibility of having other family members. He tried a 23 & Me test about five years ago and found that has over 40 half-siblings.
His biological father was a urologist who was doing research on artificial insemination in the 1950s and many women were impregnated through this method. Most of those children had no idea their dad wasn’t their biological father.
It definitely shocked many of his half-siblings when they eventually got the news.
Now all 40 of them stay in touch and have even had a couple of family reunions. They use a Facebook group so they can still communicate even though people are busy with their separate lives.
Each one of these siblings has the exact same jawline and all are extremely successful in their given professions. Lawyers, engineers, doctors you name it and this group of half-siblings has it.
The job that I currently have was actually found through a referral from my new half aunt. While most people use LinkedIn to find a job I had better success with 23 & Me.
21. German Background
My friend’s mother recently told her that she thinks her dad is not her biological father. Her mother was in the military and slept with a man in Germany during the 1990s when she was posted overseas. A month later she had come home and slept with her father.
It was unclear who her biological father was since the timelines were so close. She decided to get an ancestry kit to get to the bottom of things. The results shook her to her core. Her father was not her biological father.
She decided that she wanted to find her biological father even though it was against her mother’s wishes. Her mother wants to keep everything under wraps so her father won’t find out as that could ruin the marriage and the family.
Her younger siblings also don’t want her to find her biological father because they fear it could tear apart the family. However, she’s determined to find her father because she’s curious to see if she has any other siblings or relatives out there.
22. Was There An Affair
I recently received some life changing news. My dad was not my biological father. My dad died a couple of months ago and it really got me thinking about family and how important it was. I decided to take a DNA test to learn more about the possibilities of other relatives.
I found out from my mom that my dad knew he wasn’t my biological father and he never wanted me to find out. I never got the chance to tell him that I wouldn’t have cared and that he would forever and always be my dad.
My mother told me she doesn’t even know the name of my biological father since it was a one night stand that occurred 30+ years ago.
A month after the one night stand she met my dad. I am conflicted about what I should do next. 23 & Me says i have three close family connections all from my father’s side.
I wonder if I should check the box and allow them to contact me.
23. No Going Back
I wanted to try 23 & Me to learn more about how I descended from, not to find any long lost relatives or anything like that. I already knew that the father who raised me wasn’t my biological father since I was a teenager.
I always thought I was adopted because I bore no resemblance to anyone in the family. My mother is full Irish and my dad is Caucasian but I look ambiguous.
Dark skin and hair with green eyes I was an outlier in the family. I learned the truth from my mom when I was a teenager but when I got the report back it said I was mostly of European descent.
It showed I had some cousins but I didn’t have interest in contacting them so I didn’t bother. One day I got a message that I had a new close connection: a half-sister.
I was curious and wanted to know more so I decided to message her. I didn’t tell anyone else that I had reached out as I eagerly awaited a reply.
She never replied to me and it made me kind of sad, but I figured that it may have shook up her family life if she decided to reply to me. Once you pull back the curtain things are never the same.
A second cousin appeared a few months later and she was labeled as a first cousin of my half-sister which was puzzling. How could she be my second cousin and my half-sister’s first cousin?
She (my second cousin) reached out because she thought I may be able to answer her questions but I told her that I have no information for her. I let her know that I reached out to my half-sister but she never replied.
She had also reached out to her first cousin and they communicated for a little while until I was mentioned. As soon as I was brought up she stopped talking to her.
I soon was able to piece together that the three of us had a connection. We all were connected through my half-sister’s maternal bloodline. Since I knew my mother was my biological mother I thought how was this possible.
I had a sudden realization. My half-sister was actually my aunt. She was my biological father’s sister. Since we shared 25% of our DNA it was possible that she was my aunt.
I reached out to her again and told her that I thought she may be my aunt. I told her about my birthday, where I was born and that if she had a brother that he would be my biological father.
She replied to me in a jiffy. My paternal grandfather had passed away a few years ago and when she saw the half-sibling connection she thought her father had a child that had been a secret all these years.
I’m much younger than her and her siblings. She told me she didn’t reply to me because she knew that it would hurt her mother and her siblings.
I understood the position she was in. However, she surprised me when she said that maybe it’s time I meet the rest of the family.
That next weekend I met the rest of my half-siblings and their mother. All of them were super warm and supportive which is something I didn’t expect.
It turns out my father had carried a picture of me in his wallet that he took with him everywhere and even started a college fund for me that he was never able to give me since he passed so suddenly. Maybe he did actually care about me.
It was incredible to meet people who actually looked like me. I also looked just like my paternal grandmother which we all found astounding.
The 23AndMe kit changed my life for the better and I can’t be more grateful.
24. Heartless
My aunt’s blood type is AB+ which is only present in about 4% of the population. She’s super proud of her unique blood type and the fact that she is a universal recipient.
However, my grandparents have the blood types B and O which makes it impossible for her to be blood type AB+ if they are both her biological grandparents.
She was their caretaker later in their lives all the way up until the point of their deaths. Since she was so close with them and had a special bond, I just can’t tell her and shatter her world. I do really wonder about who her actual parents are. Could she be adopted?
25. Support Through Tough Times
Roughly two years ago one of co-worker’s husbands bought her a 23AndMe kit as a birthday gift. Unfortunately, he died a few weeks later in a tragic car accident.
A couple of weeks later she got her results back and found that she had two other daughters with a woman who wasn’t her mom.
She was in shock and if circumstances were normal she may not have reached out. But because she had just recently lost her husband she was feeling lonely and vulnerable and decided to reach out.
Not only did her two half-sisters respond but they ended up becoming quite close which helped get her through the difficult ordeal of losing her husband. They should really be in a 23AndMe commercial.
26. Hit By Trauma
Mine and my girlfriend’s life have just been absolutely rocked. A few hours ago we just got the results of a shocking DNA test. To give you some background information, my girlfriend (I’ll just call her Jenna) and I have been dating for almost a year and a half and our relationship has been absolutely amazing.
We both grew up in the same hometown but we never met until we were in college when a mutual friend of ours introduced us to each other. Last Thanksgiving Jenna decided to stay at my house for the holidays.
I had also decided to not go home to see my family for the holidays in order to spend more time with Jenna. My roommates had left to spend time with their families so we would have the whole house to ourselves.
There was a Black Friday special on 23AndMe kits and Jenna decided to buy one for each of us. We also both happened to have been conceived through IVF via donors.
We both had fathers who were infertile so our parents had no choice but to do IVF via donors. We were looking to find out who our biological fathers were as we wanted to see where we came from. After a few weeks had passed it was finally time to check our results.
Jenna and I decide to go through our results together and we open our laptops excited to learn more about our biological fathers. Everything seemed totally normal as we checked our ancestry and health reports. I was 7% Native American which was super cool.
Everything was fine until we moved to the DNA relatives portion. Jenna squeezes my arm and says “Hopefully we find our biological fathers”. I open mine up and I see Jenna 35% DNA shared, half-sister.
I did a double take and checked again and the last name matched Jenna. I was flabbergasted. Jenna doesn’t believe me and tells me to cut it out and to stop joking.
I sit there frozen. I’m absolutely silent. I stare at my screen not wanting to believe what’s in front of me. I grab her laptop and check her DNA relatives section. I see my name there as a 35% DNA shared, half-brother.
Then it finally hits me. I’ve been making out with my half-sister. I’m now in a state of shock and am on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. Why did this have to happen to us? Our relationship is surely ruined.
It must be that our mothers were fertilized by the same seed. Growing up in the same town maybe it shouldn’t be such a huge shock. We are from a small town and there were only a few fertility doctors.
I looked over at Sarah and she looked completely disgusted. I was practically speechless and just sat there stunned in silence.
Even though I loved Jenna the realization hit me that our whole relationship was incest. I couldn’t shake the thought of it. Both of us feel horrible. We then promptly broke up and haven’t really talked since. I really thought she was going to be my soulmate.
27. Seed Spreading
One day out of the blue my wife’s sister was reached out to by someone via Facebook who claimed that they shared a father. Funnily enough she had reached out to her on Mother’s Day. We started to comb through her Facebook profile to gather more details.
They truly did look like they were sisters. We found out that my wife’s father had been donating his seed to BYU. He’s a Mormon and a huge supporter of the university and wanted to have his seed spread by the university.
His wife just found that he’d been doing this. He has been donating for over 20+ years and has fathered a number of other children who are half-siblings to my wife and wife’s sister.
All this time he hasn’t been a present father or husband and my wife’s family could never figure out why. He had been spending all his free time with his “other children” while completely ignoring his actual children and wife. I’m not surprised as this guy was always a creep.
28. A Terrible Nightmare
I decided to take my sister out to dinner because I had to find out the truth. The results were in and I knew that something had gone on with a relative of ours and I needed to know the truth immediately because her daughter was going to find out soon.
I manage my niece’s 23AndMe account and she has been constantly hounding me for updates since it has been nearly 2 months since she’s sent her saliva sample in.
The results that came in made my jaw drop. It turns out my brother is the biological father of my niece. This is weird because I don’t even have a brother that I know of.
I confronted my parents and they told me that when they were teenagers they had given up a son for adoption since they were too young to care for him properly.
When he had turned 21 he had looked up and found my parents and came to our house to look for them. My parents weren’t home but my sister was.
My sister recognized him as they both went to the same college. He was a little nervous so he didn’t tell her why he had stopped by the house. He took my sister’s number and left.
Shortly after he asked her out on a date. My sister accepted and they went on a couple of dates but things quickly fizzled out. However, shortly after they stopped dating my sister had gotten pregnant.
She called him to tell him the news and he was mortified. He sent her some money to stop the pregnancy and never reached out to her again.
My sister just recently found out her biological brother had tricked her and felt absolutely disgusted. My parents don’t know about the situation and I don’t know if my sister is going to tell them.
We finally decided to tell them together. The fact that their son is the father of their daughter’s child will rock the family to its core. This is certain to be an absolute nightmare. I hope my niece is going to be ok.
29. The Truth Always Comes To The Light
My aunt had a child when she was a teenager and gave up the baby for adoption as she was too young to take care of her soon. Fast forward twenty years and my aunt and her son have gotten in touch and reconnected. She even told him about who his biological father is.
After he met his biological father they decided to have a DNA test run in order to compare their family history and lineage. They found out that he wasn’t really the father. They didn’t share any DNA in common.
There was a lot of commotion in my family because my aunt’s son felt deceived and hurt. He was building a relationship with someone he thought was his biological father but it turned out to be just a random guy.
The worst part is that my aunt is refusing to talk about the subject at all. She won’t tell him why she lied about his father and why he can’t know his real identity. I feel really bad because I don’t know if he’ll ever get closure.
30. Side Family
My grandma’s father abandoned her mother when her youngest brother was only 3 years old. He just picked up one day and left his wife and his four children alone in their home in Ontario, Canada.
All that was known is that he was heading west. Other than that we had no idea where he was going. My grandma is now 90 years old and she decided to take a DNA test about a year ago.
She found out her father ended up marrying someone new in British Columbia after he had headed west. He hadn’t even divorced her mother which meant that the wedding was technically illegal.
On top of this it turns out that he had four children with her. This piece of scum had left his family and went clear across the country to start another one.
He had named one of his new sons Gordon which is coincidentally the same name as my grandma’s brother. I guess he must’ve liked the name if he gave it to two different sons who were in two different families.
I just hope he treats the new Gordon better than he did the original.
31. Alive and Kicking
My mom just recently found out that her biological father was alive and well living in Minnesota. This was obviously very surprising as my mom had spent her fifty years on Earth believing that grandpa was her biological father.
My grandmother is saying that the tests are fraudulent and you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet. We told grandma that DNA testing is very reliable and is used extensively by governments and organizations throughout the world.
A couple of weeks go by and we decide to go to Minnesota so we can meet him. Turns out he’s a super nice guy who never got married or had any children. The year I was born just happened to be the year I retired.
He also was a pilot which funnily enough is exactly the line of work that I am in. He’s so thrilled to find out he has a daughter. He has mentioned that it’s lonely in his old age without any wife, kids or grandkids to keep him company.
I’m so glad my mom took the plunge and decided to find other members of our family.
32. Grandma Did What
I felt very pleased with myself when I decided to buy my mother-in-law’s side of the family a 23andMe kit. I thought it would be nice for them to learn more about their family heritage and ancestry.
We ended up learning that my wife’s grandmother had an affair which meant that my wife’s mother’s biological father was not the father who raised her.
Christmas dinner is going to be absolutely crazy this year. What I thought would be a nice gesture may end up ripping apart a family. Maybe we should all just stop buying 23andMe kits.
33. A Nasty Surprise
This is one of the most interesting 23AndMe stories I had ever heard. I met this guy and he told me found out he was adopted after he took a DNA test a few years ago.
He was shocked when he found out that he had 10 half-siblings from his dad’s side scattered all across the country.
He reached out to them to learn more and the news couldn’t have been worse. They told him that their biological father is a serial criminal who was wanted in a number of states and was still on the loose.
He was absolutely horrified and decided this was a secret he wasn’t too keen on sharing with anyone.
34. Mom or Sister
I went my whole life without knowing that my grandparents had adopted me. There was never any reason to think that I wasn’t their kid. I looked at old photographs of my mom (my actual grandmother) and we looked exactly alike.
I never in a million years would’ve guessed that she wasn’t my grandmother.
One day while sitting in my college dorm my friends and I thought it would be cool to order DNA kits and try them out. The results left me floored. My older sister was not my older sister but instead my biological mother.
She had gotten pregnant at 14 and wasn’t going to be able to take care of me. My grandparents wanted her and me to have a normal life so they adopted me and decided to raise me as their own.
35. A Shocking Twist
I had always known I was adopted. My birth mother was really young and wouldn’t be able to provide a safe and loving home for me so she put me up for adoption when I was born. One thing she never told them was who my birth father was.
I love my parents wholeheartedly and couldn’t have asked for a better life, but I still wanted to see where I came from.
Maybe it would've been better if I wasn’t so curious. You’re never going to guess who my biological father was, it was my adopted dad. He had cheated on my adoptive mom with my biological mom and then decided to adopt me because they (adoptive mom and him) were having trouble getting pregnant.
I don’t know if my mom will ever forgive my dad.
36. Grandpa The Sinner
I have a friend whose grandfather is holier than thou and is a strict and devout Christian. The news I learned about him was so unexpected that I nearly spat out my drink. He had four children outside of his marriage with three different neighbors. Neither I or my friend could believe it.
The youngest child’s mother was only 17 years old and this occurred the year grandpa died which would make him 78. Everyone was totally blindsided.
There may even be more kids out there that we don’t know about. Unfortunately, with grandpa’s untimely passing we may never about the rest of our family.
37. Seed Donors
Our family recently found that two of our family members have been seed donors for some time. One of them has a whopping 40+ children. He is currently unmarried and has had his most recent relationship end because his girlfriend found out and didn’t feel comfortable marrying someone who had that many children.
What really upset her is that he continued to donate even after he wasn’t a broke college student. She couldn’t wrap her head around why he continued to donate even after he got older.
The other family member only has one donor child. He’s married and has a family. Even though his wife was unhappy when she found out it was over 30 years ago and he only had one child.
38. Closed Doors
One of my wife’s cousins is adopted. Recently he was able to not only find his biological parents but also multiple siblings who were a 100% DNA match with him. He was an only child so the only thing he longed for was to find family and especially siblings. He was super excited to reach out and connect with them.
However, he didn’t get the response he was expecting. They told him not to contact them and they wanted nothing to do with him.
He discovered that he was born shortly after his biological parents divorced and because no one wanted him (including his siblings) he was put up for adoption. He’s absolutely heartbroken as he had always wished for a big family with tons of brothers and sisters.
He’s slowly processing things and realizing that blood doesn’t make someone your family. This makes me happy as we all love him very much and want him to realize that we’re his family.
39. Made For TV
I was adopted and always wanted to learn about the rest of my family. Through AncestryDNA I was able to find my biological brother. Not only did we go to the same college but we also did the same minor and major. In addition, we had a lot of other similarities.
I also met my birth mother and birth father and many of my other relatives. The local TV news network got wind of our story and decided to run a story on us.
AncestryDNA heard about this and decided to send us on an all expenses paid trip to Benin, Africa in order to meet the rest of the extended family.
When we met my birth father’s extended family my grandfather decided to buy everyone in the family a DNA test kit. My brother’s wife took the test and she found out that her dad wasn’t her biological dad.
Her mom confessed to her that she had a one night stand in Paris on vacation and had told no one about it. Everyone’s feelings have been hurt by the revelation but they’re looking to go to therapy to work through it because they want to keep the family together.
40. Surprising Name Change
My family and I had always believed that our last name had come from Ellis Island. The real story is that my great grandfather changed his name when he married my great grandmother because he wanted to cover up the fact that he left his other wife and his eight children.
This means that my grandfather has just discovered that he has eight half-siblings and we’re just finding this out now. It’s been over 80 years since my great grandfather’s deception and many of his initial 8 children have passed away.
However, it is cool to learn about all the new cousins I now have. Turns out one of them lives about an hour away and we’re going to meet up to have lunch soon.
41. Lots of Donations
My aunt’s husband was unable to have kids because he had undergone a cancer treatment in his younger days that left him infertile. When they decided to start a family they had agreed upon using a seed donor in order to get my aunt pregnant. The same donor was used for both of my cousins. Let’s call them D & C.
My cousin D and I both decided to use 23AndMe to see if we had any other long lost family out there. When looking at D’s results I showed up as a first or second cousin which made total sense.
But we also found that there were some people labeled as “first cousins or closer”. This meant that these people were more closely related to her than even I was.
This meant that they may have even been siblings.
D decided that she wanted to learn more. She initially thought that she may have a few half-siblings out there. She did not expect to find that she had hundreds of half-siblings!
The donor that her mother used was extremely popular in the 1990s and the donor company proceeded to use that donor to impregnate hundreds of women.
There are so many siblings that there is even a Facebook group that has been created for this donor’s children. Some of the siblings even have meetups from time to time. They eventually found their biological father. Turns out he lives in Switzerland with a family of his own.
42. Away In Korea
While my grandfather was deployed for the Korean War my grandmother had an affair back home in the states. Since my grandfather was deployed for multiple years, my grandmother was able to have the baby girl and put her up for adoption before my grandfather had even returned from the war.
After he came back they wound up having five sons together.
None of them were aware that they had an older sister. One of my dad’s cousins matched with my newly found aunt on Ancestry.com. We found out that she only lives about an hour away.
Since then she has begun to visit to get to know her brothers better. Unfortunately, her biological mother (my grandmother) passed away a few years ago and they’ll never have the opportunity to meet.
43. Building New Bonds
My father abandoned my mother and I when I was little and I have absolutely no relationship with him. I recently took the 23AndMe test to see if I had any other family out there. It turns out that the father who had left us wasn’t my biological father.
Fast forward a year and I get a message from a close connection on 23AndMe. A sister on my dad’s side had reached out to me.
Through her I was able to learn about my brother and my biological dad. I’ve met them a couple of times and we are starting to form a relationship.
They're actually coming over in a couple of hours to meet my wife and daughter. They’ve never met my father so I’m super excited for them to meet.
23AndMe absolutely changed my life. I already had a wonderful family but it has helped me connect with people I never would’ve met.
44. Just for Funsies
My best friend since birth went his whole life believing that he was ¾ white and ¼ Japanese. A couple of years ago he decided to take a DNA test to see if he was at risk for any hereditary diseases.
The results said he is 0% Japanese and a whopping 47% Native American. His mother is a chemistry professor who had actually cheated on his dad with her old lab partner.
Her lab partner moved back to the US (we live in England) before she could ever tell him that she was pregnant with their child.
This caused his parents to get a divorce all these years later. He no longer speaks to his mother but is still close with the father who raised him. None of his Japanese relatives on his dad’s side know.
His paternal great grandmother would always remark how much he looked like his father when he was young. Keeping the secret away from them was always a challenge.
He eventually found his biological father in the states who hasn’t had any other children and has since married another man. With no other kids he was super excited to find out he had a son.
My friend has also learned much more about his Native American roots and has become an official member of the tribe.
He also goes out to the states and spends summer with them. I’ve been watching this saga unfold from the sidelines and it has been crazy to say the least.