Posted on 06/10/2020 8:32:25 AM PDT by NEMDF
One of my sisters had put DNA in to 23 & Me sometime in the past (several years ago, maybe).
Over the past week, she has been notified of a person who just recently submitted DNA for testing. It turns out that this person seems to be our half-sibling.
There are 5 of us from same parents, all born from 1954 to 1960. The newly identified one seems to be related only to our father and born in 1964. I babysat for this person and two siblings, when I was around 10 or 11.
Their family moved away around 1969, but I have had some contacts with the family over the years, having also relocated to the same state. Now find out that this half-sibling has lived in the same city, and at one time, only 1.5 miles from me over some of the interim years, so very likely we have crossed paths in the past. The person no longer lives in this state or area.
Of our parents' generation, only the mother of the half-sibling is still living.
My sister has been in contact with the newly identified half-sibling, who never had an inkling that their dad was not the biological father.
I am trying to comprehend this news, and to develop some possible foreseeable outcomes, but this is very challenging on a cognitive level.
I am just wondering whether any FReepers have any experience with this type of situation, what happened with the relationships, advice on moving forward, etc.
Thanks in advance for any input or suggestions.
23 and Me seems like a creepy operation.
Could be. I don’t really know about it. It was my sister who has been a subscriber.
I know several people who are finding out that grams was a bit more freaky than they thought.
My father was a sperm donor in the late 50s or early 60s. But instead of donating at a sperm bank he cut out the middleman and made the delivery in person. The woman was married to an infertile man and wanted children, so my father stepped up. Nine months later she gave birth to twins, and that’s all our family knows about this. No idea who the half siblings are. My niece did the Ancestry.com thing, but apparently the twins never have. My guess is we’ll never know, and I’m fine with that.
This is actually not a rare occasion. Almost anyone who does a DNA test finds some surprises. You have a choice. Embrace it or dismiss it and put it out of your mind. Different people have different reactions and it’s okay. Personally speaking, I am enjoying the extra layers that DNA testing adds to my work in genealogy.
Yeah, I was contacted by a new hit on my Ancestry DNA profile. I had a new (2nd) cousin to me I had never heard of. They reached out to me said he was adopted and was searching for his biological family. I was able to get them in touch with my mom’s family this person ended being my mother’s long lost first cousin that was given up for adoption.
If your mother is still living, my suggestion to you would be to keep it to yourself....
My wife’s sister did the DNA testing two years ago. There was a hit in Seattle from 1971. It is my wife’s son that she gave up for adoption when she was 17.
The family grew by one and to call it a blessing for all concerned would be an understatement.
My mother and father, and the other father, are all deceased. Just the other mother is still living.
I think the new half-sibling is trying to determine whether or not to ask their mother about this.
We found a direct cousin. My father had no siblings. It had to have been my uncle. No idea, very weird.
I did Family Tree DNA to find out more about my family and discovered that I’m of Norwegian and Swedish lineage with a skosh of Finnish and German tossed in.
I also discovered my father was adopted.
That led me to get into Ancestry and then get into a lot of public records.
See, the DNA connected me to two half-first cousins and after everything was sorted out we figured out that my father’s birth parents were a one-time thing. My grandfather went on to have a family of his own and so did my grandmother.
Now I have two families of awesome cousins to visit after all this BS is over!
I love it! (-:
Have DNA tested by a competing lab and see what you get.
It has been argued that identical twins have separately had DNA tested with same company and get different results.
My ex brother in-law got a call one day and was told by a husband that his wife is his child from a old girl friend of his. Her Mother had revealed this to her and it was not through DNA testing. It has gone great for my ex-brother in law and he now has an expanded family who I have met at thanks giving get togethers.
A Friend of mine whose sister had a DNA test was told that a young man matched her DNA. It wound up that my friend was the father from a one night stand. It has gone very well for my friend.
My sister (unrelated to this new situation) had previously been told of an unknown “cousin” showing up, and with some research, we were able to determine that the person was actually the sister of our grandfather.
Something about the same “odds” for either relationship.
so your father cheated on your mother?....its hard to swallow....its not your half siblings fault though....
I always worry about the tracking issues related to DNA testing. But I found it enlightening when my aunt (mom’s sister) and her oldest daughter were tested. Come to find out that the long standing belief that my mom’s maternal side was Lebanese was instead Greek-Italian, probably Greek. There are a lot of hazy parts of our family history regarding what people called themselves back in the day.
It was maybe 10 years ago that I found out I had a 1/2 brother. He was dying of cancer and never new who his mother was. One of his daughters did an internet search and a lot of phone calls. In the end she was able to get ahold of me and of course I was surprised by the news. I was able to send her a picture of his mother and fill in some of the blanks. I am 76 and the last surviving member of our immediate family. He died maybe months later.
Since we actually knew this family and the mother and our father were social acquaintances, living in the same city at the time, we don’t have any reason to think that the info is not true. There are too many details of time and location, that wouldn’t match up, if not true.
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