"A Guy I Went To High School With Reached Out To Let Me Know His DNA Results Show That He’s My Half Brother": 18 People Who Took A DNA Test And Found Out Something Truly Unexpected From It
Recently, I asked the BuzzFeed Community members to tell us the wildest thing they learned after taking a DNA test. And well, the responses truly ran from "that is surprising" to "OMG, now that I didn't see coming!"
So without further ado, here is what people discovered:
1.
"It wasn’t me but my sister. We have a very Italian last name and my dad and grandmother always told us stories about our family coming over from Italy and our relatives still in Italy. My sister one day calls me hysterical, she did a DNA test and came back 0% Italian. Zero. Percent. And it came up with matches to other people as half siblings. She confronted my parents, and apparently my parents had split up for a bit and my mom was with another guy during that time, but then got back together with my father. And they supposedly didn’t know but that’s how my sister found out she had a different dad."
—Anonymous
2.
"I received a DNA kit for Christmas, found out that my first cousin is actually my half sister. My mom had an affair with the man I always thought was my uncle, but it turns out he’s my biological father. My mom doesn’t know I found out but it gave me a lot of insight into my childhood."
—Anonymous
3.
"My mother's biological father was not the man who raised her and who I knew as my grandfather. Her biological father was actually her mother's first husband, who was a literal super spy who has been written about in history books. I got in contact with his son, my half uncle, who has been wonderful, and who has filled me in about his father's wild life."
—Anonymous
4.
"This happened to a coworker a few years ago. She knew her dad was her stepdad and that her bio dad was some guy named 'Dave' and she knew a little bit about him. She was told that 'Dave' just didn't want to be a father.
She did the DNA test more to find out her ancestry, than anything else. Well, after she posted her results, she instantly matched with a bio sister, then found her bio dad, who wasn't 'Dave,' and a bunch of other family — no one knew each other existed, including her actual bio dad. They all have embraced her with open arms. It's been incredible to watch her heal with her new family."
5.
"Found out none of my seven siblings and I have the same father. We are all in our fifties and sixties now. Wow, Mum! LOL."
—Anonymous
6.
"I found out my mother had an affair and I'm the result of it. She took the secret to her grave. I'm still trying to figure things out and who the man was."
—Anonymous
7.
"My dad and his entire side of the family had always been a mystery. My mom had two potential guys it could've been. We actually managed to track down one of them and did a DNA test, but it wasn't a match.
When I was 28, I did a 23andMe, and matched with a biological uncle! I reached out to him, and long story short, we were able to determine that his younger brother was my dad. We did a cheek swab to confirm and it was a 99.9999% match. My dad isn't one of the people my mom thought it could be; they met once, hooked up, and never saw each other again. His entire family accepted me with open arms, and I happily have an awesome stepmom, two more younger siblings, and an amazing extended family. The absolute wildest part, though? My dad lived in the same city as me, and had for all the 15 years I lived there. At one point, we even lived on the exact same street, but missed each other by about a year. SO CRAZY."
—Abby
8.
"After my parents passed away, through research on Ancestry.com, I found out that my stepfather lived across the street from my family when I was conceived, so my stepfather might actually be my biological father."
—Anonymous
9.
"My Dad found out at age 50 that his father was not his biological father. His mom never told him and still tried to deny it after he showed her the DNA results."
10.
"Found out I was related to a classmate — we also both had been given up for adoption."
—Anonymous
11.
"My mother had gotten pregnant with me right after high school in 1985. She had always believed her on-again, off-again boyfriend was the father. They got married and then he joined the Navy — so we would both have health benefits. However, he was dishonorably discharged after developing a drug problem and he and my mother divorced. My mother remarried and her new husband adopted me when I was 5, as the man who always thought he was my father gave up his parental rights.A few years ago I decided to take an AncestryDNA test out because I was curious about my heritage. I was really shocked when I got a paternal match to someone I’d never heard of. Bio dad never responded to my message through the site, but my aunt remembered him hanging around during that time. What’s funniest to me is that my mother categorically denies it, but it's impossible because it's DNA 😂."
—Anonymous
12.
"A few months ago, a guy I went to high school with reached out to let me know his DNA results show that he’s my half brother. I have a sister that’s 43 — as well as a younger brother (37) and younger sister (27) — this guy is 40, I’m almost 40. When my mom was pregnant with me, she was told about a 'one-time affair' from our father when he was publicly threatened by the lady’s husband in our very small town and knew it would get back to our mom. But we didn’t know we had a half brother from that affair until 40 years later!"
13.
"After taking an ancestry test, I was contacted by a man from Jersey City who had a genetic link with me asking more about my family because he is adopted and wanted to learn about his birth family.
After some light digging, I find out that he is a sibling of my paternal grandmother, who (up until this point) was an only child! During WWII, my great-grandfather was drafted in the Navy and sent to Italy. He met a woman there, relations happened, and he went home. Few months later, Italian woman finds out she’s pregnant, she comes to Jersey City to find him, can’t find him and has the baby in the States and surrenders him to an orphanage, and goes back home to Italy."
14.
"After being raised as an only child in a small town in Utah, I found that I have two half brothers and four half sisters. Turns out I was the only one who didn't know. I found out at the age of 52, and it was the most shocking news ever."
—Anonymous
15.
"I found a cousin that I didn’t know — and at that point I knew all my cousins. Turns out it was my aunt’s son she gave up for adoption in the '70s. Long story short we ended up meeting him. He and my aunt are very close now. It doesn’t always turn out that way, but it did for them. I am so happy for my aunt and cousin."
—Anonymous
16.
"Found out my late grandfather had a secret son who lives less than half a mile away. I told my dad as I felt he should know, but he's decided not to make contact. My dad's siblings and parents all died in awful, tragic circumstances, and given his long lost brother is nearly 80, he doesn't want to make contact and burden him with such a horrific story."
—Anonymous
17.
"Not my story but of someone in my hometown. After taking a DNA test a woman found out that she had a brother out of state. And after doing some more digging, they found that not only was he her biological brother but that the man she thought was her brother was not. The two were born in the same hospital and had been switched at birth. The two men eventually wound up meeting one another, but claimed the family they had been raised with as theirs."
—Anonymous
18.
"That I’m 100% that bitch."
WMG
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
