Around this time every year, we turn our attention toward the patriarchs of our respective families and collectively ask: “What should we get dad for father’s day?”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-13497" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/FathersDayImage-300x141.jpg" alt="FathersDayImage" width="300" height="141" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/FathersDayImage-300x141.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/FathersDayImage-768x362.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/FathersDayImage.jpg 793w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> 
Today, we want to step back and ask just the opposite:
“Genetically, what do we get from dad?”
Our customer care team has received countless phone calls from women wondering if they inherited any DNA from their fathers. The questions pop up because women don’t inherit a Y-chromosome from their fathers, and thus do not receive a paternal haplogroup assignment.
But if you were planning to call about this, we have good news for you — you actually inherit half of your DNA from your father.
The DNA 23andMe uses for most of our features, including Ancestry Composition and DNA Relatives, is inherited from both of your parents as a mixture and reflects both of your parent’s ancestry. 23andMe looks not just at the sex chromosomes – the X and the Y – but the other 22 pairs of chromosomes, called the autosomes. You can read more about how DNA is transmitted through the generations in our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubq4eu_TDFc&amp;list=PLF9969C74FAAD2BF9">Genetics 101 series</a>.
That being said, the Y-chromosome is only inherited by males. That allows 23andMe to make a paternal haplogroup assignment for male customers. Paternal haplogroups are families of Y chromosome types that all trace back to a single mutation at a specific place and time, and can help customers wanting to learn more about their ancestral origins. Some of us like to think that the Y-chromosome is responsible for a father’s ability to look like he appreciates ugly ties, but scientists don’t see it that way.
Geneticists, historians, and genealogists have actually discovered remarkable information using Y-chromosome DNA. So, for example, my paternal haplogroup is R1a1a. This branched off about 12,000 years ago and among people, with Western European ancestry, it occurs in about one-third of Norwegian men and a quarter of men from the far northern British Isles. Knowing that does give me a better understanding of my own ancestry.
Let me explain why this is.
First, you need to understand how the Y-chromosome is passed down. As we mentioned above, almost all of your DNA is inherited as a mixture, however, the Y-chromosome is handed down directly from a father to his son. For this reason, there is no mixing, or as geneticists say — there is no recombination — when it comes to the Y-chromosome. This is important to note when learning about your ancestry through your Y-chromosome because it only reflects one branch of your ancestry – your father’s, father’s, father’s, father… you get the idea.
You can technically trace your Y chromosome all the way back to the earliest known human civilizations.
If we’ve emailed in the past this might sound familiar, but we should confess something to the rest of you before we go any further, Y-chromosome DNA does not provide a comprehensive view of your ancestry. Features that use DNA that you inherit from both of your parents can identify relationships or ancestry from any branch of your family tree.
Okay, back to Y-chromosomes. Soon after geneticists discovered how a Y-chromosome was inherited, word got around to the historians. Historians took note that at certain points in ancient history Y chromosomes changed at specific places. Soon, they started naming and ordering these changes using this information to <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-15199 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/MaternalPaternalLines-300x283.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="283" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/MaternalPaternalLines-300x283.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/MaternalPaternalLines.jpg 400w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
At this point, you are probably thinking that you haven’t heard a lecture this longwinded since your dad sat you down as a kid. But, before we wrap this up we want to explain why you should be interested in your father’s Y haplogroup. These days there are several hundred known paternal haplogroups if you are genotyped by the service we assign to you a <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/historys-mysteries-finding-answers-in-our-dna/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">paternal haplogroup</a>. You can treat this knowledge as a sort of genetic family crest passed down from an ancient time from each father to his sons. Women can infer their paternal haplogroup by having a male relative on your father’s paternal line. So that could be your father, brother, or paternal uncle or paternal male cousin.
You can read more on our blog about how paternal haplogroups can provide insight into more recent history. If you want more information about paternal haplogroups in general, visit our help center. And because we have undoubtedly forgotten to send a card: happy father’s day dad, thanks for our Y chromosomes.

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

A Father’s Day Ode to the Y-Chromosome

23andMe genotyped our one-millionth customer last week.
Today, we celebrate one million customers: #PowerOf1Million.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22571" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/06112015_OP_headline_v3-300x130.jpg" alt="06112015_OP_headline_v3" width="300" height="130" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/06112015_OP_headline_v3-300x130.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/06112015_OP_headline_v3-768x334.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/06112015_OP_headline_v3-880x383.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/06112015_OP_headline_v3.jpg 920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
However, one million is more than a number. It’s a turning point.
There are now one million people driving change. People are taking control of their data, taking ownership of personal information about themselves, and believing that knowing more about who they are can benefit society, not just the individual. 

Fifty years ago, doctors <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=330783" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">were reluctant to tell patients</a> if they had cancer. The world is different today.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-22578 size-large" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/1M_infographic_final_press-300x1024.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="1024" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/1M_infographic_final_press-300x1024.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/1M_infographic_final_press-258x880.jpg 258w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/1M_infographic_final_press-88x300.jpg 88w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/1M_infographic_final_press-768x2623.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/1M_infographic_final_press-scaled.jpg 749w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
One million customers ago, <a href="http://blogs.plos.org/dnascience/2012/11/08/direct-to-consumer-genetic-testing-a-new-view/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">attendees were shocked</a> at the annual American Society of Human Genetics conference when direct-to-consumer genetic testing services were announced. Now, they are asking to expand these services to more diverse communities.
One million customers ago, the world didn’t know how consumers would react to direct-to-consumer testing, but now studies show <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3777821/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">consumers don’t overreact</a> to their results.
One million customers ago, the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act in the United States didn’t exist and other personal data protection laws were not in place as many are now around the globe.
One million customers ago, Americans didn’t have direct access to health laboratory results. The United States recently mandated <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2014pres/02/20140203a.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">individuals can get laboratory test results directly from the laboratory upon request.</a>
The power of one million is a new milestone for us. However, the power of one is just as important. One person’s contribution to research at 23andMe informs over 230 genetic studies.
When people power research, the opportunity to change and radically accelerate the pace of new breakthroughs in the diagnosis and treatment of disease starts to become reality.
That’s the power of one million.

Power of One Million

They’ve been friends since the first grade, so Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, YouTube stars with their own daily show, decided to see if there might be some deeper explanation for their tight bond.
On a recent episode of their popular show <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/rhettandlink2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“Good Mythical Morning”</a> the two looked at their 23andMe results and then compared traits like earwax, Neanderthal percentages and whether they got a taste of soap when they grazed on <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/cilantro-love-hate-genetic-trait" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cilantro</a>.
With the kind of friendly and funny back-and-forth banter that has made many of their videos go viral, the two used their results as a way to illustrate a recent scientific finding showing that friends tend to be more alike genetically than strangers. The study by researchers at Yale and UC San Diego was published last year in the <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/07/10/1400825111" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>, and looked at 2,000 individuals. The scientists found that friends shared about 1 percent of their DNA – equivalent to what fourth cousins would share – versus strangers who shared very little.
The study is one of several now that have looked at how shared genetics may help people bond.
23andMe researchers also looked at this phenomenon but focused specifically on <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/23andme-couples-correlated/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">couples</a> with children. Our researchers found that, contrary to what some believe, opposites don’t in fact attract. The work just added to several studies done over the years showing that people tended to bond with those with whom they are more alike than those with whom they are more different.
Whether you are into the science or not, you should check out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/rhettandlink2/featured" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rhett &amp; Link&#8217;s show</a>. It&#8217;s a lot of fun.
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Good Morning Friend

When she was a kid, torture for one 23andMe customer was having to sit at the dinner table listening to her father chew his food.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/popcorn.jpg" alt="Little Girl Eats Popcorn" class="alignright size-full wp-image-22548" width="207" height="145" />


This was long before she knew the scientific name for what she was experiencing. She’d just grip her fork and try to fight the fury bubbling up inside as her dad finished his meal.
In a 23andMe community forum on the condition, the customer said she’d only known two other people with the problem; one was her daughter, the other her half-brother.
<a href="https://www.23andme.com/topics/traits/misophonia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Misophonia</a> – from the Greek meaning hatred of sound – is characterized by <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/23/please-stop-making-that-noise/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">feelings of rage</a> triggered by people munching, chewing, sipping and chomping their food. And it turns out there’s a genetic component to the little understood condition, according to research by 23andMe.

Many of those who have misophonia are unaware that it is a condition at all. They just know the sound of someone eating popcorn, or crunching down on an apple or smacking their lips sparks an overriding feeling of anger.
It actually isn’t just the sound of eating; a variety of sounds can spark rage in those with the condition, including the sound of other people breathing.
That can make interpersonal relationships a bit difficult especially if you have to ask another person to, you know, stop breathing.
Unusual as it sounds, misophonia is more common than one would imagine.
In an internal study of about 80,000 customers who have consented to research on the subject, 23andMe researchers found that about 20 percent said they were “filled with rage” by the sound of others eating. The researchers also found that the condition was more commonly reported by women than men.
And the study identified a specific variant associated with misophonia among people of European ancestry.
The variant is near the gene <a href="http://www.genecards.org/cgi-bin/carddisp.pl?gene=TENM2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TENM2</a>, which plays a role in brain development.
Learn more about misohonia <a href="https://www.23andme.com/topics/traits/misophonia/">here</a>.
&nbsp;

Something to Chew On

High school teacher Thomas Holterman wanted to show his students that some of the human story and our own family history are written in our DNA if we choose to explore it.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/AC-300x294.jpg" alt="AC" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22530" width="300" height="294" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/AC-300x294.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/AC.jpg 757w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Holterman is one of four teachers who won an award for lesson plans they developed as part of the <a href="http://iskme.org/media/press-releases/winning-teachers-announced-dna-learning-challenge-prize" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Genetics Learning Challenge</a>, sponsored by ISKME and 23andMe. Holterman was assisted by 23andMe&#8217;s academic program, which helps teachers incorporate genetic education into classroom instruction.
Holterman, a history teacher in Oak Creek Wisconsin, wanted his high school sophomores to use DNA testing to learn more about not just their own families’ histories but also human history.


Using 23andMe testing his students were able to learn more about their ancestry and use it to help create a “family history book” to trace where in the world their ancestors came from.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve done ancestry projects in the past, but I wanted students to dig deeper into their heritage,&#8221; history teacher Holterman told the <a href="http://www.oakcreeknow.com/news/a-spitting-image-of-themselves-b99474078z1-298987461.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Oak Creek Now</a>. &#8220;This is a journey of self discovery for them. We&#8217;ve lost so much of our personal history and now they&#8217;ll have information about their ancestors that they&#8217;ll be able to pass down the line.&#8221;
Some of the students plan to share their DNA stories at the <a href="http://www.discoveryworld.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Discovery World</a> in Milwaukee, WI.Check out what some of his students learned from testing.
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Don’t Know Much About History?

For decades, Jonathan Hay, a well-known hip-hop producer and Santa Monica-based PR maven, felt paralyzed by the mystery of his birth.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22539" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/jonathan-hay1-300x266.jpg" alt="jonathan-hay1" width="300" height="266" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/jonathan-hay1-300x266.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/jonathan-hay1.jpg 610w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
That all changed late last year after connecting for the first time with his biological parents, in part because of testing with 23andMe.
His story was recently featured in The Ledger in Central Florida, where his biological father, Ron Bradley, and half-brother, Ryan Bradley, live. His biological mother, Pamela Nicely, lives in Ohio.
Although he spoke on the phone with Pamela and Ron, Jonathan had difficulty meeting them in person.&#8221;They wanted to see me on Thanksgiving, and then they wanted to see me on Christmas, and I found myself making excuses,&#8221; Jonathan told The Ledger. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-22541" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Haymaker.jpg" alt="Haymaker" width="250" height="138" />
He and his parents will meet in person for the first time sometime later this year, but it will be on camera as part of a reality series Hay is putting together called <a href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/thehaymaker/jonathanhay/prweb12604331.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“The Haymaker.”</a>
Stay tuned for more about his reality show.

How I Met My Father

It was a cordial conversation, but as the phone call came to an end Mike Reed wasn’t sure how to sign off and then the man on the other end of the line did it for him.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22524" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_8768-300x236.jpg" alt="IMG_8768" width="300" height="236" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_8768-300x236.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_8768-768x603.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_8768-1024x805.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_8768-880x691.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_8768.jpg 1050w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“’Goodnight son,’” the man said.
“I was just floored,” said Mike.
The man on the other end of the phone was Dennis Fay, Mike’s biological father. The two connected for the first time using 23andMe. Initially Mike, a 60-year-old adoptee, had used 23andMe not to find his biological family, but just to learn a little bit more about his ancestry. He said he&#8217;d been frustrated when his kids would ask him about their ancestry.
&#8220;I&#8217;d just tell them we were &#8220;American,&#8221; he said joking.
But he was curious to learn more, so he tested. And learned more than he could have imagined. Not only did he find out his ancestry is mostly from the UK and Ireland, but testing connected him to a woman who turned out to be his half-sister. She in turn connected him to Dennis, who they ultimately figured out was Mike&#8217;s biological father.
The two met in person for the first time in May. Their meeting, and Mike getting introduced to his nine half siblings, was covered by the <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865628808/Murray-man-meets-son-he-didnt-know-he-had-60-years-later.html?pg=all" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Desert News</a>. Check it out.
Stay tuned for more about Mike and his family.
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Goodnight Son

Over the last few months 23andMe has assembled a virtual dream team to make up its therapeutics group.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04272015_BioPhoto_Robert_2x-229x300.jpg" alt="04272015_BioPhoto_Robert_2x" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22511" height="300" width="229" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04272015_BioPhoto_Robert_2x-229x300.jpg 229w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/04272015_BioPhoto_Robert_2x.jpg 650w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 229px) 100vw, 229px" />


Starting with the appointment of Richard Scheller, Ph.D. as chief science officer and head of therapeutics, 23andMe has filled out the team with some top-notch talent including another luminary Robert Gentleman, Ph.D., as vice president of computational biology.
The two have talked about the potential for using 23andMe’s novel research model to make some real breakthroughs and bring better treatments to people who really need them. As Robert recently said in an interview with Bio-IT World, most of us have friends or family who have suffered from illness.
“And the motivation for doing some of this stuff is really not personal in the sense [of being] about you yourself, but it’s about your family, it’s about your friends, it’s about people around you,” Robert said.

It’s hard not to hear these men talk about their work, as Robert did earlier this month with a writer from Bio-IT World, and not feel a sense of excitement about the future.
“I also want to emphasize, this is just a fantastic time to be a computational biologist,” he said.


Check out his interview <a href="http://www.bio-itworld.com/2015/3/17/23andme-therapeutics-wont-change-drug-discovery.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.

A Computational Biologist And A Gentleman

If it’s true that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, then Jimmy Cygler and Paul Leventhal are plenty tough.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_22516" style="width: 278px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22516" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul1-268x300.jpg" alt="Jimmy, left, and his brother Paul." class="size-medium wp-image-22516" height="300" width="268" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul1-268x300.jpg 268w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul1.jpg 449w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 268px) 100vw, 268px" />Jimmy, left, and his brother Paul.</div>
When both were infants, they were taken from their mother, Rebecca Kaufman, and raised worlds apart without knowing of the others’ existence.
With the help of 23andMe, the brothers recently found each other and were able to meet in person in early 2015.
Jimmy traveled from his home in Sao Paulo, Brazil to spend a week with Paul in Florida.
There the two men got to talk about their lives. Paul shared with Jimmy the little he knew about their mother, a brilliant but troubled woman. Jimmy was able to share with Paul a little about his improbable life.


“Stories of this kind, they are hard to believe,” Jimmy says. “Do you know the book ‘Life of Pi?’ A fantastical story, but it is nothing compared to my life.”

Paul downplays the drama in his own life – the separation from his mother, spending his first five years in a foster home, and growing up in a house where his father and stepmother were distant.
Paul has one fleeting memory of sitting on his mother’s knee – almost everything else he knows about her comes from what he’s gleaned from relatives. It wasn’t until Paul turned 18, after his father’s death, that he learned he’d been the product of an affair.
At first Paul pushed this information out of his head, but a few years later as a young man, a relative confirmed it was true.
“My life was turned upside down,” Paul said.


He had to live with not only his mother abandoning him but her family cutting ties with him as well. Jimmy thinks that Paul having to endure their mother’s abandonment and rejection may have been harder than the physical abuse he suffered.
Paul’s not so sure, but he knows that it affected him.


“I was angered by the fact that her brothers – two doctors and two lawyers – didn&#8217;t step up to the plate and save me from going to a foster home,” Paul said. “I must have been quite an embarrassment to them and my maternal grandmother, who was still living at the time.”


Rejected by his mother and her family, Paul spent years trying to find his biological father. That’s part of why he eventually got his DNA results with 23andMe. While he hasn’t yet found the identity of his biological father, Paul did find his brother Jimmy.
“My father had no idea who his mother was and finding his brother finally helped us solve that puzzle,” Jimmy’s daughter, Orly, said. “Now we know who she was.”


Her father agrees that it has helped.
“You know Nietzsche, ’that which does not kill us makes us stronger?’” Jimmy asks from his office in Sao Paulo. “Well, it is true for me.”


Paul disagrees with his brother on this point. What doesn’t kill you might make you stronger or it may damage you for the rest of your life.


Jimmy survived years of abuse as a child, life at a kibbutz, four wars, and three marriages. But he doesn’t feel damaged.


“I’m a rebuilt human being,” Jimmy says. “Really all the conditions of my life were anything but normal or positive, but the art of my life was to become a good human being.”


But it wasn’t easy.
When Jimmy first went to Israel at the age of 13, he began getting psychological help to work through his childhood trauma.
<div id="attachment_22476" style="width: 265px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22476" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-at-Kibbutz-255x300.jpg" alt="Jimmy as a young man on a kibbutz in Israel." class="size-medium wp-image-22476" height="300" width="255" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-at-Kibbutz-255x300.jpg 255w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-at-Kibbutz-768x905.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-at-Kibbutz-869x1024.jpg 869w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-at-Kibbutz-747x880.jpg 747w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-at-Kibbutz-1001x1180.jpg 1001w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-at-Kibbutz.jpg 1640w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 255px) 100vw, 255px" />Jimmy as a young man on a kibbutz in Israel.</div>
“When I came to Israel I was a pile of wreckage, and I had to do something to these broken pieces to reassemble a human being,” Jimmy said.
But not having all the pieces about his life made that “reassembling” a life-long process.
“The story with Paul is part of it, but just one part of it,” said Jimmy. “I’m one of nine brothers and sisters. I’m the only brother (related to) all of them and I spent my whole life searching for those missing pieces.”
Jimmy mentions connecting this process with what psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl wrote about in his book Man’s Search for Meaning.
“He says a person who has meaning can bear almost anything,” Jimmy said. “So this search for meaning became important to me.”
Part of that search has included trying to learn more about who he was, where he came from and to whom he is connected.
“First I had to gather all the pieces and then you start putting the puzzle together and you try to find meaning in the picture that emerges,” Jimmy said. “You might have the whole picture or, like me, just parts of it.”
Jimmy said he also learned that one small piece of information could change everything. Recently a relative in London found a travel document Jimmy’s father had used when Jimmy was a baby. On it was the name James Maurice Goldberg.
“That’s my name (from his birth certificate, before his father changed his last name), but I’d never known it before,” he said.
The name also helped him find out more about his father, Izrael Aron Goldberg. Jimmy’s father fled Poland before the start of World War II and settled in Peru. There he married a woman and had two children, a son Lucho and a daughter Alina, and converted to Christianity. He would later say that all the family he had in Poland died in the Holocaust. After experiencing financial troubles, Izrael left his family in Peru and moved to New York City.
“I do have a business card of his from his time in New York,” Jimmy said. “It says ‘I. Aron Goldberg, specialist in furs.’”
<div id="attachment_22477" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22477" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fotos-de-Fotos-116-300x123.jpg" alt="Jimmy's father's business card when he lived in New York." class="size-medium wp-image-22477" height="123" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fotos-de-Fotos-116-300x123.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fotos-de-Fotos-116-768x314.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fotos-de-Fotos-116-1024x419.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fotos-de-Fotos-116-880x360.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fotos-de-Fotos-116-1180x483.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fotos-de-Fotos-116.jpg 1581w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Jimmy&#8217;s father&#8217;s business card when he lived in New York.</div>
It was in New York that he met Rebecca Kaufman, who already had two sons, Paul and Jay, who were several years older than Jimmy.
Paul ended up in foster care and Jay was taken by Rebecca’s first husband. Rebecca was unable to care for Jimmy when he was born in 1949, and she was subsequently placed in an institution. Izrael, alone with his infant son, asked his estranged wife in Peru to come to New York with their two children.
“The interesting part of the story is that he didn’t tell her that he had a baby, me,” Jimmy said.
Jimmy’s half-sister, Alina, was almost 10 years old at the time. His half-brother, Lucho, was about eight. His sister remembers holding Jimmy as an infant, and falling in love with him. But it would be the last she’d see him for almost 55 years because the family quickly fell apart.
<div id="attachment_22478" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22478" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Israel-Alina-e-Jimmy-1951-300x282.jpg" alt="Jimmy with his father and his half sister Alina before he was taken to Brazil." class="size-medium wp-image-22478" height="282" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Israel-Alina-e-Jimmy-1951-300x282.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Israel-Alina-e-Jimmy-1951.jpg 408w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Jimmy with his father and his half sister Alina before he was taken to Brazil.</div>
Jimmy doesn’t know all the details but is aware that his father fought with his wife. She stayed just a few months before returning to Peru with her two children, leaving Jimmy and his father in New York. Izrael took Jimmy to Brazil shortly thereafter. Jimmy thinks his father suffered from survivor’s guilt and wanted to somehow reconstruct the family he lost in the Holocaust, which might explain why Izrael had three children from two different mothers. Jimmy’s father took the name Israel Cygler when they moved to Brazil. He also quickly remarried and that’s when Jimmy’s life turned into a nightmare.
“I thought I had a ‘normal life,’” Jimmy said about what things were like after his father remarried. “I had a father, a woman whom I thought was my mother, and four younger brothers. I was raised Christian, studied with the nuns at school and went to mass on Sunday. Had a first communion. That was my life. But what I thought was normal at the time was not normal at all. “I was maltreated and tortured as a kid.”
His stepmother once punished him by putting him in a hole under the house for a week without food. Another time she smeared hot pepper juice “on all the holes of my body.” And after getting caught playing with matches as a seven-year-old, his mother placed his hand into a gas fire to punish him. He was burnt so badly that it took years of surgeries and skin grafts before he could properly open and close his hand.
“My mother did that to me,” Jimmy said. “She was the real villain in this, but I didn’t know that. I didn’t know she wasn’t my mother, if I had known I could have dealt with that. But the only conclusion I could draw from those punishments was that I was a monster, that I deserved that because I was a monster. That was me at 13.”
Then the trajectory of his life changed when his father became critically ill and a stranger shared with him some surprising news.
“Out of the blue this young lad appears, speaks with me for half an hour and tore down the basis of my life,” Jimmy said. “He tells me ‘I’m your brother from another marriage. I’m from Lima, Peru. You also have an older sister, and your mother is not your mother. You were born to a woman in New York.’”
Jimmy was stunned. His father then told him it was all true.
“’Well son, now that you know you are a Jew, you are going to the land of the Jews, which is called Israel,’” Jimmy recalled his father saying. “I didn’t know anything about that country or those people. I didn’t know anything about the Jewish people. ”
He arrived in Israel in October 1962, and stayed for the next 27 years. “The country embraced me,” Jimmy said.
He lived in a special area of a kibbutz for teenagers who didn’t have parents. They were from 30 to 40 different countries and many had been orphaned or displaced by World War II. Jimmy received good care, including intensive psychological treatment to help deal with the emotional wounds from his stepmother’s abuse.
“That’s why I say I’m a rebuilt human being,” Jimmy said.
He served as a soldier in four wars, was married, has two sons and a daughter, divorced, married again, and had another daughter, and then divorced again.
“And then I met a Brazilian girl and fell in love and went to Brazil,” he said.
Jimmy reinvented himself &#8211; the twice divorced veteran who was a father of four went to college, married again, started another family, and now he runs a very successful business. But he was always looking, “desperately looking,” he says, for the pieces to the puzzle of his life. He was able to find his four half-brothers from his father’s family in Brazil. His stepmother told them he died in the war. With the help of a Peruvian businessman, Jimmy tracked down the phone number of a woman in Lima he thought might be his sister, Alina. He called her, said his name was Jimmy and that he was from Brazil.
“My dear little brother Jimmy, I have been looking for you all my life!” she replied. Jimmy pauses to control his emotion as he recounts meeting his sister.
“From this moment I felt love for her,” he said.
Jimmy traveled to Peru to get to know his sister, and she shared a blurry old photo she had of him being held by his biological mother. She also told him her own memory of holding him as an infant. She never forgot that and spent her life looking for him, never knowing how she could find him.
<div id="attachment_22479" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22479" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Goldberg-e-Rebeca-Becky-Brooklin-1949-225x300.jpg" alt="A blurry photo of Jimmy being held by his mother Rebecca. The only photo he has of his mother." class="size-medium wp-image-22479" height="300" width="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Goldberg-e-Rebeca-Becky-Brooklin-1949-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Goldberg-e-Rebeca-Becky-Brooklin-1949-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Goldberg-e-Rebeca-Becky-Brooklin-1949-660x880.jpg 660w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Goldberg-e-Rebeca-Becky-Brooklin-1949-886x1180.jpg 886w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Goldberg-e-Rebeca-Becky-Brooklin-1949.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />A blurry photo of Jimmy being held by his mother Rebecca. The only photo he has of his mother.</div>
“She kept that memory her whole life, always wondering what had happened to me,” Jimmy said.
She also told him about their father, his financial problems in Peru, some of his history fleeing Poland and losing all of his family in the Holocaust. And he learned about being born in New York, but he still didn’t know anything about his biological mother. Jimmy says he and Alina became very close.
In 2013, his sister was diagnosed with cancer, a year later she died.
“Alina was a wonderful woman,” he said.
Losing her so soon was a huge blow to Jimmy. Jimmy’s story took another turn in early 2015 when his daughter, Orly, got her 23andMe results. She saw a match with Paul, thinking he was a cousin. But when she shared with Jimmy Paul’s date of birth and how much DNA he shared with Paul, they concluded that Paul and Jimmy were brothers.
In that first meeting, both men were overcome as they hugged and shed tears.
“It was very emotional,” Jimmy said. “We’re kind of old guys and I could see in his eyes how much he had suffered. I know what I went through and I came out a real strong person – a leader, a teacher and a family man. We both survived.”

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