In the early 1990s when he was on the cusp of turning 50, Paul Dodds didn’t have a midlife crisis, he had a midlife surprise.
Paul learned that the man he thought was his father wasn’t.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20446" alt="Paul Dodds - Young Man" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Paul-Dodds-Young-Man-262x300.jpg" width="262" height="300" />
“It kind of made sense because although he was always there, he never bothered with me or my brother (he wasn’t his father either),” said Paul, about his brother who is two years older.
<h6>Searching with 23andMe</h6>
Although he’d never been very close to his dad, it never occurred to him that there might be a reason for that because as he said, “I never knew anything different.”
But the revelation propelled Paul on a two-decade-long search to find his biological father, a quest that only ended after 23andMe helped him find a half-sister and his father’s name. Now he wants to tell people about it.
“I would like to pass on the good things that have happened to me through 23andMe,” Paul said.
<h6>The War</h6>
His story starts in Wales just after the end of the Second World War. Although he didn’t know it, Paul, it turns out, was one of tens of thousands so-called “War Babies,” the offspring of liaisons between American servicemen stationed overseas during the war.
<div id="attachment_20447" style="width: 213px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20447" class="size-medium wp-image-20447" alt="The photo of the man Paul wrongly thought was his father. " src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Paul-Dodds-4-203x300.jpg" width="203" height="300" />The photo of the man Paul wrongly thought was his father.</div>
After he was born, Paul’s mother married a sailor with the UK Merchant Navy named Len. But unbeknownst to Paul – or Paul’s older brother – Len couldn’t have children. The family lived in Cardiff. In 1968 Paul immigrated to Canada where his father had moved after leaving his mom.
“He met me at the train and spent a day with me then that was about it, said Paul, who worked as a steel fabricator.
<h6>A Surprise</h6>
More than 20 years later, doctors contacted Paul about his dad, who had died from very rare cancer. The doctors wanted to know a little bit more about his father’s life and the family’s health history. As Paul scrambled to find out whether it ran in the family, he got a jolt when talking to one of his uncles in England.
“I called my uncle in Newcastle, and when I started asking questions, he immediately said, ‘Paul, Len is not your father,’” he said. “That is how I found out.”
<h6>The Search Begins</h6>
So Paul started looking for the identity of his biological father. He also learned that he and his brother were really half-siblings so he started searching for his brother’s father as well.
“Part of the reason it became so important to find him is that it was deliberately hidden from me,” he said.
His mother gave him false leads, at one point telling Paul that his father had died when the ship he was on sunk. At other times she was simply evasive. He wasn’t sure why perhaps she didn’t know herself, Paul said.
<h6>An Old Photo</h6>
But there were two bits of information that his mother gave him that turned out to be true. His mom once told Paul he had “Jewish blood.” She’d also told Paul that his biological father had known his stepfather during the war when his stepfather had been in the British merchant navy.
But at the time none of that information helped Paul. Instead, he spent years chasing down false leads, and that went on even after his mother died. Soon after she passed away, one of Paul’s daughter’s found an old photograph of a man in a U.S. Army uniform.
<h6>Searching Records</h6>
Paul believed at the time that the man in the photo might have been his father, so he spent years figuring out the unit the man served with by looking at the insignias and ribbons on the uniform. He then tried to cross-reference that with units stationed in the area at the time of his conception. Then he winnowed down names until he thought he had the right man. There had been writing on the back of the photo, which he had analyzed. But all of that painstaking work, which included searching military records in Britain and the United States, all came to naught.
<h6>Turning to DNA</h6>
It wasn’t until last year that Paul finally got a break when he tested with 23andMe. First, he got a DNA Relative match with a first cousin, who helped him track down a woman, who they believed was his half-sister. She recently tested with 23andMe.
Both Paul and his half-sister were ecstatic about finding the connection.
Paul learned his father, Leon Rossien, had been a merchant marine who served on the USS Cristobal, a troopship. Leon was in port around VE Day in May of 1945. Paul believes he may have been conceived during the celebrations around the end of the war.
His sister filled him in on his father’s life. After the war, his biological father had been a jeweler. His father, who died in 1999 not long after Paul started looking for him, also liked to bet on horses and was married four times. Paul learned he had two other half-sisters, who passed away.
“I’ve seen some photos of him and there are some resemblances,” said Paul. “The same long chin and eyebrows.”
He hasn’t yet met his half-sister in person, but they’ve spoken several times on the phone.
“She’s excited by this,” he said.
As for Paul, he has felt a whole range of emotions.
“All these things have fallen into place at last,” he said. “Good things are happening. Thank you 23 and me.”

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

War Baby

The ashes of the Holocaust left very little for Peter Istvan Kovacs to sift through in his search for his ancestors. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20406" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Peter-Kovacs-Photo-300x282.jpg" alt="OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA" width="300" height="282" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Peter-Kovacs-Photo-300x282.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Peter-Kovacs-Photo-768x722.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Peter-Kovacs-Photo-880x828.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Peter-Kovacs-Photo.jpg 991w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> 
There were very few Hungarian Jews who survived the war and exterminations. Among those murdered was Peter’s great grandfather, beaten to death in 1941 for refusing to convert to Christianity. Also lost to extermination camps and violence were innumerable relatives, he said.
<h6>“My grandmother had 11 brothers and sisters, and they all had many children,” he said. “We were a big family once.”Lost to War and Genocide</h6>
That family is gone now.
“I didn’t have any siblings and thought I had only two real cousins,” said Peter, who is a college student with an interest in anthropology and genetics. “We’re not a big family anymore.”
Wanting to know more about his ancestors Peter decided to get tested with 23andMe. He was interested in his ancestry and there just wasn’t anyone to ask.
“I’m interested in my roots,” he said.
<h6>Using DNA Testing to Explore Ancestry</h6>
Peter had heard about 23andMe and thought he might learn more about his ancestors.
On both his father’s and his mother’s side of the family, the war and Holocaust left very few survivors. It was much the same for all the Jews of Hungary, where the number of Jews before the war totaled about 6 percent of the country’s total population. After the war number of Jews there only amounted to about .1 percent of the total population.
For many people like Peter, who lost ancestors in the Holocaust it’s very difficult to piece together their family’s past. Over the years organizations have formed to help both survivors and their descendants piece together those missing pieces of their family history.
Those are important resources, but Peter also wanted to make connections using 23andMe.
“The day when I got my results has become a very important event for my life,” he said. “I just got a &#8220;family&#8221; back. At least that&#8217;s how I feel now and I&#8217;m so happy.”
<h6>Connecting to Cousins</h6>
He learned more about his ancestry, which includes both Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish roots.  And he found more than 1,000 23andMe DNA Relative matches – third and fourth cousins. More recently Peter found second cousins and one first cousin, using 23andMe. Those connections helped him find whole branches of his family that he didn’t know still existed. He was able to connect with many of his closest connections, learning that some of his relatives had escaped Hungary before and after the war, and immigrated to both Israel and the United States.
“They are very nice,” Peter said. “ Seeing their success and meeting them gives me new hope in life. And me who never had any siblings now has so many cousins.”
He also learned that one of his great grandfathers on his father’s side, Henrik RosenblÃ¼th, survived the death camps. Those relatives were able to fill him in on family history he would never have learned otherwise.
“It makes my heart warm. They survived,&#8221; Peter said. &#8221; I really cannot express my feelings, but it&#8217;s just beautiful.&#8221;
23andMe provides genetic testing services for informational purposes; your results may or may not help you to search for or identify relatives or family members.

Out Of The Ashes

Libby is a geneticist for NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency responsible for the management and conservation of living marine resources. One of her responsibilities is to genotype endangered species of fish, tracking generations of families. That’s right, fish have families. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20356" alt="Libby_Amsterdam" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Libby_Amsterdam-225x300.jpg" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Libby_Amsterdam-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Libby_Amsterdam-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Libby_Amsterdam-660x880.jpg 660w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Libby_Amsterdam-885x1180.jpg 885w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Libby_Amsterdam.jpg 1578w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />They have pedigrees. The irony is, Libby does not.
She turned to 23andMe to help her explore the health and family history she couldn’t learn about any other way. 
Adopted in 1963, Libby never knew a biological relative until her children were born. She had scant information regarding her birth parents. She knew her birth mother was born in Rupert, Idaho, but no names of immediate family members.
“I would search for clues, maybe find a name, but would not really know if I was on the right path because I had nothing to go on,” she said. “It was disappointing”
Libby only had a cursory family health history. Like many adoptees, Libby has never had a family medical history to share with a doctor to help guide her care.
Several years ago, Libby was able to get her original birth certificate with her birth mother’s name and birthplace.
“I kind of sat on that for a while, did some searches and nothing came up so I thought it was just another dead end.”
Then Libby became a mom.
The search for answers was not just about her but for her children as well. She has a “family”, the loving couple that raised her. What she is looking for is “history”.
“I guess it happened when I had kids of my own and I could see the resemblance when I look at them. And other people will say ’Oh, yes. She IS your daughter.’ But then I would look in the mirror and say, “Who do I look like?”
Libby had no family photos. No faces to look at and compare.
A colleague told Libby about 23andMe. She immediately sent in a test kit for herself. The information she received amazed her. Soon, she ordered test kits for her husband and children.
On the ancestry side, 23andMe matched her with a predicted third or fourth cousin.
“One of the family locations she listed was Rupert. The hair on the back of my neck stood up: this could not be a coincidence,” Libby said. “ It is difficult to convey the heady feeling of finally discovering a biological relative after all these years of searching and wondering.”
Not long after, an even closer match, a woman named Dianne who turned out to be Libby’s birth mother&#8217;s second cousin.
“She was kind and welcoming enough to help me fill in many of the names that she knew, and pointed me to a wealth of published family histories to fill in names of my other ancestors.” Libby said, who learned she had nine first cousins from Dianne.
Libby knew that her mother’s pregnancy had been kept secret from the families of her birth parents. Libby learned that her mother had gone to great lengths to conceal the pregnancy by attending college in Hawaii while pregnant and then giving birth in Oregon. Her birth parents were college students at the time and this was after all, 1963.
“My existence came as a surprise to Dianne – she had really only been searching for information about her father&#8217;s side of the family and did not expect to uncover a new cousin,” Libby said. “I am a secret no more.”
Libby has now started sketching out her biological family tree. She only has a few branches but it is growing. She can now trace her maternal line back five generations!
“What 23andMe has done for me personally is nothing short of a breakthrough, and the best part is that my story just keeps growing.”

A Secret No More

Daniella had always pestered her father about details of their ancestry, but apart from a few bits and pieces he never gave her a clear picture of their family background.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20247" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Daniella-300x300.jpg" alt="Daniella" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Daniella-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Daniella-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Daniella-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Daniella-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Daniella-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Daniella-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Daniella-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Daniella-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Daniella-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Daniella.jpg 1152w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
When he began his battle with terminal cancer, Daniella decided that it was time to learn more about their ancestry together using 23andMe.
Both Daniella, a co-host of a local TV show in Brooklyn, NY, and her father had always shared a love of science. Testing allowed them to bond over the science of DNA. It also allowed Daniella to learn more about her family.
What she knew about her family only went back two or three generations and that most of that information was hazy at best.
“I had been asking my Dad to write down what he knew of our family tree. The names he knew. The stories he knew. This foray into 23andMe was intended to supplement that and wake us all up to how connected we are to people we did not know and places we did not know and makes us all feel deeply that we are all woven into the human tapestry.”
Daniella saw 23andMe offered as a way to make her father feel that connection, so she shared her own results with him.
As a chemical engineer, the science behind genetic testing piqued her father’s interest. His 23andMe results came in just as the Christmas 
holidays were beginning.
“We are really good at being a family. I knew that we would all be getting together looking at some old Kodak slides. I just thought that 23andMe would just be another way for us to feel connected, for him to feel connected. It was pretty powerful.”
They went through the results together. Of course, they found his Italian heritage, which they knew, but there was a Middle Eastern line that ran through his DNA as well. They linked their accounts and compared their DNA. It was obvious what came from her Mom and where she aligned with her Dad.
“We always connected through science. Both of us loved new technology, the latest innovations and discoveries,” Daniella said. “It was a real intellectual connection and with 23andMe here was something we could really discuss and see how it would enlighten us.”
Going through their ancestral results prompted Daniella’s father to talk in detail about his childhood and family ancestors. The process had the desired effect &#8211; he could see himself in the bigger picture not just a man fighting cancer.
Even after the holidays as he would remember something more he would send her an email. One of his last correspondences included another treasured piece of family history shared &#8211; his great grandmother’s last name.
“The timing of getting the results was impeccable. I wanted to make him feel part of a really big family. And it worked. My mom said “You had a very special connection and this allowed you to find your own closure.”
Results not typical. Results vary due to unique differences in each individual’s DNA. On average, users receive at least one or two results that may help with proactively managing health. 23andMe’s services are not a substitute for professional medical or diagnostic advice.

The Ties That Bind

A friend of Gwen Schroeder once told her: “Don’t cheer from the sidelines if you can run the race.”<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20235" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Gwen-1-214x300.jpg" alt="Gwen " width="214" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Gwen-1-214x300.jpg 214w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Gwen-1-842x1180.jpg 842w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Gwen-1-768x1076.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Gwen-1-731x1024.jpg 731w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Gwen-1-628x880.jpg 628w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Gwen-1-scaled.jpg 1828w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 214px) 100vw, 214px" />
So when her father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Gwen laced up her shoes.
<h6>The First Step</h6>
A post-production manager who works in New York City for the TED Conferences, Gwen signed up to run a marathon to raise money for the<a href="https://www.michaeljfox.org/"> Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research</a>.
Since that first marathon, Gwen has run in three more, even strapping a camera to her head as part of the effort. In the process, she has raised over $20,000 for Parkinson’s research.
Not content with just fundraising on her own, Gwen has also joined clinical trials for Parkinson’s research and become a mentor for Team Fox, the grassroots fundraising arm of the<a href="https://www.michaeljfox.org/"> Michael J Fox Foundation</a>.
<h6>Participating in Research</h6>
On top of all that, Gwen signed up with 23andMe specifically to help in the company’s<a href="https://www.23andme.com/pd/"> Parkinson’s Research Community.</a>
“For a while, I avoided even thinking about sending a kit off,” she said about testing. “But the more I considered it, the more I felt like this was a tiny step towards a greater understanding of Parkinson&#8217;s disease. My participation could someday help another family. So, I took a deep breath, spit into the little jar and sent it off.”
But once she decided to test, Gwen said her concerns evaporated.
&#8220;Once I made the decision to do it I was fine,” she said.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t curious about what she would learn, but much more comfortable with it. And for Gwen what was most important was helping the Parkinson’s community.
“The knowledge that I’ve furthered research makes everything I’ve learned about my genes far less scary.”
Results will vary due to unique differences in each individual’s DNA. On average users receive at least one or two results that may be relevant to proactively managing health. 23andMe&#8217;s service does not diagnose disease. 23andMe is not a substitute for professional medical or diagnostic advice.

Getting In the Race

23andMe offers people the chance to explore their own DNA, but for Jason Gullickson, that wasn’t enough.
Jason wanted to touch his data. He wanted to hold it up to the light and turn it around. He wanted to make it tangible.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20194" alt="jason g" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/jason-g-300x199.jpg" width="300" height="199" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/jason-g-300x199.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/jason-g-768x510.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/jason-g-880x585.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/jason-g.jpg 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
A programmer who likes to make things, Jason is fascinated with what he can do with data, and for him, the magic happens when the data takes form.
“As a programmer, I am always dealing with complex data in a two-dimensional format on a computer screen,” he said. “I am always looking for ways to make that data easier to understand and digest using 3D modeling.”
<h6>Visualizing The Code</h6>
Using new 3D printer technology Jason likes to translate data into objects.
“Instantaneously when it comes out of the printer, I can understand so much more about the thing I have designed,” he said.
That is what went through his mind while he looked at his 23andMe data.
Jason works with code, using it to control the function of computers. In a way that’s how he sees DNA working in the human body. The three billion letters that make up the human genome are also a code. That code controls the production and function of proteins in the body and makes us what we are.
“Genetics has been something that’s been really interesting to me because I view DNA like a programming language for building cells. So I find it interesting to use that complex data as a method of encoding to create a three-dimensional display.”
<h6>Seeing 23andMe Data</h6>
23andMe tests about more than half a million locations in a person’s genome. The results are used to create customized reports and they help 23andMe give individuals detailed information about their genetic ancestry. But customers can also download their raw data – all the As, Ts, Gs, and Cs that make up the different single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that 23andMe tests.
At the start, Jason and his wife were motivated to join 23andMe to trace the family’s ancestry. So Jason, his wife, and daughter all sent in their 23andMe kits at the same time. When the results started coming in Jason recognized a familiar challenge. Jason wanted to transform the data into objects that can be held, compared and appreciated. One of the fascinating aspects of 23andMe is when family members get tested they can share their results.
Jason downloaded the 23andMe reports for his family and says with a laugh, “I thought, this is a lot of data.”
<h6>Using the Data</h6>
This time, however, the data was not just numbers. It was his family’s personal genome. He wondered if he could find a way to map their DNA onto something that was not just an on-screen visualization. Again he wanted to create something that could be touched and held.
Now he is toying with imprinting his and his family’s DNA results onto vases, even overlapping the information to create a genetic portrait of his family.
“The idea is to print one of these vases from each of my family&#8217;s gnome data and compare how the differences and similarities manifest themselves visually and texturally in the physical, tangible results,” he said.
He hopes that efforts like his to visualize his and his family’s genetic data will offer people a way to see themselves as both unique and connected. He’s even made available for free as an open-source document the <a href="https://github.com/jjg/3dna" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">computer code</a> to generate a three dimensional model of your own genetic data.
23andMe provides genetic testing services for informational purposes; your results may or may not help you to search for or identify relatives or family members.

23and 3D

Megan Runge has dark curly hair and the kind of smile that invites you in.
Perfect for a curious college student with a summer job scooping gelato at the beach in Florida.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20027" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Megan-Photo-1-225x300.jpg" alt="Megan Photo 1" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Megan-Photo-1-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Megan-Photo-1-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Megan-Photo-1-660x880.jpg 660w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Megan-Photo-1-885x1180.jpg 885w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Megan-Photo-1.jpg 1452w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />
It was that same openness and curiosity that drew her to 23andMe. An adoptee, Megan didn’t know anything about her biological parents or her family history.
“I wanted to know about ME,” she said about her decision to get tested.
<h6>Using 23andMe</h6>
Megan has the kind of features that offers a hint of mystery, and for years she’d get questions about her background; questions she couldn’t answer.
Then she tested with 23andMe.
“I counted down the days until the results came in and when they did I almost cried,” said Megan. “After 19 years of not knowing anything, and then just from spitting in a tube, I have a pile of information all about me.”
<h6>Learning More</h6>
All of it was new to her. She spent hours poring over her results fascinated by both the important and seemingly trivial details.
“I learned a lot of information … which was very valuable because I really don&#8217;t know anything about my biological background,” she said.
But for Megan it was looking at her genetic ancestry that most surprised her.
“When I was younger everyone just assumed I was Hispanic,” Megan said smiling. “I assumed I had some sort of mixed ancestry, but I never knew.”
<h6>Mixed Ancestry</h6>
Now she knows that she is part Irish, part Scandinavian and part African. And she has some Native American ancestry as well.
“I thought it was so cool,” she said.
When she first got her results she was fascinated.
&#8220;I remember when I first got it I looked at it every day, multiple times a day,&#8221; Megan said. &#8220;I still look at it from time-to-time just to, I don&#8217;t know, just to see it.&#8221;
23andMe provides genetic testing services for informational purposes; your results may or may not help you to search for or identify relatives or family members.

This Is About Me

Amy’s story begins: “Once upon a dime…”
And then, as she says, “It just gets weirder.”<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-19797 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Amy_K_Marshall_2012-300x277.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="277" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Amy_K_Marshall_2012-300x277.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Amy_K_Marshall_2012-768x708.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Amy_K_Marshall_2012-880x811.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Amy_K_Marshall_2012.jpg 1022w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Amy, a writer and director of a small library in an Alaskan fishing village, always knew she’d been adopted. That wasn’t news. But her birth story certainly was.
Amy came into this world on November 16, 1964. Mr. and Mrs. A.T. House found her before dawn lying on the floor of the “Grover Bungalow Launderette” at Baker and 19th Street in Lawrence, Kansas. Amy had been left on an old white blanket. Near her was a pay phone with a dime left on top.
“Apparently so somebody could call the minute the child was found,&#8221; Police Lt. Dick Stanwich told the local paper at the time.
All this was news to Amy. She shared with us her unbelievable story and how she is using 23andMe to help fill in some of the blank pages in her life.
Now with children of her own, she peeked into this chapter for the first time on Christmas Eve of 2012 when she opened up a parcel that arrived that day from the Kansas State Department of Vital Statistics. This early Christmas gift was her original birth certificate.
“I had been adopted in 1965 by two wonderful people, but I had always wondered about my &#8220;real&#8221; name,” Amy said. “We stared at that envelope for quite awhile. Then I opened it. And, what I found broke my heart.”
Like a lot of adoptees, she had fantasies about her birth parents and how they might have reluctantly given up their child at the hospital with a kiss to the forehead. But seeing the birth certificate, with parents listed as “unknown,” and learning she’d been abandoned at a Laundromat pained her greatly. She immediately wanted to know more.
“I telephoned the launderette, which still exists, and left a message that began with: ‘Hi, this is going to be the weirdest phone call you&#8217;ve ever received&#8230;’&#8221;
Amy also called the local newspaper, the small but well-respected Lawrence World-Journal. She was lucky to find a helpful reporter who looked through the newspapers archive and found a few old clips that documented her arrival into this world.
A photo of one of the nurses holding her was on the front page with the headline:<a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=CUMyAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=PuYFAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=3884%2C4105340"> “New Infant Found At Launderette.”</a> The next day she was again page one with the story:<a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=CkMyAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=PuYFAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=5020%2C4207773"> “Amy Getting Plenty of Care.”</a>
Everything in those articles was news to Amy. She never knew.
“On Christmas Day, I called my parents and told them I&#8217;d received my pre-adoption birth certificate,” Amy said. “There was a prolonged silence followed by my mom&#8217;s voice. ‘Oh.’ Then, there was more silence. Then: ’And what did you find out?’”
She told her mom what she learned. There was more silence on the line.
“‘But, you knew that story,’” Amy told her mom.
Yes, her mom protested but: “I didn&#8217;t know THE NAME of the launderette!&#8221;
&#8220;’Mom!’&#8221; Amy said laughing.
“Then, I could tell she was crying,” Amy said.
Her parents had kept the name the nurses had given her and then she told Amy:
“‘We didn&#8217;t care where you came from! We never wanted you to feel unloved or unwanted because we loved you and wanted you so badly!’”
Amy knew how lucky she’d been to be adopted by her mom and dad, but she still had questions. The Lawrence World Journal reporter Chad Lawhorn had forwarded her the old articles and then wrote up her story. She hoped someone would come forward with information about her birth parents.
But the stories of her birth also gave her comfort too. She’d been surrounded by love and cared for by strangers.
“My world became a little warmer, and tragic,” she said.
Amy learned the name of the attending physician that night, Dr. Godwin, and found out he was still alive. The reporter called him. Dr. Godwin remembered Amy.
“Just a couple of months ago, I was thinking of her,” Godwin told the reporter. “I wondered what ever became of that baby. This is good because that has sort of hung over me for a while.”
Although the couple who found her had passed away, their children were still alive and they knew her story. She talked to their daughter, Debbie House. Debbie told Amy more details that left her speechless.
Amy had been found on the exact one-year anniversary of Debbie’s grandfather Wallace Grover’s death. He died in the morning of a heart attack in the exact spot where Amy was found.
“A year to the day. Maybe even to the hour,” said Amy. “And here, Wallace&#8217;s daughter walks into the Laundromat on the anniversary of her father&#8217;s death in the place and finds &#8230; a crying baby.”
The details she’d gleaned up to that point told her so much, but she decided to test for 23andMe to learn health and ancestry information that couldn’t be found in paper records.
One of her<a href="https://www.23andme.com/ancestry/relfinder/"> DNA Relative</a> matches sent her an enigmatic note “nice to meet you. I may have the answer to your Lawrence connection.&#8221; That helped her find a surname that she believes will help in finding out more.
“I think I&#8217;m closer than ever to figuring out who the people in the earliest moments of my life were,” said Amy.
She also feels closer to the woman who was her birth mother.
“I would love to say thank you to her. That’s the gist of it. She had choices. The mother always has choices, and she made a great choice. I hope it got better for her. I really hope she found peace. I wouldn’t want her to go through life thinking something bad happened, because it didn’t.”
Not long ago, Amy went back to Lawrence Kansas. She met with Dr. Godwin. She wanted to see the spot where she’d been found. The laundry was closed up, but she put her hand up to the glass door and it swung open. So she went in.
“It was rundown and pretty well trashed,” Amy said. “The sign on the door states that the place is being re-plumbed and will re-open &#8220;soon.&#8221; I have my doubts … but I got to see where the phone had been … and, I know this is going to sound cheesy as all get-out, but I left a note to ‘Amy&#8217;s Mom’ and taped a dime to it. It&#8217;s just a ‘Hi, I stopped by’ kind of note, but also that I wanted to leave the offer of communication open. Yeah. And then I stuck it to the bulletin board and pulled the door shut behind me.”
23andMe provides genetic testing services for informational purposes; your results may or may not help you to search for or identify relatives or family members.

Amy’s Story

Some people gather in book clubs to chat over plot twists in the latest novel they’ve read, but Susan Clark and her friends meet in a cozy room off the kitchen at the Sea Ranch Lodge on the rugged coast of Northern California to talk about the twists and turns in their own DNA.
“It’s been a real bonding experience,” said Susan, an architectural historian. “This is something that’s just totally new, that also has a real social element to it. None of us are experts. Most of us have some sort of advanced degree, but we’re babies at this.”
<div id="attachment_19693" style="width: 300px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19693" class="wp-image-19693 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Sea-Ranch-Group-290x300.jpg" alt="" width="290" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Sea-Ranch-Group-290x300.jpg 290w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Sea-Ranch-Group-768x795.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Sea-Ranch-Group-989x1024.jpg 989w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Sea-Ranch-Group-850x880.jpg 850w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Sea-Ranch-Group-1140x1180.jpg 1140w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Sea-Ranch-Group.jpg 1383w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px" />Clockwise from top right, Doug Patterson, Morgan Lambert, Kalynn Oleson, the group discussing their results, Sharon Albert and Susan Clark.</div>
<h2>Shared Experience</h2>
Susan and her friends started exploring personal genetics about a year ago. She and her husband read an article about 23andMe and decided to try it. Their results came in just as they were on a short vacation with two other couples in Mexico.
“We were so excited by the volume and variety of information that we couldn’t stop talking about it,” she said. That’s what got the other couples interested.”
It didn’t stop there.
<h2>Uncovering Stories</h2>
When they returned, Susan and Tom talked so much about their ancestry and health results that other people in the tight-knit community decided to get tested. Sea Ranch is a beautiful but relatively isolated enclave on the coast, and the people who live there – many of them retired – rely on each other for a lot. They gather frequently for different activities, from wine tasting to bridge to salon discussions and writing groups. This became another interest in drawing them together. Susan soon found herself at the center of discussions about genetics.
“We’d joke about our Neanderthal percentage, claiming that we now had an excuse for our bad behavior,” she said.
Or they’d support each other on more severe issues about potential health risks.
<h2>Health Data</h2>
Sharon Albert, one of Susan’s friends at Sea Ranch who’d tested after finding 23andMe on her own, was always anxious about looking at her risk for Alzheimer’s disease. (Customers can choose to “unlock” their results for Alzheimer’s or leave them locked and unopened.)
Susan told Sharon: “Let’s sit down on a Friday afternoon with a stiff drink and look together.”
That’s what they did, and fortunately, Sharon didn’t have any of the variants associated with higher risk. In fact, Sharon jokingly said her results were “kind of boring. There’s nothing wrong with me.”
But for Sharon, the lack of any big genetic risks felt empowering.
“For me, it turned things around,” she said.
Instead of looking for something in her genetics that explains away health issues or other things, she’s looking at how she lives her life.
“It made me realize that I’m in control of my health,” she said.
<h2>Starting a Conversation</h2>
Now, she’s quantifying much of what she does. She monitors her sleep, her diet, and how much exercise she gets each day. She’s controlling her own fate, she said.
At first, it was just Susan, Sharon, and one or two others who’d bring their iPads and laptops to the lodge to discuss their 23andMe results over coffee, but not for long. The group quickly grew to six and then ten. At one point, a waitress serving breakfast got sucked into a conversation and was so intrigued she eventually got tested. Soon, the group began having regularly scheduled meetings.
During their meetings, they discuss what they’ve discovered about themselves or offer insights from articles they’ve read on the latest genetic discoveries.
Sometimes, what they talk about is just for fun. Sometimes it’s serious. Sometimes, it’s just plain fascinating.
Morgan Lambert learned, to his surprise, that he had hidden African ancestry.
<div id="attachment_19694" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19694" class="wp-image-19694 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/group-shot-300x286.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="286" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/group-shot-300x286.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/group-shot-768x731.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/group-shot-1024x975.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/group-shot-880x838.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/group-shot-1180x1124.jpg 1180w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Sharon, standing, and Susan discussing their 23andMe results.</div>
“I don’t have any obvious African features, so I was intrigued,” said Morgan, who asked 23andMe if maybe there was a mistake.
There wasn’t.
For the retired Marin County school superintendent, the results offered him a connection to a father he’d never known.
“A way to learn a little about who he was,” Morgan said.
<h2>Family Stories</h2>
For Doug Patterson, a regular group member, the test helped him dig up a fascinating family history. It took a little legwork, but through 23andMe, he connected with a third cousin on his mother’s side of the family in Buckingham County, Virginia.
Using 23andMe’s DNA Relatives, he exchanged messages offering up information about his mother’s family, the Catletts, and his great-grandmother. He didn’t know much about her; her last name may have been “Steger” or “Steiger.” Doug learned from one of his DNA cousins that the name was “Steger” and that the Steger family had descended from Hessians, or German mercenary soldiers used by the British during the Revolutionary War. The largest prisoner-of-war camp was in Albemarle County, next door to Buckingham, and after the war, about 5,000 of these soldiers ended up settling in the colonies. He was a descendant of one of those soldiers.
“Learning this was an adventure for me,” he said.
Kalynn Oleson tested out of curiosity about her ancestry. An adoptee, she didn’t know much about her biological family, but she also didn’t feel compelled to find them.
<h2>An Adoptee&#8217;s Journey</h2>
In her career, she has worked in collections for banks and other financial institutions and is good at finding people. It wouldn’t have been difficult for her to find her biological mother. Although her name was on her birth certificate, she never tried to contact her.
“I never felt the need to,” said Kalynn. “I also figured I’d be intruding.”
Although Kalynn was born in Washington, her biological family’s roots were in Michigan. Her biological mother had been in Washington State during WWII to work as a nurse when she became pregnant. Although Kalynn never felt she needed to connect to her biological family when she was younger, she wanted to know more about her ancestry as she grew older.
“But I was cautious,” she said.
She had basic information about her mother, but that’s it. She tested with 23andMe and very quickly learned she had two half brothers, one of whom passed away within a few weeks of her discovering his existence. The other she recently wrote a letter to.
“It was tortuous to write,” she said.
How do you explain to someone that they have a 67-year-old half-sister they never knew they had? However, these new contacts taught Kalynn that her grandfather and grandmother had come from Purmo, Finland.
For Susan, who started all this, each of the stories from her friends has given her a chance to understand more about genetics and the potential for learning more about yourself. She’s also discovered that sometimes what might appear insignificant for others—a slightly increased risk for some health condition or a distant cousin match—can be very important for you if it concerns your own results.
“It has also given me a chance to be proactive regarding my health risks,” she said.
She learned that she has a risk for deep vein thrombosis, something for which she had no family history.
“But since I received the results, I am far more conscientious about getting out of my seat and moving around on a plane. It&#8217;s a small, simple act, but for me, it might prevent what could be a big problem.”

Stories — Page 18