It wasn&#8217;t until she was 30 that Bonnie dared to search for the details of her birth.
An adoptee with loving parents and a brother and sister she adored, Bonnie said she never asked for more information about her origins because she thought she couldn&#8217;t.
&#8220;I didn&#8217;t ask questions because somewhere along the way, I think I was taught not to ask for too much,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Or maybe I was afraid.&#8221;
So Bonnie waited until after her first son&#8217;s birth to track down her birth certificate. On it, she learned of her biological mother&#8217;s name but nothing more. It would take almost three decades, two more sons, and a lucky connection on 23andMe before Bonnie filled in the details. She learned how she came to be born and found the links to establish deep relationships with newfound family.
&#8220;It was a surprise when it happened,&#8221; said Bonnie, who never expected to find any relatives.
<h6>Lucky Coincidence </h6>
The first surprise came a few years ago after she opened up her 23andMe results. She&#8217;d purchased a kit with the hope of finding more about her health, but within a day of getting her results, she instead found a half-brother on her birth father&#8217;s side. It turned out her brother had tested at almost the exact same time as Bonnie. She took the lucky coincidence as an omen that waiting all that time was all meant to be.
Both Bonnie and her brother were shocked by the connection, but he was more so because he&#8217;d always thought he was an only child.
It turned out their father — who died many years before Bonnie and her brother connected — had had an affair with Bonnie&#8217;s birth mother. Bonnie was born and put up for adoption, a secret kept from him. 
<h6>Nature and Nurture</h6>
While her brother didn&#8217;t have the details, he shared with Bonnie more about their father, a learned man interested in art. That explained a few things for Bonnie, who has a BFA in drawing and photography. She was also part of the first generation in her family to go to college. In addition to her path toward higher learning, her sons also have an academic bent. One is a medical doctor, the other a patent attorney, and her youngest son is a computer science major at Ohio State University.
&#8220;I can go into nurture versus nature quite well now,&#8221; Bonnie said. &#8220;Religion and politics: taught. Sense of humor, talents, intelligence: inherited.&#8221;
She believes her interest in art may have come from her father, who was somewhat of an artist himself.
&#8220;These inherited traits are why I mentioned the success of my children,&#8221; Bonnie said. &#8220;I always gave my husband credit for our kids&#8217; intelligence, but now I know it is inherent on both sides!&#8221;
<h6>Putting it Together</h6>
Connecting with her brother opened up the door into her paternal side. Still, that initial conversation with him also gave Bonnie little bits of information — places and names — that helped her piece together her mother&#8217;s identity. Within a few days of that initial conversation, Bonnie connected with her birth mother and found out she had two sons, two more half-brothers for Bonnie.
&#8220;The oddest thing about the off and on &#8216;search&#8217; for my birth mother through the years is that her name never came up in it,&#8221; Bonnie said. &#8220;I looked through vital statistics for hours to no avail. But the day I found a birth brother on 23andMe, I suddenly found a trail to her.&#8221;
After the initial connection, Bonnie spent time cultivating relationships with both sides of her family. By chance, her birth mother and birth father&#8217;s family lived not far from each other in California. Their proximity has allowed Bonnie to visit both sides of her family and, over the years, build authentic family connections.

 <figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-style-default"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="728" height="1024" src="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_2983-728x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-28701" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_2983-728x1024.jpg 728w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_2983-213x300.jpg 213w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_2983-768x1080.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_2983-626x880.jpg 626w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_2983-839x1180.jpg 839w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_2983.jpg 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 728px) 100vw, 728px" /></figure>
 
<h6>Mother and Daughter</h6>
She&#8217;s learned more about traits she shares with her mom — mannerisms, a love of books and learning, and she now understands more about what led to her adoption. There was never any question they were mother and daughter. The two look almost identical. They also share many of the same mannerisms, even some of the same likes and dislikes.
Bonnie said the connection helped her, but it has given her birth mother solace. Her birth mother was just a young college student when she became pregnant. She&#8217;d been alone and fearful. She never told her parents or her siblings about what happened. She also had to sign an agreement that she wouldn&#8217;t look for her daughter after the adoption.
&#8220;She struggled that year,&#8221; Bonnie said. &#8220;She loved my father and lost him, lost me, got married, and moved.&#8221;
She never forgot about Bonnie, and she sometimes agonized over giving her up.
&#8220;She had some healing to do,&#8221; Bonnie said.
When the two met in person the first time, Bonnie brought a small picture book. In it, she&#8217;d included photos from her life, her family, and her history to show her how happy she was.
&#8220;It helped,&#8221; Bonnie said.
<h6>Bonding</h6>
Meeting in person and meeting Bonnie&#8217;s sons also eased her mind that she&#8217;d made the right decision.
&#8220;It especially helped to meet us all and know that it had to be this way (her giving me up) to make the family I have,&#8221; Bonnie said.
Her birth mother had told her two sons when they were in high school about giving up a daughter, so they knew they had a sister out there. When Bonnie found them, they bonded.
&#8220;They accept me with love,&#8221; she said.
Bonnie has also bonded with one of her nieces, Ashlee, and continues to stay in touch with her brother on her father&#8217;s side. Bonnie&#8217;s siblings have also grown to embrace this bigger family.
&#8220;They know how happy I am that I got to grow up with them because I tell them all the time,&#8221; she said.
Bonnie said she felt so lucky not just to have the family she grew up with but two mothers, and two more families who opened their arms to her.
&#8220;It would have been nice to have this birth family relationship more years ago,&#8221; said Bonnie. &#8220;But maybe &#8230;  I wouldn&#8217;t have had the peace and joy that I do now. (And), hey, 23andMe wasn&#8217;t around back then to help me.&#8221;

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

23andMe Helps Adoptee Find Birth Family

By Amanda McCorquodale
For Christmas a few years ago, Tami Hawley’s brother gave her a 23andMe kit, a life-changing gift that ultimately connected her to the son she’d given up for adoption more than three decades ago.
“I was 17 and scared,” she said. “No one ever knew.”
When she received the gift, Tami had been writing a novel based on her family history and her experience of having to give up her son as a teenager, but she hadn&#8217;t finished it. She didn&#8217;t know how to write about that part of her life. That’s why the gift, even before she made the connection, had been so important.
“I just remember opening the 23andMe kit, crying and saying, ‘This is why my book’s not done,’” she said.
&nbsp;

 <figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-style-default"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="640" height="480" src="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Tami-and-Matt-2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-28699" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Tami-and-Matt-2.png 640w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Tami-and-Matt-2-300x225.png 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /></figure>
 
<h6>A Match</h6>
Finding her son took time. For nearly two years, Tami opened up emails from 23andMe alerting her to new DNA relatives with bated breath. After a while, however, she stopped looking at the emails as regularly. But one day, she decided to take another look and saw she had new DNA Relatives on 23andMe. Among her matches was as predicted “Son.”  
“I was sitting on my living room couch and for five minutes, I just sat there in shock,” she said.
Tami saw his name for the first time. When she told her husband the secret she had kept for so long, he immediately urged her to direct message her son from her 23andMe account. 
<h6>The Note</h6>
Tami did, but she didn’t hear back right away. About a month later, on her son’s birthday, she looked him up on Facebook and wrote him a note:
I&#8217;m so glad that after 32 years, no one and nothing stands in the way of me wishing you a Happy Birthday.
“I wanted him to know that every April 26, I thought about him,” she said.
Her son, Matt, replied within 30 minutes. Initially, the two began texting and then having long conversations comparing their similarities and discovering their differences. 
<h6>Meeting for the First Time</h6>
Tami had been living in southwestern Connecticut when she had Matt, who was then adopted and raised in New Jersey. He now lives in Boston, about an hour and 20 minutes away from Tami in northeast Connecticut. They met for the first time in September of 2019.
“We met at a Starbucks where we sat for over an hour and talked non-stop,” she said. “I noticed that we had the same mannerisms with our hands. In fact, I eventually sat on my hands because I didn&#8217;t want to make him uncomfortable by seeing we were doing the same things.”
It was one of many traits the two share, Tami said.
“It has been eye-opening to realize how many things really are linked to genetics,” she said. “For the first time, he’s around people that look like him. I see me in him. I see each of my brothers. It’s fascinating.”
<h6>The Best Gift</h6>
Matt’s 23andMe kit was also a Christmas gift from his girlfriend.
“I think one of the big questions he always had was whether he was wanted,”  Tami said. “My hope is that finding out that he was wanted has had a very positive impact on him.”
Tami admits it’s been bittersweet to hear how wonderful Matt’s adoptive mother is and recognizing that as strong as genetics are, so much of our personalities are rooted in how we grew up.
“I’m a very emotional person and he definitely is not, at least not outward,” she said.
At one point she asked him if he was glad he took the test and connected with her and he reassured her by saying, “Absolutely, not even a question.” 
<h6>Bringing Joy </h6>
After their initial meeting, Matt and Tami got together about once a month until the pandemic stopped most in-person gatherings.
“First, he met my husband, brothers, and my best friend. Then he met my mother and my nieces literally the day before everything shut down,” Tami said. 
In August, the extended family and Matt got together again for an outdoor picnic. 
“Right now, we connect about once a week,” she said. “I would like it to be more often, but I&#8217;m trying not to overwhelm him.”
A year and a half after their first meeting, Tami said she finds herself looking at the selfie they took together.
“His smile is so big and both of us just look so happy,” she said. “It has been a roller coaster of emotions from fear to guilt to sadness to anger, and countless more. But I wouldn’t trade knowing him for anything.”
It has brought her happiness.
“The joy has been something I never imagined I could have, something I thought for so long I wasn’t deserving of,” Tami said. “It’s hard to put into words, in fact, but when I allow myself to fully experience it, it is a beautiful sense of wholeness and freedom, not just from finally being able to start living the truth of who I am, but in finding this amazing human I can tell the world is my son.”
Amanda McCorquodale is a freelance writer. Her work has appeared in Gourmet, Miami Magazine, and Mental Floss. She previously worked as an associate editor at the Huffington Post and as an Arts and Culture Editor at the Miami New Times. She lives in New York with her family. Previously she wrote a three-part series on her own DNA journey with 23andMe.

A tree in the snow in a forest that is lit up like a Christmas tree.

23andMe Christmas Gifts Reunite Mother and Son

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-28683 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/customer-panel-v1-300x170.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="170" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/customer-panel-v1-300x170.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/customer-panel-v1-1024x580.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/customer-panel-v1-768x435.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/customer-panel-v1-880x498.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/customer-panel-v1-1180x668.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/customer-panel-v1.jpg 1996w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
This holiday, 23andMe invited three customers to join us virtually and share their DNA discovery stories. Hearing from customers first-hand reminds us of how our work impacts people’s lives. It also gives us a glimpse into our customers’ experience.
This year we heard from Jason, Kimberly, and Lynn. They each shared their stories and described their plans to expand their (virtual) holiday tables this year in order to fit their newfound relatives.
Customer Lynn Mendelson summed up the feeling each had when she said that neither the pandemic nor the quarantine changed the joy of finding family this year.
“Nothing can dampen this discovery,” Lynn said.

 <figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-style-default"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_8997-1024x768.png" alt="" class="wp-image-28681" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_8997-1024x768.png 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_8997-300x225.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_8997-768x576.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_8997-880x660.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_8997-1180x885.png 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_8997.png 1280w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>
 
<code></code>
<h6>Finding Family</h6>
It was Lynn who kicked off the discussion by greeting 23andMe employees with an enormous smile. She explained that as an adoptee who knew almost nothing about her <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-health-ancestry">health and ancestral background</a>, every detail in her health and ancestry reports thrilled her. But nothing compared to the feeling of shock when she logged into her 23andMe account and saw the words, “predicted niece” written on top of a new message. It was her first connection to her birth family.
Lynn’s next few months felt like a dream as her niece told her about her birth family for the first time. This culminated with her meeting her eight brothers and sisters, and even more extended relatives. You could hear the love in her voice as she described her new family and teared up while sharing a touching video showing the first time she met them.
Lynn, who’s now in constant contact with her siblings, feels as if she’s grown up with them her whole life saying:
“What’s changed for me is that my husband and I now have this massive, loving &#8211; I can’t tell you how loving they all are &#8211; family.”

 <figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-style-default"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="551" height="1024" src="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jason-Payne-e1608065570172-551x1024.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-28682" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jason-Payne-e1608065570172-551x1024.jpeg 551w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jason-Payne-e1608065570172-161x300.jpeg 161w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jason-Payne-e1608065570172-768x1427.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jason-Payne-e1608065570172-473x880.jpeg 473w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jason-Payne-e1608065570172-635x1180.jpeg 635w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jason-Payne-e1608065570172.jpeg 1188w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 551px) 100vw, 551px" /></figure>
 
<h6>Finding a Birth Father</h6>
Like Lynn, Jason, a 24-year-old from California, found family on 23andMe. But Jason described something different. He said for him growing up without a father, left him with a feeling of emptiness.
When he first used 23andMe he said he initially was disappointed because he didn’t see any close matches listed on his DNA Relatives. That changed within a month of first opening his reports when Jason received an email from a woman who said that, according to 23andMe, she was his aunt!
Jason laughed as he explained, with admiration, the impressive online sleuthing she navigated in finding him. Together they worked out the identity of his father.
During the panel discussion at 23andMe Jason proudly shared photographs of his first meeting with his father. He said they both are excited to build a  relationship. The impact of making this connection was profound, Jason said.
“I feel like I’m now really me, the best version of myself and I’m complete.,” he said, “I feel like I can take on anything.”

 <figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-style-default"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="604" src="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Katelyn-Kimerbly-1024x604.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-28690" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Katelyn-Kimerbly-1024x604.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Katelyn-Kimerbly-300x177.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Katelyn-Kimerbly-768x453.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Katelyn-Kimerbly-880x519.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Katelyn-Kimerbly-1180x696.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Katelyn-Kimerbly.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>
 
<h6>Finding the Silver Lining</h6>
Kimberly, the third customer on 23andMe’s panel, echoed the feelings of both Jason and Lynn when she expressed the sense of gratitude she had at finding relatives.
Kimberly was adopted from Korea to a small family living in Colorado. She didn’t know anything about her birth parents in Korea and said when she tested with 23andMe she was hopeful to learn something but didn’t have high expectations of finding relatives.  That might explain why she was absolutely shocked when she saw a predicted half-sister at the top of her DNA Relatives list.
Kimberly described feeling a roller-coaster of emotions as she reached out to her newfound sister, and then waited three days for a response.
Her sister, Katelyn, who was also adopted shared photographs of her parents and grandparents from Korea. Katelyn had previously connected with them through her adoption agency.  She then tried to help Kimberly find her own place in the family.
Katelyn’s investigation ended with life-changing answers, which she revealed to Kimberly on a phone call. After asking Kimberly to sit down, Katelyn told her that she wasn’t Kimberly’s half-sister, but Kimberly’s niece. More, the people in the photographs Katelyn had previously shared were her siblings and parents who had been looking for Kimberly for over 30 years.
Kimberly described feeling overcome with emotions during her first Facetime conversation with her family in Korea. Today with the help of Google Translate and a friend who speaks Korean, Kimberly said she has been able to continue building her relationship with her large Korean family. She also told us she’s become incredibly close to Katelyn, her niece and initial 23andMe match, who feels more like a sister she’s known her entire life than a newly discovered niece. Kimberly concluded her story saying:
“This is certainly my silver lining in this dark cloud of a global pandemic.”

23andMe Employees Hear from Customers 

November is <a href="https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/community-health-outreach/national-diabetes-month">National Diabetes Awareness Month</a>, so we wanted to share Bob&#8217;s story with you about how learning about his genetic risk for type 2 diabetes gave him the motivation to take charge of his health.
By Amanda McCorquodale
When he retired from nursing Bob Rodriquez felt great, but he thought he should do more to be healthier. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/BobRodriguez.jpeg" alt="Bob Rodriquez smiling." class="alignright size-medium wp-image-28613" width="215" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/BobRodriguez.jpeg 458w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/BobRodriguez-215x300.jpeg 215w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 215px) 100vw, 215px" />
 At his yearly check-ups, his fasting blood sugar registered in the pre-diabetic range of 106 to 110, and that concerned him. 
“ I always thought that if I stay active and don&#8217;t do anything in excess, maybe I won’t develop diabetes,” said Bob, who lives in Pleasant Hill, California.

<h6>A Wake-Up Call</h6>
But it was when he read his 23andMe Type 2 Diabetes report showing an increased likelihood of developing it that really motivated him to make a big change. 
“It was a wake-up call,” Bob said. “I could no longer pretend that just continuing my usual habits would necessarily keep me from developing diabetes.” 
In light of his results, Bob decided it was time to do something to try and lower his likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes. 
“I started looking deeper into it with resources like the National Institute of Health, which says that as you get older, your risk of diabetes increases,” says Bob, who recently turned 65. 
<h6>Taking the First Steps</h6>
After reading his <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-health-ancestry" target="_blank" rel="noopener">23andMe health report</a>, Bob learned about steps he could take to reduce his likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes. 
“There were (many)  modifications you could make,” he said. “I learned that if you just reduce your weight by 7 percent, for example, it would be a fairly significant reduction in risk. I found that really encouraging.”
During his nursing career, Bob worked in critical care, and he saw patients who suffered from diabetes for years. Often those people developed heart and kidney disease. He also saw patients who had kept their diabetes in check with diet and exercise. It was a lesson on how important a role these habits play in your health. 

<h6>Setting a Goal</h6>
At 5’ 7” and 189 pounds, Bob said he had a body mass index (BMI) of 29.6 which is deemed overweight, according to the NIH. 
“And you’re considered overweight when it’s above 25,” he said. “Going below 25 BMI felt unattainable to me. Yet I felt I could drop 7 percent of my weight and reduce my risk of developing diabetes. I even decided to push for a 10 percent weight loss.”
In addition to exercising more, Bob made some significant and consistent changes in his diet. 
“My eating habits aren&#8217;t too bad but there are some foods that I definitely needed to eliminate,” he said. “I love white rice, for example, but it gives such a spike to your glucose, so I finally transitioned to brown rice.”
<h6>A Few Small Changes </h6>
Instead of eating three big meals a day, Bob now eats a big breakfast and then four smaller meals throughout the day. He also became more mindful when eating, opting not to stand and eat a sandwich, for instance, but to sit down and really focus on what&#8217;s on the plate. 
“It made a difference when I could concentrate on just eating and chewing,” he explains. “It lets my body and mind recognize and feel the satisfaction of having something to eat.”
Bob has already lost 15 pounds but he&#8217;s experienced a small plateau in his progress. 
“I watched a great episode of Nova about how once you gain weight, the body wants to stay there,” he said. “Their point wasn’t that you shouldn’t try, but that it’s not a sprint, it&#8217;s a marathon. It’s important to make fundamental lifestyle changes to persist through the plateaus.”
<h6>Health in the Time of COVID</h6>
His weight loss journey started at about the same time as the shelter-in-place precautions due to the coronavirus pandemic. He admits that staying home took away certain temptations such as stopping for fast food while running errands or getting together with friends for drinks and meals at restaurants. The ample time at home also gave him the chance to cook and prepare foods of healthy portions and ingredients. 
“For me, the timing has actually been fortunate,” he said. 
<h6>Taking Time to Give Back</h6>
In addition to losing weight and minimizing his diabetes risk, Bob has been spending the months of shutdown finally organizing his garage as well as volunteering with the American Red Cross.
“My wife and I did get deployed during the latest fires here in Northern California,” he said. “Most of the evacuees were placed in hotels. As American Red Cross nurses, we were able to provide health services to those clients over the phone to adhere to coronavirus precautions.”
As for his weight loss, even though he’s already met the 7 percent goal, he’s not going to stop there. Learning of his increased likelihood for type 2 diabetes, got his attention and motivated him to lose weight, Bob said.
“While getting to my goal of 10 percent weight loss is more difficult than I anticipated, I’m not discouraged. I continue to work on the lifestyle changes I’ve made and feel that if I continue to stay the course, I will hit that goal.”
Amanda McCorquodale is a freelance writer. Her work has appeared in Gourmet, Miami Magazine, and Mental Floss. She previously worked as an associate editor at the Huffington Post and as an Arts and Culture Editor at the Miami New Times. She lives in New York with her family. Previously she wrote a three-part series on her own DNA journey with 23andMe.

How a Health Report Became a Wake-Up Call for Healthier Habits

This time last year, pre-pandemic, 23andMe brought together a panel of inspiring women to raise awareness about breast cancer.
The message was clear. Knowledge — about risks, treatments, and the resources available to help — gives you the power to take charge of your health. It’s a message that goes well beyond those who face breast cancer. A lot has changed during the last year. But if we&#8217;ve learned anything from this pandemic, it’s that knowledge can empower you to stay healthy.
<div id="attachment_28559" style="width: 181px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28559" class="wp-image-28559 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Laura-Speaking-Last-Year-at-23andMe-171x300.png" alt="Laura speaking during a breast cancer awareness panel at 23andMe." width="171" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Laura-Speaking-Last-Year-at-23andMe-171x300.png 171w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Laura-Speaking-Last-Year-at-23andMe-583x1024.png 583w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Laura-Speaking-Last-Year-at-23andMe-768x1349.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Laura-Speaking-Last-Year-at-23andMe-501x880.png 501w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Laura-Speaking-Last-Year-at-23andMe-672x1180.png 672w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Laura-Speaking-Last-Year-at-23andMe.png 1083w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 171px) 100vw, 171px" />Laura speaking at 23andMe during a panel discussion last year on Breast Cancer Awareness.</div>
So, this year for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we reached out to one of those women, Laura Osman. Laura spoke so courageously about learning of her own genetic risk for breast and ovarian cancer after getting her BRCA1/BRCA2 (selected variants) <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-health-ancestry" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Genetic Health Risk report</a>* from 23andMe. Her story offers a lesson to all of us. She faced her risk head-on, consulted with her doctor, and took action for her health.
Laura, a healthy mother of three and a former All-American middle-distance runner, was stunned. Her 23andMe reports indicated she had a variant in the BRCA1 gene that put her at an elevated risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
&#8220;At first, when I saw it, I thought it was a mistake,&#8221; she said. 
It wasn&#8217;t just that she took good care of herself. Laura also knew that none of the women in her family had had breast or ovarian cancer. On top of that, with each of her pregnancies, Laura and her husband had gone through something called the JScreen. This genetic test looks specifically at genetic conditions that are common among people of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. The screens help inform prospective parents about the risk of passing on genetic conditions to their children. There wasn&#8217;t anything found when she did that screen.
Laura was so sure she didn&#8217;t have anything to worry about genetically that she was mostly focused on her 23andMe Ancestry reports when she got her results. She wanted to know if perhaps she had some hidden Swedish ancestry that would explain her blond hair. (It turned out she was 99 percent Ashkenazi Jewish.)
So, it was an utter surprise when looking at her 23andMe&#8217;s BRCA1/BRCA2 (Selected Variants) Genetic Health Risk report* she saw she carried one of the variants 23andMe tests for. 23andMe&#8217;s report looks at just three variants among the thousands of mutations that contribute to cancer risk. These variants are found mostly in people of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. But they are among the most well-studied variants and convey significant risk. No matter one&#8217;s ethnicity, having one of them increases the risk for breast and ovarian cancer by 45 percent to 85 percent by the age of 70.
But many individuals who carry a BRCA1 or BRCA2 variant don&#8217;t have a family history of cancer. <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/learn-something-new-for-breast-cancer-awareness-month/">23andMe research</a> found that about 44 percent of individuals with specific BRCA1 or BRCA2 variants did not have a first-degree family history of BRCA-related cancer.  <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1902783">Several studies</a> have shown that as many as 50 percent of people with one of these mutations wouldn&#8217;t qualify for breast or ovarian cancer screening under current medical guidelines.
&#8220;The 23andMe report said consult with your doctor, so that&#8217;s what I did,&#8221; Laura said.
Her doctor ordered follow-up genetic testing. He deduced that she&#8217;d inherited the risk variant from her father, who&#8217;d battled prostate cancer. Laura knew this was serious; carrying the mutation put her at a much higher risk for both ovarian and breast cancer. It was hard to get her head around what to do next.
&#8220;My body, which I have always viewed as healthy and strong … was a ticking time bomb,&#8221; she said. &#8220;(But) I knew fear and feeling sorry for myself was not an option.&#8221;
She reached out first to friends, then to a national nonprofit called <a href="https://sharsheret.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://sharsheret.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1602885105004000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG77RdhN9W5hLpbBtGyhGcnWWWEDA">Sharsheret</a>, which works with Jewish women living with or at increased genetic risk for breast or ovarian cancer. The group offered resources and helped connect her with other women who faced similar risks. Several years ago, 23andMe conducted a smaller study looking at the response to <a href="https://peerj.com/articles/8/">unexpected BRCA</a> findings. That study found that those who learned they carried a risk variant generally took appropriate actions, talking to their doctors and sharing their results with family members, creating what the study called a &#8220;cascade effect&#8221; that benefited relatives who might not know of the family risk for these hereditary cancers.
<div id="attachment_28561" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28561" class="wp-image-28561 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Larua-with-her-husband-and-three-children-300x300.jpeg" alt="Laura with her husband and three young children." width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Larua-with-her-husband-and-three-children-300x300.jpeg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Larua-with-her-husband-and-three-children-150x150.jpeg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Larua-with-her-husband-and-three-children-271x271.jpeg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Larua-with-her-husband-and-three-children-372x372.jpeg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Larua-with-her-husband-and-three-children.jpeg 474w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Laura with her husband and three young children.</div>
In Laura’s case, she wanted to hear from women who chose to have surgery to remove their breasts and ovaries. She wanted to know as much as she could about what to expect if she made that decision. Laura talked more to her doctors and carefully weighed her options.
&#8220;I think it might be much harder for someone who hasn&#8217;t had children yet,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s so different for me because I&#8217;d had my children, but we need to support women whatever their choices.&#8221;
Within five weeks of receiving her 23andMe reports and after undergoing clinical testing recommended by her doctor, Laura underwent the first of what turned out to be three surgeries to remove her ovaries and breasts.
&#8220;It wasn&#8217;t easy,&#8221; she said.
It took a few weeks before she could lift her young daughter and about a month and a half before she was running again. More than a year later, she is back to racing and is doing fine.
&#8220;I am not sure I will ever be able to repay the gratitude I have for 23andMe,&#8221; Laura said. &#8220;(It&#8217;s allowed) me to hopefully stop cancer before it could stop me.&#8221;
<hr />
*The 23andMe PGS test uses qualitative genotyping to detect select clinically relevant variants in the genomic DNA of adults from saliva for the purpose of reporting and interpreting genetic health risks, including the 23andMe PGS Genetic Health Risk Report for BRCA1/BRCA2 (Selected Variants). Your ethnicity may affect the relevance of each report and how your genetic health risk results are interpreted. The test is not intended to diagnose any disease and does not describe a person&#8217;s overall risk of developing any type of cancer. It is not intended to tell you anything about your current state of health, or to be used to make medical decisions, including whether or not you should take a medication, how much of a medication you should take, or determine any treatments. Warnings &amp; Limitations: The 23andMe PGS Genetic Health RIsk Report for BRCA1/BRCA2 (Selected Variants) is indicated for reporting of the 185delAG and 5382insC variants in the BRCA1 gene and the 6174delT variant in the BRCA2 gene. The report describes if a woman is at increased risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer, and if a man is at increased risk of developing breast cancer or may be at increased risk of developing prostate cancer. The three variants included in this report are most common in people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and do not represent the majority of BRCA1/BRCA2 variants in the general population. This report does not include variants in other genes linked to hereditary cancers and the absence of variants included in this report does not rule out the presence of other genetic variants that may impact cancer risk. The PGS test is not a substitute for visits to a healthcare professional for recommended screenings or appropriate follow-up. Results should be confirmed in a clinical setting before taking any medical action.

Raising Awareness about Breast Cancer

By Andrew Todhunter
Stephen Duncan felt a strong connection to Mexican American culture for most of his life, but never knew the truth of his Hispanic ancestry. As we finish<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-28570 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Stephen-D-300x228.jpg" alt="Stephen Duncan" width="300" height="228" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Stephen-D-300x228.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Stephen-D-1024x779.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Stephen-D-768x584.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Stephen-D-880x670.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Stephen-D-1180x898.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Stephen-D.jpg 1866w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Adopted as an infant in western Oklahoma in 1961, Stephen and his adoptive parents believed his ancestry was largely Native American and German. To cultivate that connection, Stephen’s adoptive father Harlston Duncan—himself partly Native American—helped Stephen learn about what they believed were his deep Native American roots. This became a significant part of Stephen’s early life, and he continues to cherish that cultural connection, even after learning that it wasn’t a totally accurate picture of his heritage.
<h6>Sacred Music</h6>
Raised in Oklahoma and now based in Galveston, Texas, Stephen was trained as an ethnomusicologist and attended Seminary at the University of Notre Dame. He has three degrees from Southwestern Oklahoma State University and a doctorate in sacred music from the University of Memphis. He is the Bishop of the Orthodox-Catholic Church of America in Galveston. Stephen also serves as the Director of Fine Art for the Galveston Independent School District.
It wasn’t until recently that Stephen started to search for more information about his birth family. He’d always been curious but didn’t want to hurt his adoptive mother Marian Duncan’s feelings, so he waited until after her passing to investigate. He first used <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-health-ancestry" target="_blank" rel="noopener">23andMe’s Health + Ancestry Service</a> to learn more about how his DNA may impact his health. While the genetic insights were helpful, he says, he was amazed by what he learned about his heritage. It was much different than he expected. 
<h6>A Unexpected Ancestry Composition</h6>
According to his Ancestry Composition, about  40 percent of his DNA was from Great Britain and Ireland, about 18 percent from France and Germany, and 13 percent was from Spain and Portugal. Another surprise, he had a small amount of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. To his surprise, only about 2 percent of his ancestry was Native American.
Stephen’s biggest surprise though came in 2018, when he received an email from Gabriel Ruggieri, another 23andMe customer who’d opted into DNA Relatives. The message said:
“I just got the report today that we are half brothers,” Gabriel wrote. “It appears we share a mother. If you would like to know me a little more let me know.”
<h6>Meeting His Birth Mother</h6>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-28567 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/with-Mi-Madre-300x300.jpeg" alt="" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/with-Mi-Madre-300x300.jpeg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/with-Mi-Madre-150x150.jpeg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/with-Mi-Madre-768x768.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/with-Mi-Madre-880x880.jpeg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/with-Mi-Madre-271x271.jpeg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/with-Mi-Madre-372x372.jpeg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/with-Mi-Madre-574x574.jpeg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/with-Mi-Madre.jpeg 894w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Stunned by the news, Stephen soon learned that his birth mother, Rosa Ruggieri, lived in Urbandale, Iowa, not far from his newly found half brother Gabriel, and four more half-siblings. With their help, Stephen began to explore the rich history of his birth family.
Rosa’s father was Irish American, and her mother was Mexican American, descended from a centuries-old family-centered in the town of Jalostotitlan in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. Stephen’s great grandfather Pedro Gonzales Cornejo immigrated to Texas to escape Pancho Villa in the early 20th century and found work on the railroad. The Cornejo family, Stephen discovered, traces its descent through Spain and Italy as far back as the early 16th century. Thus far, Stephen has been able to follow his family tree as far back as 1505, to an ancestor named Hernando Jaen del Salto Cletages in the town of Jaen in Andalusia, Spain. His mother Rosa feels a strong connection to her Spanish and Mexican roots, and Stephen now calls her mi Madre. This feels appropriate, he said, and helps differentiate Rosa from his adoptive mother.
<h6>Connecting with His Mexican Roots</h6>
<code style="display: none;"> </code>The discovery of his Hispanic heritage has only deepened Stephen’s lifelong appreciation of Mexican and Mexican American culture. “To know that all this stuff you find really cool is part of your family history is amazing,” he said.
Stephen joined a Hispanic Dance group through his position at the Galveston Independent School District and hopes to start a Mariachi band. He has also long loved the music associated with the Sephardic Jewish culture, brought to Mexico through Spain and Portugal beginning in the flight from the Inquisition in the early 1500s. Discovering his small degree of Jewish heritage has helped him deepen that association as well, and to explore the link between the Sephardic and Mexican cultures.
<div id="attachment_28565" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28565" class="wp-image-28565 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/the-siblings-300x198.jpeg" alt="Stephen, second row on the right, with his new found siblings." width="300" height="198" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/the-siblings-300x198.jpeg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/the-siblings-1024x674.jpeg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/the-siblings-768x506.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/the-siblings-880x580.jpeg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/the-siblings-1180x777.jpeg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/the-siblings.jpeg 1280w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Stephen, second row on the right, with his new found siblings.</div>
“There are many connections to the Sephardic Jewish culture in what we associate with Mexico,” he said. “While corn tortillas had been used for thousands of years, Sephardic Jews may have helped develop wheat flour tortillas as a type of unleavened bread. And the traditional spinning top we see in Mexico was probably influenced by the Jewish dreidel.”
This rich blending of cultures and ancestry through birth and adoption continues in the next generation of Stephen’s family—one of his half-siblings adopted four children from Russia.
Having traveled often to Mexico as a tourist before he knew his heritage, Stephen visited his family’s ancestral town of Jalostotitlan for the first time in 2018. While few Cornejos remain in the area, a local who had known the family remarked on Stephen’s resemblance. “Yep, you look like a Cornejo,” she told him with a smile. For Stephen, the trip to Jalostotitlan felt like an unexpected homecoming.

Embracing Latino Heritage with A Mexican Homecoming

Thomas Park Clement helped hundreds of Korean adoptees like him use DNA testing to connect for the first time with biological relatives. Strangely, up until a few years ago, he’d never thought about tracking down his birth parents.
<div id="attachment_28486" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28486" class="wp-image-28486 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Thomas-Passport-Photo-Square-300x300.jpg" alt="A passport photo of Thomas as a boy just before coming to the United States for his adoption," width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Thomas-Passport-Photo-Square-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Thomas-Passport-Photo-Square-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Thomas-Passport-Photo-Square-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Thomas-Passport-Photo-Square-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Thomas-Passport-Photo-Square-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Thomas-Passport-Photo-Square.jpg 597w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />A passport photo of Thomas was taken before his adoption.</div>
“I don’t know why,” Thomas said in a <a href="https://celinalee.co/podcast/">podcast</a> last year.
He never had the urge, he said. Maybe he was too busy.
A prolific inventor, entrepreneur, and now philanthropist, Thomas was a long way from the biracial boy abandoned in Seoul, South Korea in the 1950s. He never forgot where he came from, but he also didn’t feel the need to go back and find his biological relatives.  
<h2>Sharing his Gifts</h2>
Thomas was born during the Korean War to a Korean mother and an American soldier. By the time he was four, his father had left. The last time he saw his mother, Thomas was on a corner near a crowded market in Seoul. She told him to walk down the street and not look back. He never did.
Thomas lived on the streets and then in a rough-and-tumble orphanage. After a few harrowing years, an American family adopted him and brought him to the United States.
It took some time for Thomas to shake the years of deprivation from his psyche. During his first birthday celebration in the U.S., he gathered all the gifts he received and put them in a corner where he guarded them. At the same time, the rest of the children played and enjoyed the party. It was only later that he realized he’d missed out.
“I decided I didn’t want to miss one more party so (in the future) I would share my ‘presents’ with everybody,” he said.
He never forgot the lesson, so he’s made a point of giving back.
<h2>Giving Back</h2>
Among his philanthropic gifts was a donation of $1 million to cover the costs for DNA testing for hundreds of <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/tag/korean-adoptees/">Korean adoptees</a>. Many have shared their stories with him: sons and daughters finding their <a href="http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160815000120">mothers</a> or fathers, <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/seoul-sisters-and-brothers/">brothers and sisters</a> finding each other, and even <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/23andme-reunites-identical-twins-separated-birth/">identical twins</a> finding one another.
“You have to remember these are people who up until then had never even met a biological relative,” Thomas said.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-28487 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Thomas-Headshot-Square-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Thomas-Headshot-Square-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Thomas-Headshot-Square-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Thomas-Headshot-Square-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Thomas-Headshot-Square-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Thomas-Headshot-Square.jpg 408w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />And many had tried <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/world/asia/south-korea-adoptees-325kamra.html">without success</a> to find anything about their families. Some just wanted to connect with their Korean roots. International Adoptions in the United States didn’t begin in earnest until 1955 and the passage of the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=HDklDwAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA7&amp;lpg=PA7&amp;dq=%22Relief+of+Certain+War+Orphans%22+korean+adoption&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=ocLy46VVbp&amp;sig=ACfU3U0eq2jwpXxoJ5Mq9Gicbzh7ZMhARA&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjQ99Ky163jAhUFOH0KHek0B5gQ6AEwCXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=%22Relief%20of%20Certain%20War%20Orphans%22%20korean%20adoption&amp;f=false">Bill for Relief of Certain War Orphans</a>. At first, the large-scale international adoptions were from Korea coming just after the Korean War. For at least <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536504211427866">40 years</a>, most international adoptions originated in Korea, with at least <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536504211427866">200,000</a> children adopted worldwide. That only lessened in the late 1980s after Korea began limiting the number of children who could be adopted out of the country.
<h2>Coming from Korea</h2>
Thomas was part of that initial wave of early adoptees from Korea. He understands why making those connections is so important for some adoptees. Some of it is simply wanting to connect with a biological relative. Still, it can also be about making cultural connections.
For whatever reason, he didn’t have the same tug to find his birth parents. He was happy with his adoptive family. His father once said to him that “you adopted us.” As Thomas remembers things, he had awful grades and was mostly non-verbal as a kid. He thought he was stupid. But he loved to invent and tinker.
<h2>Moving Forward and then Looking Back</h2>
After college at Purdue studying electrical engineering, Thomas worked first in communications equipment manufacturing and then moved into building medical devices. In the late 1980s, he founded his own company Mectra Labs. The company has built various laparoscopic surgical instruments used in cancer treatment as well as instruments for cardiovascular and brain surgeries. Thomas holds more than 40 patents.
He’s written two books about his life, The Unforgotten War from 1998, and his 2012 memoir <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dust-Streets-Journey-Biracial-Orphan/dp/0966795210/ref=pd_lpo_14_t_0/136-9539512-9233228?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=0966795210&amp;pd_rd_r=86f5bd8d-7180-405b-9bdb-0a0e06713f36&amp;pd_rd_w=JoTy8&amp;pd_rd_wg=tEgOk&amp;pf_rd_p=7b36d496-f366-4631-94d3-61b87b52511b&amp;pf_rd_r=DXK8S09DKH8MAAAD2A99&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=DXK8S09DKH8MAAAD2A99">Dust of the Streets: The Journey of a Biracial Orphan of the Korean War.</a> As his career advanced, Thomas found time to give back to various causes and charities.
<h2>Mixed Roots</h2>
One of the many groups he helped was the <a href="https://mixedrootsfoundation.org/">Mixed Roots Foundation</a>, a non-profit to help adoptees with multicultural backgrounds and their families through all adoption stages. Clement served on the board of directors for the foundation and, at one point, was given a 23andMe kit from the founder and president of the group, Holly Choon Hyang Bachman.
He thought he might as well try it. He was curious about the health results and looking at his 23andMe ancestry reports, he discovered that half his ancestry was Ashkenazi Jewish. After opting-in to DNA Relatives, Thomas looked at his results and found that he had hundreds of matches with other 23andMe customers who also opted into the feature. One of them was Holly.
“I had long since accepted the fact that I would never know one blood relative,” Thomas said.
And then he had 1,000.
“I might not have tested if Holly hadn’t given me the kit, so that’s why I started the free kit program,” he said.
<h2>Learning about Himself</h2>
He not only gave kits to Korean adoptees, through a Facebook group called Korean American Adoptees but also former service members who served in Korea interested in finding children they may have fathered.
Holly was the first biological relative he ever knew. But there would be more.
With help from his friend Bella, who works with the non-profit <a href="https://www.325kamra.org/">325Kamra</a>, which uses DNA testing to reunite Korean adoptees with their biological relatives, Thomas was able to find his half-sister and two half-brothers on his father’s side. And he identified his birth father, but he wasn’t able to meet him before he died. Thomas said he didn’t want to disrupt their lives. When his half-sister told him that her mother would be devastated by learning that her husband had fathered another child, Thomas backed off. But not before learning a little bit about his birth father and seeing photos of him. They shared a lot of interests. Like Thomas, he’d been a bit of a renegade, a tinkerer, engineer, who loved cars and animals. The two had a similar body type, and although Thomas didn’t see it, his sister said Thomas looked a lot like his birth father.
“It was fascinating to hear about how he was as a person because when someone was describing him, I thought they were talking about me,” he said.
It’s been a gift to learn about his birth father in this way, and he feels fortunate that he’s helped others make similar connections.
“I mean, the stories just go on and on,” he said. “I didn’t realize the emotional aspect of this program … It’s a humbling experience.”

Helping Other Korean Adoptees Find Their Story

For Ann, a college genetics professor in Pennsylvania, her interest in 23andMe started over ten years ago with scientific curiosity, but it quickly evolved into something more profound.
<div id="attachment_28335" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28335" class="wp-image-28335 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Ann.yezerski-and-Mom-300x215.jpeg" alt="" width="300" height="215" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Ann.yezerski-and-Mom-300x215.jpeg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Ann.yezerski-and-Mom-768x549.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Ann.yezerski-and-Mom-880x629.jpeg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Ann.yezerski-and-Mom.jpeg 895w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Ann on the right and her mom.</div>
First, Ann dug into information about her health, learning about conditions for which she had increased genetic risk of developing. Then she used 23andMe to discover more about her ancestry and her family&#8217;s Irish, Polish, Italian, and German ancestry. Most recently came something even more unexpected — Ann used 23andMe to help her find her elderly mother&#8217;s long-lost sister. This, in turn, enabled her to bring the two sisters together for the first time.

It happened last year on her mother&#8217;s 76th birthday. They&#8217;d just had a celebration, and Ann came home and happened to open an email from 23andMe about a new DNA Relative. She was stunned.
&#8220;I called my mom and said, &#8216;I have one more gift for you,'&#8221; Ann said. &#8220;I found your sister.&#8221;
Ann and her mother learned of the sister after extensive genealogical research, eventually creating a family tree with more than 7,000 relatives.
&#8220;It was so exciting to match 23andMe DNA (Relative) results with the relationships on our tree,&#8221; Ann said.
She also used 23andMe me to help some of her distant relatives find biological parents.
But they also discovered more about Ann&#8217;s mother&#8217;s father. He had a child with another woman before he got married to Ann&#8217;s grandmother. Ann thought they&#8217;d never find her mother&#8217;s sister and had exhausted the historical resources. They assumed her sister, who would be over 80 years old, might have already passed away.
&#8220;We figured the window of finding her alive was closed,&#8221; Ann said.
But using her 23andMe results helped them track her down.
&#8220;We were very lucky to find her and all of our new family,&#8221; she said.
As miraculous and wonderous as this was, the connection was just another deeper layer to DNA discoveries Ann has been making over the years. Whether it&#8217;s learning that her twin boys are identical and not fraternal twins, or using her 23andMe results to inspire her college students, or digging into her raw data, Ann said she&#8217;s endlessly excited by genetics.
&#8220;I really appreciated the information I&#8217;ve received,&#8221; she said.
23andMe has helped feed her interest in the science, she said. She&#8217;s curious about the function of different genes, and their role in human traits and the risk of disease. Her academic work has focused on dyslexia, but her twin sons have also primed her interest. For example, she&#8217;s eager to learn more about &#8220;half identical twins,&#8221; also known as<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/health-47371431"> &#8220;semi-identical twins.&#8221;</a> Ann wants 23andMe to study this very, very rare phenomenon to see if our massive data set may identify more cases.
More than anything else, Ann said 23andMe has helped feed her insatiable interest in learning more about herself, her family, and the world of genetics.
&#8220;I think I&#8217;ve used about every angle you can use on 23andMe,&#8221; said Ann.
Here&#8217;s to her finding even more.

A Gift of Knowledge

Father&#8217;s Day is coming up, and many of us are scrambling to find a funny card, the right gift, or the perfect words to say to our dads this year.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-28279 size-full" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/IMG_5035-scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1920" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/IMG_5035-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/IMG_5035-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/IMG_5035-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/IMG_5035-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/IMG_5035-880x660.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/IMG_5035-1180x885.jpg 1180w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />
But for a select few 23andMe customers, this Father&#8217;s Day will be their first with their birth fathers.
While fatherhood is about much more than biology, for many using DNA to connect with their birth fathers for the first time has given them answers to questions about their origins, and their family history. Seeing how DNA connects them has helped these fathers and children better understand themselves, the traits that make them who they are, and what they have passed on to their own children.

<h6>Feeling Whole</h6>
It isn&#8217;t always easy or even pleasant, but for some making these connections has been life-altering and wonderfully unexpected.
&#8220;Growing up, I wasn&#8217;t sure of myself or who I was,&#8221; said Keani, who recently found and connected with her birth father, Adam. &#8220;I was trying to find my identity. Now I feel more confident. I don&#8217;t have this hole in my heart. I have the other half of who I am.&#8221;
Her grandparents raised Keani, and she considered her granddad, her Pop-Pop, as her father. He passed away not too long ago. Finding Adam, her birth father, and building a relationship with him and his family, came at a perfect time. She just graduated from college and got married. Keani, her husband, and her 7-year-old daughter are moving from her home on the east coast to be closer to Adam.
For Adam, who has a teenage son and a foster child with his partner in Seattle, finding his daughter has been the ultimate gift. When she first came to visit him and his family, Adam gave her a present for each of her 29 birthdays that he missed. He also gave her a key to his home in Seattle and a specially engraved necklace.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve grown this relationship, it&#8217;s so strong, and it&#8217;s so amazing,&#8221; said Adam. &#8220;I&#8217;ve never been happier in my entire life. She&#8217;s my daughter, and it&#8217;s fantastic. Keani will never lay her head down at night again, wondering where I am or how I feel. I love her with all my heart and soul. I feel privileged to let her know that every night for the rest of my life.&#8221;
<h6>A Gift</h6>
Reba, of North Carolina, had been searching for most of her life. She was adopted. Many years ago she was able to find her birth mother using her adoption records, but her efforts to connect with her mother were rebuffed. Reba thought the door to finding out anything more about her birth parents had been closed. But she never gave up hope.
<div id="attachment_28281" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28281" class="wp-image-28281 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/20200522_070600-1-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/20200522_070600-1-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/20200522_070600-1-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/20200522_070600-1-660x880.jpg 660w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/20200522_070600-1-885x1180.jpg 885w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/20200522_070600-1-scaled.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />Reba and her dad.</div>
Then her daughter gave her a <a href="https://www.23andme.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DNA testing kit</a> as a gift. Using 23andMe’s Family Tree feature, which sketches DNA Relative matches on the maternal and paternal branches of your family tree, Reba was able to find her father’s name. While her mother’s side of the tree was empty, her father’s side was filled up with relatives. She saw her birth father’s name, along with his sister, Reba’s aunt. Reba learned that they were from the same town in Ohio where she grew up.
“This was my key to locating and contacting my father,” she said.
She ultimately connected with her birth father via Facebook. He responded to her messages and was eager to connect. She learned her father had never known of her birth, and he’d also never had children of his own.  Within five days of connecting, he drove and a nephew,  from his home in Florida to meet her in person at her home in North Carolina. He didn&#8217;t want to waste any time waiting to meet his daughter.
&#8220;I have a daughter, I have a granddaughter, and I have a grandson. I have to be there!&#8221; he told Reba.
The hours leading up to <a href="https://youtu.be/pk2Md9HGczo">seeing him for the first time</a> were filled with nervous excitement for Reba.
&#8220;Finding what I thought I&#8217;d lost forever … was a gift from God,&#8221; she said.
In May, she was able to celebrate his birthday with him at his home in Tampa. They&#8217;ll be celebrating Father&#8217;s Day together too. Their first one as father and daughter.
<h6>A Special Gift for Father&#8217;s Day</h6>
Linda always knew she&#8217;d been adopted. She didn&#8217;t have a great desire to find and meet her biological family. Her adoptive parents loved her, and she thought meeting her birth father or mother, &#8220;would be like meeting a stranger.&#8221;
Or at least that&#8217;s what she thought until it actually happened.
Linda, on a whim and at the suggestions of a friend, used 23andMe and found not just her birth father, but her birth mother as well, and a brother. Her biological parents had been teenagers when they had her and put her up for adoption. A few years later, they got married and had two sons. One recently passed away. Meeting them, she said, brought her so much joy. Linda was surprised at the emotions that welled up in her when she traveled from her home in Arizona to Florida to meet them in person for the first time.
&#8220;I actually have a video of us driving in,&#8221; she told the <a href="https://www.scottsdale.org/neighboors/scottsdale-woman-finally-meets-her-birth-parents/article_1bed0800-88a7-11ea-9f47-eb5567922607.html">Scottsdale Progress</a>, her hometown paper &#8220;I didn&#8217;t realize how excited I was. When my Dad [hugged] me … he held me for the longest time, and I was just balling.&#8221;
She also saw her own kids, her son, and daughter, in her birth father, and her brother. They carried themselves in the same way and have similar mannerisms and expressions.
It wasn&#8217;t just the physical similarities, her son is burly like them, but his interests too. He&#8217;s an electrician, and so are several members of her birth father&#8217;s family. While she was in Florida, her father shared that he, too was filled with emotion. &#8220;Oh, my heart&#8217;s just a flutter seeing everyone together,&#8221; he told her.
This Father&#8217;s Day is going to be different this year, Linda said.
&#8220;Well, I haven&#8217;t had a father to celebrate with since 1988 when my adoptive father passed away,&#8221; said Linda. &#8220;My only grandpa I knew passed when I was 5. So, finding my dad was huge for me!”
Linda is using some of the photos she took during her visit to make her dad “a special gift.&#8221;

Stories — Page 6