By Rachael Rifkin
November is National Adoption Awareness Month, which recognizes the importance of adoption not just for the more than <a href="https://adoptionnetwork.com/adoption-statistics">7 million</a> Americans adoptees, but the nearly 100 million Americans who have an adoptee in their immediate family.
In honor of National Adoption Awareness Month, we wanted to share Claire Mitchell and Stefanie Beard’s story.
<div id="attachment_27753" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27753" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Claire-Stefanie-2-300x173.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-27753 size-medium" width="300" height="173" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Claire-Stefanie-2-300x173.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Claire-Stefanie-2-768x444.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Claire-Stefanie-2-1024x592.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Claire-Stefanie-2-880x509.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Claire-Stefanie-2.jpg 1138w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Stefanie, on the left, and her new-found cousin Claire.</div>
Like many adoptees, the two twenty-somethings, turned to DNA testing to find out more about themselves. They wanted to know more about their ancestry, maybe <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/">find some biological relatives</a>, and explore the health side of testing. 
Claire and Stefanie live only 12 miles apart in Pennsylvania, but the two didn’t know each other. 
That all changed after using 23andMe and discovering that they were first cousins once removed. As they got to know each other they learned something more. They don’t just share DNA. Twenty years ago both young women were adopted from the same town and orphanage in China. 
“Both of our minds are blown,” Stefanie told the <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/china-adoption-adoptee-dna-temple-university-20190315.html">Philadelphia Inquire</a>r earlier this year.
<h6>The First Connection </h6>
Their surprising story began four years ago when Claire, 20, who now attends Bryn Mawr College, submitted her DNA to 23andMe. She hoped to find biological relatives.
Fast forward to Christmas last year when Stefanie, now a 22-year-old student at Temple University in Philadelphia, decided to use 23andMe with her sister Kristyn, who was also adopted from China. 
Stefanie was more interested in settling a longstanding debate between her and Kristyn — who had a higher percentage of Chinese ancestry in their DNA. (Stefanie turned out to be 77 percent Chinese and 13 percent Vietnamese to Kristyn’s 99 percent Chinese.) 
What she didn’t expect was to find a biological relative, let alone one living in the United States.
<h6>What Are The Odds?</h6>
<div id="attachment_27754" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27754" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Claire-and-Stefanie-e1574820229581-300x280.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-27754 size-medium" width="300" height="280" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Claire-and-Stefanie-e1574820229581-300x280.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Claire-and-Stefanie-e1574820229581.jpg 581w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Claire, on the left, and her cousin Stefanie.</div>
Despite the surge in DNA testing and the number of adoptees finding and connecting with relatives, for adoptees from China or Korea or other countries, it’s very rare to find a close family connection.
Like a lot of adoptees, Stefanie and Claire both grew up wondering about their birth parents. They wondered if they had other biological relatives out there. Was it possible to ever find them?
 Stefanie was born in Huazhou in 1997 and Claire in 1999. When Stefanie was 11 months old, she was adopted by her parents, Donna and Michael Beard, and grew up in a loving home in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Adopted at the same age, Claire grew up in Overland Park, Kansas. They are both the second adopted daughters in their families.
Despite wondering about their origins and biological relatives, neither Claire or Stefanie, expected to find a relative, let alone one just a short train ride away. Finding a sibling or cousin actually isn’t <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/china-adoption-adoptee-dna-temple-university-20190315.html">unheard of</a> due to the proliferation of DNA testing. 
<h6>International Adoption</h6>
The first big wave of international adoptees came from Korea after the Korean war. China became a primary origin for adoptees after the creation of China’s one-child policy in 1980. The policy, instituted to slow population growth and avoid famine, resulted in the abandonment of thousands of children (often girls, since boys were preferred for a variety of cultural, social and economic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_preference_in_China">reasons</a>). 
To combat the problem, China began its international adoption program with many children ending up in the U.S. China officially ended its one-child policy in 2016.
In the last few years with the end of the one-child policy, many of those adoptees and birth parents have been looking to reunite. For families in China trying to find their children, there are even social media platforms like WeChat and the birth family search company <a href="https://mytaproot.org/">My Taproot</a>, to help families find and connect with each other. 
<h6>Using DNA to Help in the Search</h6>
While DNA testing offers a simpler way to connect with biological relatives, it is more difficult for adoptees from China to find matches because most of those on these sites come from the United States. 
That’s what makes finding each other so special said Claire and Stefanie. 
“It was unreal. To hear from her and see that she was such a close match as a relative was unbelievable. Even more shocking was the fact that she went to Temple (like 9 miles away from my school) and her family lived in the area. It was insane in that regard,” said Claire.
<h6>Getting to Know Each Other</h6>
Since they initially matched up on 23andMe, they’ve gotten together quite a few times. They’ve met up to watch the Dragon Parade for Chinese New Year, gone to dinner and the movies. Claire and Stefanie have spent the shorter holidays together at Stefanie’s family’s house since they live in Pennsylvania. 
In fact, Claire will be coming over to their house this Thanksgiving. They get along really well and enjoy spending time together. In general, they try to meet up at least once a month. Mostly they eat and talk, making up for lost time. 
<h6>Becoming Part of the Family</h6>
At that first meeting, Stefanie met Claire at her train station to go to dim sum in Chinatown. Stefanie and Claire both texted their moms a picture of the two of them together. Their moms had the same reaction— “Tell her we say welcome to the family!”
“It was such a happy moment. My heart was so full that night. The universe wanted this to happen. There’s no other explanation,” said Stefanie.
Claire agreed. 
“To have actually been able to meet a blood relative of mine who’s only separated by perhaps our great-grandparents have made me feel just a little less lonely in a world full of people who seem to know each other in the way that only biological kin can,” said Claire. 
&nbsp;
Rachael Rifkin’s <a href="https://www.rachaelrifkin.com/">work</a> focuses on bridging the gap between generations, cultures, and backgrounds through storytelling. She also once <a href="http://bit.ly/2ZsRzAU">recreated</a> eight photos of her relatives to highlight the traits and stories we all share with our families.

Rachael Rifkin

Adopted Separately in China, Cousins Wind Up Almost Next Door

By Lisa Altmann
23andMe changed my life in ways I never imagined.   It gave me the tools to find “my truth” and my unexpected yet amazing origin story.  
<div id="attachment_27663" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27663" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_20190724_113949-300x225.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-27663 size-medium" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_20190724_113949-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_20190724_113949-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_20190724_113949-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_20190724_113949-880x660.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_20190724_113949-1180x885.jpg 1180w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Lisa on a trip to Italy.</div>
I’ve always been overly curious. As a child, I would drive my parents nuts asking about anything and everything, including questions about our ancestors. I wanted to know where we came from but my parents had very little information to share with me.
I knew that their families had escaped Jewish persecution in Poland and Russia. They’d survived hardships, and immigrated to America through Ellis Island. I took a lot of pride in those Jewish roots. I was very close with my small but close-knit family but I wanted to know more about our ancestors.   
Then last year, at the age of 48, I took a 23andMe DNA test to discover more about my Polish and Russian roots. At first, my results confused me. Then, as the reality of what those results meant settled in, the truth turned my world upside down.
<h6>Unexpected Results</h6>
It turns out I do not have Russian, or Polish, or Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. I’m Italian and Croatian.
Harder for me to handle is that I’m not biologically related to my parents or my two brothers, all of whom I love very much. That was a hard truth, but it was my truth. It is something that I am learning to accept with an open heart and gratitude.
I’m writing this because I hope it might help and comfort others in similar situations.  I wouldn&#8217;t change anything about using 23andMe, but anyone considering DNA testing should consider the possibility that they too might discover something unexpected and life-changing.  
Our DNA offers a way to discover more about what makes us unique, and those revelations can be exhilarating. But sometimes an unexpected result can have profound implications for both you and your family. 23andMe does a good job of letting you know about these possibilities both before you use the test and before you consent to participate in DNA Relatives, 23andMe’s featured to connect you with other customers with whom you share DNA. It’s essential to think of how a surprising result might impact your life as it did mine.

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<h6>Asking the Hard Questions</h6>
Talking to my parents about my results was the hardest conversation I’ve ever had in my entire life. I will never forget the conversation. It still rings in my ears as I could feel the fear in my dad’s voice as he was anticipating the big question. After nervously explaining my DNA results and research, I finally threw out the big question, “Was I adopted?” 
A storm of emotions engulfed my mom and dad when I asked that question. It hit them like a force of nature. I felt guilty for even asking. My parents are older now and more fragile, but I needed to know the truth, my truth. They both struggled to answer. As my mom cried in the background, my father said to me, “What does it matter? We love you, and you are our daughter.”
<h6>Nature and Nurture </h6>
He had a point. 
My parents had chosen me, raised me, and poured their love into me. They still love me deeply. They never made me feel anything but loved. I was their “first child” and the only girl in my family. I remember always feeling adored by my entire family. They’d encouraged my big personality to entertain them all with dance routines, singing, and comedy acts. I felt loved and cherished by my parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. This never changed even when my two younger brothers came into the picture. I would always be their daughter. 
<div id="attachment_27662" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27662" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_2607-3-e1572296660409-225x300.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-27662 size-medium" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_2607-3-e1572296660409-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_2607-3-e1572296660409-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_2607-3-e1572296660409-660x880.jpeg 660w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_2607-3-e1572296660409-885x1180.jpeg 885w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_2607-3-e1572296660409-scaled.jpeg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />Lisa and her husband Jack.</div>
But the truth was that I had a biological mother who I later learned was still alive. I had a lineage that traced back to a small town in Southern Italy. I shared traits, <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/">physical features</a>, and DNA with biological relatives I had yet to meet. All of that mattered too.
<h6>An Adoptees Search  </h6>
Learning that you are adopted, especially learning that truth in mid-life, can be disorienting. I’m not sure how I would have handled it if I learned this when I was younger. Learning this now meant I was emotionally mature enough to navigate through all the emotions that came with this discovery. 
I leaned on my core of special people like my amazing husband Jack, my wonderful brother Paul and his family, and my dear friend Claire, who helped me work through what it all meant. Many times when I share my story people ask if I am angry with my parents for not telling me I was adopted.  Anger is never an emotion that crossed my mind. I was shocked by my adoption. I was surprised. But more than anything, the emotions that welled up in me were of gratitude toward my loving parents. I feel thankful for the amazing life they have given me. I know without a doubt everything they’ve done has been with tremendous love, sacrifice and the best intentions for all of their children.
<h6>Finding My Roots</h6>
I am my parent’s daughter, but I learned that another woman had given birth to me.
I wanted to know more about my birth mother, and what part of her was in me. I’ve heard others talk about nature versus nurture. It isn’t one or the other. Yes, the parents that raised me made me who I am. But my genetics also play a role. Understanding that part of me is helping me understand more about who I am. 
<div id="attachment_27667" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27667" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_20190730_092016-225x300.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-27667 size-medium" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_20190730_092016-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_20190730_092016-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_20190730_092016-660x880.jpg 660w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_20190730_092016-885x1180.jpg 885w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_20190730_092016-scaled.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />Looking at records of in the village of Castelpagano, where Lisa&#8217;s Great Grandfather Michael was born.</div>
After I learned I was adopted I wanted to know who my birth mom was. I wanted to know whether we look alike or have similar personalities. I eventually found her with the help of an amazing genealogist named Linda Doyle who specialized in working with adoptees and DNA results. I went through the emotional process of writing a “Dear Mom” letter. In it, I told her about my life. I said I didn’t hold any anger or resentment toward her.  
<h6>A Better Life </h6>
My birth Mom called me in tears after receiving the letter. We talked for five hours. I learned about her, and her family. I found out we share some personality traits. And I learned of my biological family’s connection to Italy. I felt like we’d known each other my entire life. It gave me a better understanding of myself. It gave me tremendous peace. And yet, I also know that her decision saved me from the chaos of the life that would have been mine if I’d hadn’t been adopted. She gave me a better life by giving me up.
My birth mom was young and single and didn’t have the means to raise a child on her own. Her father died when she was 9. Her mom had been ill her entire life. She was 23.
My parents, who were having trouble conceiving, were told about a young woman in New York City desperately wanting a good family and a better life for her baby.  My mom and dad took me home to Washington D.C. where I was raised. My parents were eventually able to get pregnant and had two more children, my brothers. 
<div id="attachment_27659" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27659" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_0890-2-e1572297208331-225x300.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-27659 size-medium" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_0890-2-e1572297208331-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_0890-2-e1572297208331-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_0890-2-e1572297208331-660x880.jpg 660w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_0890-2-e1572297208331-885x1180.jpg 885w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_0890-2-e1572297208331-scaled.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />A photo of the village of Castelpagano in southern Italy. &#8220;My heart is full whenever I look at them,&#8221; Lisa said of the photos from the village.</div>
<h6>Loving My Family and Those Who Came Before </h6>
No one ever knew I was adopted. Now they do, but it doesn’t change that this is my family.
Revealing this secret was hard and at times painful. Despite that, it’s given me incredible insight. My husband and I, along with my brother and his family have traveled to Italy. I was able to visit the town near Naples where my ancestors came from. I got to see my biological great grandfather’s childhood home. I went to his church where I was shown family baptismal records going back centuries. It brought me to tears. 
It felt like coming home. I’ve learned so much about myself on this journey, but also about the people who loved me and came before me. 
 23andMe gave me so much knowledge, understanding, and truth, right when I needed it most. Although the process has not been easy, it has brought joy, peace, gratitude and a lot of love into my life. 
I hope to help and support others in their adoption discovery process as I learned so much from mine. There is beauty in our ancestral truths even when those truths change how we see the world and ourselves.
 
&nbsp;

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

This is My Truth, A Customer’s Point of View

During Family History Month, it seemed right to revisit Jordan Carroll’s story.
Jordan always loved his family’s stories. From a young age, he’d soak up anecdotes from relatives. Growing up in California, he was removed from his roots back east, but he persisted in learning more about those who came before him.
 
“I always wanted to know more about my family history to have a better sense of myself,” Jordan said.
 

<h6>Where Records Fail</h6>
As he got older, he moved beyond just family lore and began digging through old documents. But like many African Americans hunting for family history, because of the scourge of slavery, records eventually failed him.
 
“For a lot of African Americans we do not have those records from before the mid-1800s,” he said.
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The paper trail just stops at a certain point, but that’s when Jordan realized something else.
 
“I’m carrying records inside me, in my DNA,” he said.
 
Check out his story <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akc6tbW8aOg">here</a>.

Jordan’s Family History

It had to be more than just chance that Dave Stull and Eric Reynolds became cops.
<div id="attachment_27375" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27375" class="wp-image-27375 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Dave-Eric-Press-Conference-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Dave-Eric-Press-Conference-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Dave-Eric-Press-Conference-660x880.jpg 660w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Dave-Eric-Press-Conference.jpg 720w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />Boynton Beach Police Officer Eric Reynolds, left, and Sgt. Dave Stull of the Orange County Sheriff&#8217;s Department. Photo Boynton Police Department.</div>
Looking back now Eric reckons, it’s the DNA.
He might be on to something.
The two men, who both live in Florida but had until recently never met, learned through 23andMe that they were not just brothers in blue, but half-brothers too.
Their story has, as Eric likes to say, “blown up.” Getting attention from the <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article233400652.html">Miami Herald</a>, the <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/08/05/florida-cops-find-out-theyre-long-lost-brothers-from-ancestry-test/">New York Post</a>, and <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-cops-half-brothers-dna-test">Fox News</a>, as well as a host of other publications.
With more and more people using 23andMe, we are increasingly hearing from customers like Eric and Dave who have discovered newfound relatives, siblings, or birth parents. But their story, with sort of parallel lives that only now have intersected, struck a chord.
Dave, a sergeant with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department who was adopted as an infant, said he tested in part because he never had much information about his biological family, or family medical history. He tested after both of his adoptive parents had passed away, mostly to see if he had any hidden health issues.
“I wanted to see if I was gonna go bald,” he joked. 
He’s not likely to go bald, but right away his 23andMe showed him something else entirely. After opting into DNA Relatives, Dave clicked over to see his results and at the top of the list was Eric, a predicted half-brother.
<div id="attachment_27376" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27376" class="wp-image-27376 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Dave-and-Eric-300x215.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="215" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Dave-and-Eric-300x215.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Dave-and-Eric-768x552.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Dave-and-Eric.jpg 823w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Dave, left, and Eric after meeting for the first time in person at Dave&#8217;s home.</div>
Dave, who for all his 50 years had been an only child, sent Eric a message:
“Good morning, my name is David Stull. According to 23andMe, we are half-brothers.”
Eric, a police officer at the Boynton Police Department, didn’t know what to make the message at first. He had a lot of questions, and he Googled Dave. Just looking at the picture, he knew it wasn’t a fluke. The brothers figured out that they shared the same father, who had been unaware of Dave’s birth. When Eric contacted his dad, he told him he had a “brand new bouncing baby boy.”
And now he had a big brother.
When Eric had the first test with 23andMe three years ago, it was less to find relatives and more to look at his ancestry and traits and suss out more about where his gung ho personality came from. He is the kind of guy who runs toward danger not away from it, and in 2013 received an award for his part in a part in the chase of a bank robbery suspect. He wondered if that was buried in his ancestry somewhere.
While genetics may explain why these two brothers both chose to work in law enforcement, they also both had family connections that nurtured that interest. For Eric, it was his mom, who served as a homicide detective in Miami.
For Dave, it all tracks back to when he was 4 years old when a cousin he looked up to was a police officer. His cousin gave him some department patches, a blue hat, and handcuffs. Ever since then he knew he wanted to be a cop, he said.
As the two try to make up for lost time, they are also planning a big family gathering. They’ll be coming together for Eric’s retirement and give a chance for Dave to meet his birth father in person as well as another half brother and half-sister.
Meanwhile, the two brother cops continue to marvel at the different coincidences in their lives.
&#8220;We&#8217;re still learning so much about each other,” Eric said at a press conference given by the Boynton Police Department about their discovery. “It&#8217;s amazing.&#8221;

Brother Cops

Juan Fernandez had made many presentations about his Dominican heritage and the island’s Native Taíno population. But he’d never been caught off-guard by such a simple and direct question before:
&nbsp;
“Do you actually have any Taíno ancestry?”
&nbsp;
Thus launched a journey of discovery for Juan — to find out about his ancestors and, in turn, his own identity.

<div id="attachment_27355" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27355" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Juan-1024x630.jpg" alt="" class="size-large wp-image-27355" width="1024" height="630" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Juan-1024x630.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Juan-300x185.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Juan-768x473.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Juan-880x542.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Juan-1180x726.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Juan.jpg 1600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Juan Fernandez during one of his presentations.</div>
Starting with newly released genetic research (see Sidebar), Juan found that Taíno DNA is, indeed, found throughout people of Caribbean descent. And then, after purchasing a kit from 23andMe, Juan awaited the moment of truth — was the Taíno story also his own?
&nbsp;
A few weeks later, he opened the results on his computer screen. Sure enough, Juan had 10 percent Native American ancestry — and the answer to the question that had launched his journey.
<h6>Why Ancestry Matters</h6>
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">An Ancient Connection
Native Caribbean ancestry, primarily  Taíno, is still found among Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Dominicans.
 
Researchers showed this definitively in 2018 by extracting DNA and sequencing the<a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/ancient-genome-study-identifies-traces-of-indigenous-taino-in-present-day-caribbean-populations"> first ancient human genome from the Caribbean.</a> This offered clear genetic evidence linking the ancient Taíno people to those with Caribbean ancestry living today.
 
On average, Puerto Ricans have around 12 percent of this Taíno ancestry. But over 60 percent of their <a href="https://you.23andme.com/reports/maternal_haplogroup/">maternal-line</a> ancestry<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28912065"> is of Taíno origin</a>.
 
Interestingly, evidence of Taino ancestry is almost completely absent from the islands formerly controlled by Britain and France, such as Jamaica and Haiti.
</div>
While the Ancestry Composition statistic pleased Juan, the exact figure was less important than the two generational forces it represented:
&nbsp;
First, it meant that the Taíno legacy had survived. This despite being declared extinct by Spanish colonists at the end of the 16th century. Neither enslavement nor disease had fully extinguished a population that once numbered in the hundreds of thousands across the Caribbean.
&nbsp;
And second, the discovery represented a bridge from Juan’s past to his future. A father of three, he had noticed an “invisible barrier” starting to form between his kids and their Dominican heritage. So the chance to share the full richness and complexity of their ancestry was a chance to break through this intergenerational blockade.
<h6>What’s Next</h6>
Empowered by his new genetic insight, Juan plans to share the story of the Taíno with even more people — including at the Cultural Commission of the Dominican Republic in New York. 
“This story doesn’t belong to me,” said Juan. “It belongs to the 1.1 million Dominicans in the US.”
&nbsp;
As for himself, Juan feels that his 23andMe experience “gave me the critical meaning to my search for identity. Being part of any diaspora leaves you in a cultural limbo; a foreigner in your country and a foreigner in the motherland. Now I know where I belong.”
&nbsp;
Want to make your own ancestry discovery? Check out your <a href="https://you.23andme.com/reports/ancestry_composition_hd/">Ancestry Composition</a> &#8211; including the newly released <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry/23andme-improves-reports-for-caribbean-and-latin-american-customers/">Recent Ancestry in the Americas feature</a> for people with Caribbean and Latin American heritage. Or if you’re new to 23andMe, <a href="https://www.23andme.com/?myg02=true">purchase a kit</a> to start your own journey.

Now I Know Where I Belong

When they met for the first time, Tamara Miller and Leslie Wheeler were struck by their similarities. They both are Korean adoptees, and both share a cheerful disposition and closets full of colorful hats and clothes. They even carried nearly identical purses at that first meeting. 
<div id="attachment_27321" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27321" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/SBYT8-225x300.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-27321 size-medium" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/SBYT8-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/SBYT8.jpeg 480w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />Leslie, left, and Tamara.</div>
&nbsp;
Though they were strangers, the two share the same birth mother. And beyond all the uncanny things they had in common, the sisters noticed a deeper connection right off: an immediate sense of sisterhood and love. 
&nbsp;
“You wouldn’t know that siblings could be so similar just through blood,” said Tamara. 
&nbsp;
She was stunned by all she had in common with her newfound sister, and yet “we couldn’t have been raised more differently or led more different lives,” she said.

<h6>Soldier Fathers</h6>
The sisters never met as children, and now, with children of their own, they’re making up for lost time and filling in the blanks in their family story. Their story is reminiscent of 23andMe stories from other Korean adoptees. 
<div id="attachment_27316" style="width: 299px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27316" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/bQQZu-e1564598306146-289x300.jpeg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-27316" width="289" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/bQQZu-e1564598306146-289x300.jpeg 289w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/bQQZu-e1564598306146-768x798.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/bQQZu-e1564598306146-985x1024.jpeg 985w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/bQQZu-e1564598306146-846x880.jpeg 846w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/bQQZu-e1564598306146-1135x1180.jpeg 1135w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 289px) 100vw, 289px" />Tamara&#8217;s birth father, Harry Andrews, with her and Leslie&#8217;s birth mother.</div>
Both of their fathers had served in the Army in Korea. 
&nbsp;
Leslie was living with her grandmother when Tamara was born. Leslie’s father was white, while Tamara’s father was an African American GI. The family was poor and already struggling to make ends meet. Tamara was placed in an orphanage and adopted as an infant. Leslie’s adoption happened much later.
&nbsp;
“I had a hard life in Korea,” she said. “The country was poor and we were starving. It was a miracle if we ate two meals a day. Going to school was really hard. I just didn’t fit in with the Korean kids because I was so different looking. I was a little girl living in a country that wasn’t accepting of half-American kids.” 
&nbsp;
Leslie had lived with their mother and her American soldier father until the age of 2. When he returned to America, saying he’d come back for them. Then she lived with her mother and relatives until her mother passed away. Leslie was adopted by an American family at the age of 13.
&nbsp;
<h6>A Short History of Adoptions from Korea</h6>
The sisters’ story is part of a wave of orphaned and mixed-race Korean children adopted after the Korean War by American families. Now well into adulthood, many of these adoptees have turned to DNA testing. They hope to learn more about their cultural roots, and in some cases connect with biological family.
<div id="attachment_27320" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27320" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/aGdiP-e1564598558120-300x293.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-27320 size-medium" width="300" height="293" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/aGdiP-e1564598558120-300x293.jpeg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/aGdiP-e1564598558120.jpeg 467w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Tamara as an infant in Korea.</div>
&nbsp;
International adoptions didn’t really begin in the US until the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displaced_Persons_Act_of_1948">Displaced Persons Act of 1948</a>, which allowed orphans from WWII admission to the US for permanent residence. But it wasn’t until 1955, and the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=HDklDwAAQBAJ&#038;pg=PA7&#038;lpg=PA7&#038;dq=%22Relief+of+Certain+War+Orphans%22+korean+adoption&#038;source=bl&#038;ots=ocLy46VVbp&#038;sig=ACfU3U0eq2jwpXxoJ5Mq9Gicbzh7ZMhARA&#038;hl=en&#038;sa=X&#038;ved=2ahUKEwjQ99Ky163jAhUFOH0KHek0B5gQ6AEwCXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&#038;q=%22Relief%20of%20Certain%20War%20Orphans%22%20korean%20adoption&#038;f=false">Bill for Relief of Certain War Orphans,</a> that large scale international adoptions — initially from Korea — to the US were possible. Today China is the main hub of international adoption. But 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.
<h6>Holt International</h6>
Early on in the United States, it was standard practice for many families to Americanize their adopted child as quickly as possible. That often meant cutting them off from their cultural roots. Thus many generations of adoptees were estranged from their cultural heritage and had very little if any information about their birth families.
<div id="attachment_27330" style="width: 231px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27330" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Tamara-before-her-adoption-221x300.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-27330 size-medium" width="221" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Tamara-before-her-adoption-221x300.jpeg 221w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Tamara-before-her-adoption-648x880.jpeg 648w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Tamara-before-her-adoption.jpeg 747w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 221px) 100vw, 221px" />A photo of Leslie before her adoption.</div>
With the hindsight of more than half a century of adoptions from Korea, the groups that handled many of these adoptions now see the importance of these cultural and family connections, said Susan Soonkeum Cox, Vice President of Policy &amp; External Affairs at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holt_International_Children%27s_Services">Holt International Children&#8217;s Services</a>, an adoption agency that helps American families adopt children from outside the United States, including Korea. The couple who originally started Holt, Harry and Bertha Holt, were also instrumental in passing the Bill for Relief of Certain War Orphans.
&nbsp;
“We (now) have the benefit of several generations of adoptees,” said Soonkeum Cox, a Korean adoptee herself. “We’ve come to be aware that a child’s history, where they’re from and their beginning. (It) is very much a part of who they are as they go throughout their lifetime.” 
<h6>Reconnecting with Korean Ancestry</h6>
That desire to connect has expanded the services Holt now offers. The agency assists with family reunification, “motherland tours” of Korea, and Korean culture education. In particular, Holt offers “heritage camps,” where adoptees can learn more about the Korean language, dance and cuisine and discuss issues of identity. Other organizations like <a href="https://meandkorea.org/">Me and Korea</a> also provide adoptees with opportunities to learn more about Korean culture, connect with fellow adoptees and travel to Korea as well. In addition, Holt and some other agencies <a href="https://www.holtinternational.org/pas/adoptee/korea-2-adoptees/search-for-birth-family/">assist</a> adoptees over the age of 18 with finding more paper records and other information about their birth and adoptions, sometimes even connecting them with biological family.
&nbsp;
But frequently because of the nature of some of these early adoptions or the lack of a clear paper record, DNA is the only option for learning more. As companies like 23andMe have grown, so too have the chances of adoptees <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/">finding relatives</a>. The nonprofit <a href="https://www.325kamra.org/">325 Kamra even </a>distributes DNA kits to Koreans and Korean adoptees worldwide, to try to help Korean adoptees find family. And then there are Facebook groups like the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/471938126211984/">KAD 23andme Results Group</a>, where Korean adoptees can share their results, questions, and concerns. 
<h6>Other Korean Adoptee Stories</h6>
Embracing testing has resulted in a wave of stories like Tamara’s and Leslie’s.
<div id="attachment_26535" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-26535" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/siblings-2-300x269.jpg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-26535" width="300" height="269" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/siblings-2-300x269.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/siblings-2.jpg 480w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Justin and Renee.</div>
&nbsp;
Most recently a <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Family/women-adopted-South-Korea-learn-sisters/story?id=64367065">pair of sisters</a> adopted from Korea found each other through 23andMe, and learned they grew up just 30 minutes from each other in Michigan. 23andMe also helped reunite identical twins <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/23andme-reunites-identical-twins-separated-birth/">Amanda and Katey</a>. Born in Seoul, and adopted by different American families, the sisters, both in their 30s, connected for the first time after using 23andMe. 
Another pair of sibling adoptees from Korea, <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/siblings-reunite-using-23andme/">Justin and Renee</a>, were also well into adulthood before finding each other. Justin had been abandoned on the steps of a theater in Seoul, when he was a toddler. The next day, his sister Renee, who was 5 at the time, was left at a market. They reunited 30 years later on Justin’s 36th birthday. And testing has helped others simply clear up mysteries. For example, another pair of sisters adopted together from Korea, grew up not knowing for sure that they were related. 23andMe confirmed that they indeed were <a href="https://www.popsugar.com/family/What-Like-Being-Adopted-From-Korea-White-Family-45954580">biological sisters</a>.
<h6>Tamara and Leslie</h6>
Although they all share a connection to Korea, each story is unique. 
&nbsp;
For Leslie and Tamara, the story isn’t just about sisters connecting, but also about coming to terms with their mixed ancestry, and filling in the gaps of their family history. They were able to find each other because Leslie’s son, Noelin Wheeler, had tested and matched with Tamara on 23andMe. Leslie didn’t even know she had a sister until Noelin, a tattoo artist known for his appearance on SpikeTV’s show Ink Master, found Tamara.
<div id="attachment_27317" style="width: 241px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27317" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Leslie-and-Noelin-e1564598669982-231x300.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-27317 size-medium" width="231" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Leslie-and-Noelin-e1564598669982-231x300.jpeg 231w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Leslie-and-Noelin-e1564598669982.jpeg 655w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 231px) 100vw, 231px" />Leslie and her son Noelin.</div>
&nbsp;
When Noelin texted his mom Tamara’s photo, she immediately knew they were related.
&nbsp;
“I looked at Tamara and felt like I was staring at my mother,” Leslie said.
&nbsp;
The two have been able to meet each others’ families and spend time with each other. They’ve become a part of each other’s lives, seeing each other a couple times a year and talking weekly. 
&nbsp;
“Leslie has given me a sense of identity,” said Tamara. “As an orphan you don’t always know why you are the way you are, why you think or react the way you do. Now I understand myself better.” 
&nbsp;
These last three years, in particular, have been especially life changing for Tamara. Not only did she find Leslie, last year she found five paternal siblings, all of whom ended up living close to her. She enjoys spending time with them regularly, as well.
&nbsp;
“Generations of people have been brought together as a result of these DNA tests, and all of our lives have been enriched,” said Tamara.

Seoul Sisters and Brothers

While fatherhood is about more than just biology, looking at how DNA connects you with your birth father and seeing the traits you share can be illuminating, and for those who have never known their birth fathers before connecting for the first time, it can be transformative.
&#8220;It was like that missing piece was finally there,” Tyler told his local news station after meeting his birth father.
<h2>A Special Connection</h2>
Like Tyler, we’ve<a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/5-heartwarming-stories-people-finding-144843986.html"> heard from many customers</a> connected with their birth fathers through 23andMe. As we gear up to celebrate Father’s Day, we wanted to share a few of those stories of customers preparing to celebrate their first Father’s Day with their newfound birth father.
Last year, we brought together sons and daughters celebrating their<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/happy-fathers-day-4/"> first Father’s Day</a> with their birth fathers. Emotions abound as the situations are often complicated, but many felt lucky to establish a relationship that wasn’t there before.

<h2>Making up for Lost Time</h2>
Tyler, 23, was fortunate to grow up with loving adoptive parents and a supportive father. He always knew he was adopted, but he wanted to know more. Using 23andMe, he found an uncle who connected him to his biological father, Jonathan, who never knew about Tyler’s birth. His first emotion on discovering he had a child unbeknownst to him was guilt that he hadn’t been there for his son.
“Nobody said a word, no one told me anything,” Jonathan said. &#8220;I had no idea at all. It was a little bit of a shock. You don&#8217;t expect that, and you feel like you missed something or left somebody behind.”
But Jonathan, who has another son and a daughter, said he was relieved to learn from Tyler that his adoptive parents were so loving and supportive. And now he wants to make up for the lost time.
<h2>Finding Similarities</h2>
When Jaime Lee, a 38-year-old from upstate New York, found her birth father, she told<a href="https://www.syracusewomanmag.com/2019/05/01/special-feature-dna-kit-connects-woman-with-father-she-never-knew/"> Syracuse Woman Magazine</a> that he felt distraught he hadn’t been there for her growing up. He never knew of Jaime Lee’s birth. When they finally met and learned about her rough childhood and the years of abuse she suffered, he was distraught.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-27148" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Jaime-Lee-1-225x300.jpeg" alt="" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Jaime-Lee-1-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Jaime-Lee-1-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Jaime-Lee-1-660x880.jpeg 660w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Jaime-Lee-1-885x1180.jpeg 885w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Jaime-Lee-1.jpeg 1280w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />
“He just feels very sad because he never knew, and he knows what I went through, and he feels that he could have helped,” she said.
After connecting on 23andMe, Jaime Lee traveled to Puerto Rico to meet him in person, spending 11 days there and getting to know him and her extended family, saying she “had the best time of my life.”
“We’ve already seen the similarities,” she said. “We have a lot of the same things, hands, feet, face. We look very much alike.”
Check out more stories like Tyler’s and Jaime’s by visiting 23andMe’s YouTube channel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOO4NU_zagw&amp;list=PLFvkfbvHpp1kU9nvguZrZ2Y7nYc8_swVA">here</a>. Happy Father’s Day from 23andMe.

More 23andMe Father’s Day Connections

By Rachael Rifkin
Buried in our DNA along with our health histories, is the story of our families. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-27094 size-full" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Shauna-1-scaled.jpg" alt="A photo Shauna smiling." width="1707" height="2560" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Shauna-1-scaled.jpg 1707w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Shauna-1-200x300.jpg 200w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Shauna-1-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Shauna-1-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Shauna-1-587x880.jpg 587w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Shauna-1-787x1180.jpg 787w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1707px) 100vw, 1707px" />
Shauna tested to learn more about her health history, and found herself instead in the middle of the plot of a movie (The Delivery Man, to be exact). Thoughts about potential susceptibilities to diseases receded as she discovered first one, then eight, and now at least 29 donor siblings.
As someone who grew up as an only child and really owned that identity, receiving an email that began “It looks like we are related” was pretty disorienting.
“I remember looking at the email and thinking, ‘Oh my god, what is happening? What happened?’’ Shauna said.
<h6>Diblings</h6>
Shauna and her <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/lost-girls/">donor siblings</a> are “diblings”— siblings with different mothers, conceived using the same donor father. To ease the transition from only child or sibling to dibling, they created a Facebook group for themselves. One of Shauna’s half brothers even made a packet of information so that every time a new dibling is found. The packets ensures that there’s a ready source of answers for the most obvious questions. Still, Shauna and her brothers and sisters know it’s overwhelming at first, so once the basics have been supplied, they purposely give new siblings space, waiting on them to reach out for more contact.

At this point, Shauna has known about her brothers and sisters for over a year, but it never ceases to be a little weird. It’s also exciting to meet strangers with whom you share so much DNA. This is especially the case when you end up connecting deeply with new found siblings, as she has. For Shauna, the experience has largely been about identity and connection.
<h6>First Steps</h6>
She first began to reexamine her thoughts on identity at the age of 27 when she found out she was conceived through a sperm donor.
“I was having what now I think were stress-related health issues, and was asking a lot of questions about my blood type and genetic history,” Shauna said. “My mom wanted me to take the correct information to the doctors. So she had a conversation with my dad and they decided to tell me about the sperm donor.”
Her dad was a paraplegic but it never occurred to Shauna that he might not be her biological father. She points out that when you assume your parents are your biological parents, you don’t really want to question that.
So Shauna was shocked when during a visit with her mom and stepdad, her mom took her out for coffee and told her the news.
“It was mind blowing to me at the time,” Shauna said “I didn’t really fully absorb it; I don’t know that you ever fully emotionally absorb something like that. You think your parent is your biological parent and you have a relationship with them. Whether it’s a good relationship or a bad one—and my relationship with my dad was rocky—it’s still a piece of who you are. Your family is such a big part of who you are, how your personality is formed and how you navigate the world, and when you feel like part of that identity has changed, you can feel super disconnected from yourself.”
<div id="attachment_27096" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27096" class="wp-image-27096 size-full" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/0-1.jpg" alt="A photo of Shauna with five of her 29 donor siblings." width="1024" height="768" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/0-1.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/0-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/0-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/0-1-880x660.jpg 880w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Shauna, left, and five of her 29 donor siblings.</div>
<h6></h6>
<h6>Defining Family</h6>
Shauna had already redefined the way she saw family several times over the years. Her parents divorced when she was two and they both remarried. Her stepdad became the father figure she needed. She was naturally social, and thought of some of her friends as siblings and would call their parents Mom and Dad. She considers herself fortunate to have already had a fluid definition of family in place when she learned about being donor conceived.
It was years later, in 2013, that she tested with 23andMe and her Ancestry Composition showed she had Southern European, Native American, and Eastern European ancestry. Some of that did make sense. She already knew her mom’s side was Mexican, which explained the Southern European and Native American ancestry. But it was the Eastern European ancestry that was a bit of a mystery. Still she didn’t dive back into her results until May of 2017 when her stepdad mentioned that 23andMe had gotten FDA approval for some of their genetic health predisposition reports. This time, she decided to change her profile from anonymous to Shauna H., which made it easier for DNA Relatives on the site to connect with her.
<h6>Making the Connections</h6>
She got that first email from her brother the next day. After reading the email, she took a much closer look at what 23andMe had uncovered about her heritage. She found out she was 49 percent Ashkenazi Jewish, a discovery she had no cultural reference for as someone who wholeheartedly identifies with her Mexican side.
About a week or two later she met one of her new found sisters in person.
“She was the first one I met, so seeing how much we looked alike extra overwhelmed me,” Shauna said. “Because of what I do for a living, I’ve seen myself on video a lot and know what I look like when I talk. To watch someone else’s mouth move like my mouth moves was very weird. As an only child, I didn’t have a relative who was my age or who looked that much like me, and now I do.”
Next, she and three other siblings met up with a half brother who was in town from Israel. After that, the siblings kept rolling in. Many of them live in the San Francisco Bay area near the two clinics where they were conceived. Their largest gathering so far has included eight siblings.
<h6>Nature and Nurture</h6>
One of the most interesting and surreal parts of all this is the similarities among the siblings, Shauna said. One of Shauna’s brothers has a daughter who looks like another brother. And that same brother has a son who looks a lot like one of their youngest siblings. Beyond the physical similarities, there are also shared traits. For instance, quite a few siblings are engineers. Many have a dry and nerdy sense of humor. But as Shauna points out, it’s hard to attribute the similarities to nature or nurture. Many grew up in the same Northern California region that, as she says, “tends to be a very nurturing place for that kind of personality.”
She is closest to a sister and two brothers. They were all born the same year. In fact, Shauna and her sister are two and a half weeks apart. The two brothers are only two days apart. She talks to them frequently and they often get together to watch sports.
Another reason for the sense of familiarity and community between the siblings—their shared experience. They’re the only people in their lives who know what it feels like to suddenly gain many, many new siblings as an adult.
“There’s no guidemap for something like this. We’re just trying to figure it out,” she said.
<h6>Identity</h6>
For Shauna, this experience has really illustrated how connected we all are.
“There’s a connection we have because we share DNA,&#8221; Shauna said. &#8220;But there’s also a shared connection because we’re all human beings and we’re all more alike than we are different. People are from places they don’t realize, and we often go off of verbal history with no evidence. That is, until you actually have some evidence.”
She is currently writing a book on the role of the <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/23andme-and-tribeca-studios-premiere-film-series/">self and identity</a> in who you are and how you navigate the world, including your health.
“We’re so disconnected from our bodies and who we are,&#8221; Shauna said. &#8220;And when something like this happens to you—when you find out who you thought you were is not who you are—it changes your identity, at least externally. I loved being an only child and never wanted siblings.&#8221;
But the universe had other plans, she said.
&#8220;It’s through being extremely connected to who I am internally, which for me is through my body and movement, that has allowed me to stay true to who I am,” Shauna said.
Rachael Rifkin&#8217;s work focuses on bridging the gap between generations, cultures and backgrounds. Rachael&#8217;s writing concentrates on our similarities and listening to each other&#8217;s stories. She helps people write their ethical wills and life stories. Her work incorporates family stories, and once recreated photos of eight of her relatives in order to highlight shared family traits and stories.

29 Siblings and Counting

Last week, a few 23andMe customers came together for a special brunch and a chance to celebrate their first Mother’s Day with the birth moms they discovered, with the help of 23andMe.
<div id="attachment_27074" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27074" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190501-0040-300x200.jpg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-27074" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190501-0040-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190501-0040-768x513.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190501-0040-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190501-0040-880x587.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190501-0040-1180x788.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190501-0040.jpg 1600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />From left, Amanda, her birth mother Julia, her mother Janice, and her biological sister Laura.</div>
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For Amanda, the event was sweeter because she was able to honor not just the mother who gave her life — Julia — but also her adoptive mom — Janice — who raised and guided her through her life.
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“I got to celebrate with both my moms,” said Amanda. “It was a beautiful event.”

<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xOO4NU_zagw" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
For Jacob, the event was a chance to meet his birth mother, Natalie, in person for the first time. It was a meeting neither of them thought would be possible.
Jacob was raised by loving parents and always knew he was adopted. But the question of who his birth mom was always lingered, and he began searching years ago. Natalie, too, had been looking, even resorting to using a private investigator. Despite all their efforts neither Jacob nor Natalie were able to find each other.
<div id="attachment_27075" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27075" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190501-0002-300x200.jpg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-27075" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190501-0002-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190501-0002-768x513.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190501-0002-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190501-0002-880x587.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190501-0002-1180x788.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190501-0002.jpg 1600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Jacob, on the right, and his birth mother Natalie.</div>
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It wasn’t until Jacob used 23andMe and connected with a close relative that they were able to make a breakthrough. When Jacob finally got her contact information and called her, it was as if Natalie had been waiting by the phone just for his call. Almost immediately after he told her that he thought they might be related, Natalie asked him:
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“Are you my son?”
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Jacob thought he might be, so Natalie asked him if his birthday was November 24, 1990.
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“Yes,” he said.
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They both immediately burst into tears.
As mother and son were getting to know each other through emails and calls, Natalie sent Jacob a parcel that included several birthday cards  for the birthdays she’d missed since giving birth to Jacob and then placing him for adoption. The cards were also a way for Natalie to cope with missing out on her son’s life. 
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“I’ve always wanted to meet my biological mom,” said Jacob smiling after meeting her in person for the first time. 
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For Lorraine, the event was more than just a Mother’s Day celebration; it was more like a family reunion.
<div id="attachment_27077" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27077" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/unnamed-300x200.jpg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-27077" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/unnamed-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/unnamed.jpg 512w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Lorraine, left, her birth mom Gail, and sister Valerie.</div>
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Lorraine was able to meet not just her birth mother, Gail, but also her birth father David, and one of her full biological sisters Valerie. When Lorraine was born, Gail and David did not think they could not provide for Lorraine and made the difficult decision to place her for adoption. 
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They later married and had two more children, but never forgot about their first child. It was David who used 23andMe, in his effort to find Lorraine. They first connected with Lorraine late last year and spent both Thanksgiving and Christmas with Lorraine and her husband, giving her a chance to meet her siblings, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. The Mother’s Day event offered Lorraine another opportunity to build family memories.
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“I’ve always been curious about where I come from,” said Lorraine, sitting with her birth mom and new found family members.
<div id="attachment_27078" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27078" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190502-0260-300x200.jpg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-27078" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190502-0260-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190502-0260-768x513.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190502-0260-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190502-0260-880x587.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190502-0260-1180x788.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23-and-me-190502-0260.jpg 1600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />From right, Isaac, Julie, Ava, Michael, Dale and Sonia.</div>
As with Lorraine, the event for identical twins, Ava and Sonia, was much bigger than just a Mother’s Day brunch. It was the first time that Sonia and Ava were able to come together not only with their biological mother and father, Julie and Dale, but also with their twin brothers Isaac and Michael. Their story is a bit complicated.
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The twin sisters began searching for more information about their biological mother after learning a few years back that their mother, Carla, had used an embryo donor to conceive. Their biological mother, Julie, had been the donor. She and her husband had used IVF to conceive, and after becoming pregnant with their twins, Isaac and Michael, they decided to donate her leftover embryos to other women who were trying to have children.
In meeting their birth mother and father, Ava and Sonia marveled at some of their shared mannerisms and traits.
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“I can already start picking off the similarities between us with the laugh or the different smirks or mannerisms,” their brother Isaac said.
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<div id="attachment_27076" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27076" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019-05-08-1-300x200.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-27076 size-medium" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019-05-08-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019-05-08-1.jpg 512w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />We love mom genes. Happy Mother&#8217;s Day.</div>
Both their mothers, Julie and Carla, said they were happy that they have all connected.
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“Now,” their birth mother Julie said, “they have each other.”
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This Mother’s Day, we wanted to celebrate all kinds of mothers — adoptive moms, birth moms, even embryo donor moms. These four families, some of which who had never met before, are now bound because of DNA and through DNA. 
To see all our Mother&#8217;s Day stories go here.
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Have a <a href="https://www.23andme.com/stories/">DNA story</a>? You can share it with us <a href="https://www.23andme.com/stories/#form">here</a>.

Stories — Page 8