Of course he knew he was adopted but that only made Tony Mercer wonder more <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-23002" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-300x300.jpg" alt="Tony Mercer Quote" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-Mercer-Quote.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />about what made him so tall, what made his thumbs so stubby, and where he got his passion for playing the piano.
“My adoptive family was very caring and supportive as I was growing up, but I never felt completely …integrated,” said Tony, a professional pianist and church music director. “My personality and interests and theirs were just not quite the same.”
He loves his family, but he also knows that there are differences that can only be explained by genetics. So, Tony decided to use 23andMe to learn a little bit more about himself – information he said he didn’t think he could learn any other way, he said. He was interested in learning more about his health, the genetics behind some of his traits, and where in the world his ancestors came from. Even though he was adopted and curious about his biological parents, he was still wary about connecting with biological relatives, however.
“Actually, I had no desire to find my biological family,” Tony said. “I had a lot of fear of rejection. I assumed they gave me up for a good reason, and I was afraid of what that reason might be.”
<div id="attachment_23007" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23007" class="size-medium wp-image-23007" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-his-dad-and-bio-mom-300x169.jpg" alt="Tony Mercer, right, with his adoptive dad Lindy Mercer, and his biological mother, Lydia Raska. " width="300" height="169" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-his-dad-and-bio-mom-300x169.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-his-dad-and-bio-mom-768x432.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-his-dad-and-bio-mom-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-his-dad-and-bio-mom-880x495.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-his-dad-and-bio-mom-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tony-his-dad-and-bio-mom.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Tony Mercer, right, with his adoptive dad Lindy Mercer, and his biological mother, Lydia Raska.</div>
He’d seen his adoptive brother go through being rejected when he tried to connect to his biological family, and Tony didn’t want to go through the same thing.
“I didn’t want to face that kind of emotional pain,” he said.
It’s a fear that a lot of adoptees go through – the possibility of being doubly rejected by their biological families. (Once when they were given up for adoption, and a second time when they try to connect later in life.) At the same time, there is often an overpowering need to know. Tony skated along that border between simply wanting to know who his mother and father were and the fear of being rejected by them.
So, when he first got his results, he focused on health information, his traits, and his ancestry. He did look at his DNA Relatives, but they were all very distant.
“I hadn’t really expected to find any close relatives,” he said.
But in 2015, all that changed when Tony connected with a first cousin named Melanie. They exchanged some information. Tony figured out they were connected on his maternal side, and he asked if perhaps she had an aunt who had given up a child for adoption in Alaska in 1984.
Yes, she did.
Melanie knew a family secret about her aunt Lydia giving up a baby boy born on the same day,  in the same year, and the same city in Alaska as Tony.
“Besides my mother, she was the only person who knew about me,” said Tony.
He marvels at the luck that the one person who knew about him, besides his biological mother, had also tested with 23andMe.
“I know how lucky I am,” he said.
Things happened very quickly after that. Melanie connected Tony with her aunt Lydia, his biological mother. First, Tony and Lydia had a few email exchanges, then they talked on the phone, and finally she came to Florida to meet him in person.
“As far as Lydia is concerned, just meeting her and seeing that connection … it was very positive and stabilizing for me,” he said.
He saw in her traits he had in himself, and felt connected in a way that he hadn’t ever felt before. It’s not just that he’s tall, has stubby thumbs, and plays the piano, he said.
“Watching her interact with my friends, I immediately noticed that all their positive traits, and the reasons I love all of them, are traits that she has,” said Tony.
He wondered if perhaps his friends were representative of his own search for finding a deep connection to who he was.
“I think it’s just the most awesome thing in the world,” he said.
Tony also was able to learn a bit about his birth and eventually connect to his biological father. He learned that both his biological mother and father came from musical families, which explained a lot.
“Although I was inspired by my adoptive family in North Carolina and Tennessee who were musicians, I think a lot of that inborn talent is genetic,” said Tony, who first started playing piano as a six year old.
Tony’s adoptive father supported his search. His adoptive mother died when he was 16. That also made connecting with his biological mother that much more important, he said. It wasn’t so much that she filled a void he had with losing his mother, but that she is giving him another chance to have a maternal presence in his life.
He also got more context about himself. He’s 6’5” and he learned that all the men in his mom’s family are tall. He learned musical talent and red hair runs in the family. Even how he’s gravitated to work that involves helping others seems to be genetic, he said.
From his mother, Tony was also able to learn more about why he was put up for adoption. That gave him the ability to finally get an answer to the question he always had growing up.
“I have so much closure and peace about my adoption now, and I’ve got an awesome mom back in my life from all this,” he said.
His mother also helped Tony connect to his biological father, and the two have talked on the phone and hope to meet each other in person soon. More recently he met with his biological mother, his aunt, and his biological brother in Las Vegas.
“I know this might not happen for everyone, but I am so thankful to 23andme for making this experience even possible. Technology and science is so crazy these days, and I thank you guys for being on the cutting edge and making this accessible to the public.”

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

How Lucky I Am

Many adoptees talk about walking through a crowd, looking at the faces of strangers and wondering if they are brushing shoulders with one of their parents or a brother or sister.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_22978" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22978" class="size-medium wp-image-22978" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/FB_IMG_1444610175227-300x285.jpg" alt="Carole, center, with her sister Felice Weinbaum, left, and Sabrina Goldberg on the right." width="300" height="285" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/FB_IMG_1444610175227-300x285.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/FB_IMG_1444610175227.jpg 720w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Carole flanked on her left by sister Felice Weinbaum, and her sister Sabrina Goldberg on her right.</div>
Carole Huber, an adoptee, was no different. That urge to learn more about her biological parents, about her story, never really went away. But decades of wondering left her thinking she would never find her biological family or learn her story. That changed after using 23andMe.


“This brought me to my family,” she said.


In fact, Carole met her mother, without even knowing it, more than 2,500 miles from where she had been placed for adoption.
Carole worked as an oncology nurse at a Florida hospital’s cancer unit. She now thinks hard about one patient in particular, as well as his wife, daughters and sister-in-laws that had visited him daily over his three week hospital stay on her unit.
Many years later, Carole now has trouble remembering his family and any conversations they may have had, but she thinks about them all the time.
“My (biological) mother’s husband was admitted onto the oncology unit. I was the charge nurse so I met my mother, sisters, cousins and aunts. I was in the room with them, but I didn’t know,” she said. “I had no idea.”


She now also wonders about a house, not far from her home.
“It turns out my aunt lives in that house and I pass it every day and I didn’t know,” she said.
Now after learning about her family, those encounters and her daily trips past her aunts house suddenly take on a new meaning.
<div id="attachment_22982" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22982" class="size-medium wp-image-22982" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Carole-and-Family-300x271.jpg" alt="From left to right Carole's daughter Carley, Ryan Kaplan, Carole Huber, Marissa Kaplan and Joan Sinkin, Carole's aunt." width="300" height="271" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Carole-and-Family-300x271.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Carole-and-Family.jpg 720w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />From left to right Carole&#8217;s daughter Carley, her cousin Ryan Kaplan, Carole Huber, Ryan&#8217;s sister Marissa Kaplan and Joan Sinkin, Carole&#8217;s aunt.</div>
Until recently Carole didn’t know anything about her biological family. Put up for adoption in 1964, she had almost no information about herself. By accident she’d been given her mother’s maiden name, but it was so common to be unhelpful. And her mother had also told her something.
“My mother thought I was part Swedish,” Carole said.
Wanting to learn a little more about herself, Carole turned to 23andMe in 2011.
“So I set on a journey to find my ancestry,” she said. “I never intended to find family.”


She learned that her adoptive mother was not far off with what she knew. Her 23andMe results showed she had about 40 percent Norwegian ancestry and she learned many other things, but initially didn’t connect with any close family. All that changed in 2014 when two new matches popped up in her DNA Relatives on 23andMe.
Carole connected with a brother and sister with whom she shared about 7 percent DNA – meaning a close relative match. For Carole, who’d never before been connected to a close biological relative, this was a big deal.
Messaging the two through 23andMe she explained that she was adopted and that she knew almost nothing about her biological family. Giving them her email address and the one bit of information she did have about her birth mother, her mother’s maiden name. She got a quick message back.
“I’ll get back to you.”
This man and woman turned out to be the children of Carole’s first cousin. Their grandmother is Carole’s aunt, the aunt who lives in the house Carole passed by almost daily on her way to work.
In the meantime, she went to Facebook and looked them up scanning through their family photos.


“Within 15 minutes I was looking at my mother’s face,” she said.


The next morning she heard back from her new found relatives and was brought into a very large family. Her biological mother had only died nine months before, but Carole&#8217;s aunt gave her the backstory of her birth and her biological mother’s life.
She’d been conceived after her birth mother moved to Los Angeles, but that had remained a secret. After Carole was given up for adoption, her mother moved back to New York, ironically not all that far from where Carole grew up.
Within a few months of returning from Los Angeles, Carole’s birth mother met her husband and was married. Soon thereafter, she had two more daughters, Carole’s half sisters. Her aunt told Carole all this only 12 hours after they made their connections through 23andMe.


“She knew about me and she told me I have two sisters,” Carole said.


Right after talking to her aunt, Carole got a call from one of her sisters.
“It was so immediate,” Carole said.

Wondering for more than 50 years about her biological family and where she’d come from, the immediacy of learning was a little shocking for everyone.


“I wasn’t sad or happy, just emotional,” she said. “I know I got very, very lucky, I know that something like this could have gone very differently, but they’ve embraced me and I’m part of their family now.”
Carole now has two sisters, two aunts, an uncle, nine first cousins, and 5 nieces and nephews. Her own three children are intrigued and her adoptive mother is tickled by the whole story.
“She’s very solid in her own shoes,” said Carole about her adoptive mother. “She thinks it’s a hoot.”


Carole’s one regret is that she made this connection just a few months too late and wasn’t able to meet her birth mother. That’s when she thinks of all the times she might have crossed paths with her mother and her aunt. It turns out that her mother and her husband retired to Florida and had lived in the same town as Carole. Her aunt lives there too, only a few blocks from her home.
“My aunt lives in the next development over and I pass her house every single day on the way to work,” she said.
She’s sure she met her mother when her husband was admitted to the oncology unit where she was the charge nurse.
“I met my mother, sisters, aunts and uncles,” she said “But I had no idea.”


Carole feels extremely fortunate and is so grateful for 23andMe who has helped change her life forever.

Hidden in Plain Sight

<div id="attachment_22956" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22956" class="wp-image-22956 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_2762-300x203.jpg" alt="IMG_2762" width="300" height="203" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_2762-300x203.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_2762-768x518.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_2762-1024x691.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_2762-880x594.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_2762-1180x797.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_2762.jpg 1988w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Barbara Weir, right, with her daughter Casey.</div>
Not everyone who tries 23andMe has the same sort of reaction to his or her results as Barbara Weir.


“It’s mind boggling,” said the 87 year-old who lives in San Diego. “Next to marrying my husband and having my children it’s the most exciting thing in my life. It explains so much about me – who and what I am.”
With the help of her daughter, Casey Spaccarelli, a doctor who lives in Chicago, Barbara not only found out that she’d been adopted – something she’d never known – but she also connected with and then met her half brother in person.
“One of the big things for me is that it explains so much,” she said. “Looking back I was nothing like my family. We had different aptitudes and interests. I remember my sister once telling me ‘we’re not alike at all.’ I wanted to be like her and my family, but I just wasn’t.”
<div id="attachment_22955" style="width: 269px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22955" class="wp-image-22955 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4728-1-259x300.jpg" alt="IMG_4728-1" width="259" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4728-1-259x300.jpg 259w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4728-1-883x1024.jpg 883w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4728-1-768x891.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4728-1-758x880.jpg 758w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4728-1-1017x1180.jpg 1017w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 259px) 100vw, 259px" />Barbara and her brother Marvin soon after meeting for the first time.</div>
The revelation that she’d been adopted and that she had biological family, including a half brother, who had lived in the Boston area, didn’t happen all at once. It started with a lot less drama, with Casey deciding to create a family tree and look at her ancestry. She tested first with another company.
“I did it for fun,” she said.
But very quickly she discovered a lot about herself that didn’t match what she had always been told. For one, she has about a quarter Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.
“No one in the family knew of any Jewish heritage, only German,” Casey said.
Eventually Barbara tested and it turned out that she has about 50 percent Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Casey tested with 23andMe thinking that perhaps the result was a mistake. It wasn’t. So she had her mother and her mother’s sister, Nancy, test on 23andMe. Her mother’s results confirmed the Ashkenazi ancestry, but her mother and Nancy didn’t have any overlapping DNA. They weren’t biologically related, according to the test.


“So I told my mom, ‘I think you may have been adopted?’” Casey said. “And she just said, ‘Oh I don’t know, maybe,’ and left it at that.”


But Casey wanted to figure this out. Fortunately she found a close relative connection in her 23andMe results with a name she didn’t recognize. So Casey contacted him. His name is Steve and she told him a little bit about herself and asked if he had any family in the Boston area, where Barbara had been born in the late 1920s.


“He said ‘my whole family is from Boston,’” Casey said.


He was open and helpful. Steve also had a lot of family history that he was willing to share with Casey, names and dates. That all became very important for Casey, who, by triangulating information, figured out that Steve’s grandfather Karl was also likely to be her grandfather, and Barbara’s father. Fortunately Steve’s uncle Marvin was still alive and they decided to talk to him.


“That got the ball rolling,” Casey said.


She knew they were close to solving this mystery. After looking at a few high school photos of Marvin and his sisters, Casey was pretty sure she’d found her mother’s biological family. A few weeks later Marvin, who grew up in Boston but now lived very close to Barbara in California, tested with 23andMe.
Bingo.
He turned out to be Barbara’s half brother.
The two arranged to finally meet. In photos they look remarkably similar with the same slim build and smiles.
“I’d never seen anyone who looked like me before,” said Barbara, surprised to be able to see family resemblances in her new-found brother and in photos of her sister.
Marvin’s father, Karl, had been a successful business owner in Boston, who had emigrated from Russia. He had a big family – Marvin, who is a year younger than Barbara, was the last of the family’s six children.
Casey still doesn’t know the circumstances of Barbara’s conception, only that she and Marvin have the same biological father, but different mothers. Barbara’s parents lived in Boston at the time she was adopted but later moved to Nashville where she grew up.


“So my mother found out she was adopted at 87 years of age,” Casey said. “It had been this huge family secret only known to her adoptive mother and the secret had died with her, until now. Until 23andMe.”


Even learning this so late in life was hugely important for Barbara. Things she wasn’t sure about in the past suddenly made sense.
“It’s amazing to learn this all at my age,” said Barbara. “I finally found out who I am.”

Who I Am

It wasn’t a wish, but on many of his birthdays, Lenny Scovel would take a minute and imagine the thoughts of a woman he’d never met.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22916" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-quote-300x300.jpg" alt="Lenny quote" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-quote-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-quote-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-quote-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-quote-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-quote-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-quote-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-quote-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-quote-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-quote.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />


“I would wonder if my mother was out there somewhere thinking about me, perhaps saying, ‘Oh it’s my son’s birthday today,’” said Lenny, 52. 

<h6>Born in Greenville</h6>

Adopted as a baby, he never knew about his biological family, not even his ethnic origins.


“All I knew was that I was born in Greenville, South Carolina in 1963 at St. Francis Catholic Hospital,” said Lenny, who runs a wedding business in Colorado.


Whether his mother was wondering about him or not, isn’t known but there were people he didn’t know who were thinking about him.

<h6>Siblings Searching</h6>

For decades, Karen Bumgarner and her brother Terry McCutchen searched for their siblings scattered across the United States. They referred to their lost brothers and sisters as their “family diaspora,” a moniker coined by the first found brother, Richard Frazier.


Their mother, Jean Woodward, had had twelve children, but only kept Karen and Terry. Her first husband had served in the Army Air Corps and was killed in Germany during the Second World War, and in the decades that followed she married twice and became pregnant by several different men, and each of those children she gave up for adoption.
Over the years, Karen and Terry had succeeded in finding several of those children, largely thanks to the ceaseless efforts of Terry’s wife Kathy. But sometimes they had little to go on. For one of their brothers all they had was:


“Boy. South Carolina. 1963.&#8221; 
 
<h6>Origins</h6>

They had no idea how to find him. This was long before the advent of direct-to-consumer genetic testing services like 23andMe. There seemed little hope that they’d ever find their brother.
Although Lenny Scovel often wondered about his biological mother, he didn’t feel abandoned. He felt lucky to have been adopted and raised by a loving couple, Don and Mary Scovel. He just always wondered where he came from.
<div id="attachment_22918" style="width: 203px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22918" class="size-full wp-image-22918" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/10356315_10152545668998277_9759572226819466_n.jpg" alt="Lenny and his adoptive father Donald Scovel." width="193" height="253" />Lenny and his adoptive father Donald Scovel.</div>
“I’m eternally grateful to my parents,” he said, “but my biological origins have been my life’s curiosity.”


After seeing the 2013 movie Philomena, a moving story about an Irish Catholic woman’s search for the son she gave up for adoption, Lenny redoubled his interest in finding out more about his origins.
<h6>Using DNA</h6>
But it was his wife who helped push him along, purchasing a 23andMe kit for him as a Christmas gift in 2014. The thought was that at the very least, he would learn definitively what his ethnicity was.
“Even the lack of ethnic identity has been a gaping hole in me for 51 years,” he said.


A few weeks later he did indeed learn about his ancestry – he didn’t just have English and Irish ancestry, but also Norwegian and a little Native American ancestry as well.
Yet it was a connection with another 23andMe customer that sparked the revelation. 23andMe identified someone he initially thought was a cousin, named Tania B. This was the first time he’d ever connected to any biological relative.
“I immediately sent her a message,” he said. “What happened in the next few hours was unbelievable and overwhelming.”


Tania confirmed that she was a relative but they weren’t cousins: Tania was likely his half-niece and her father was Lenny’s half-brother, Randy Bryan.


“Like dominoes, my family began to fall into place,” Lenny said. “I soon had three half-brothers and three half-sisters. As incredible as that is, we believe there are at least four more!”
<div id="attachment_22917" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22917" class="wp-image-22917 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-and-Siblinhgs-300x225.jpg" alt="Lenny and Siblinhgs" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-and-Siblinhgs-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-and-Siblinhgs-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-and-Siblinhgs-880x660.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lenny-and-Siblinhgs.jpg 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Lenny, on the far right, with his siblings. From left to right and in birth order: Terry McCutchen, Karen Bumgarner, Bonnie Frank, Richard Frazier, Randy Bryan, and Becky Nolen. (Photo: Lenny Scovel)</div>
<h6>
 A Blessing</h6>

Their mother, who’d been born in 1922, had died in 2000. She’d married at 19, had two children – Terry and Karen – but her husband was killed during the war. Jean married at least two more times and had several children from several different men.
But a lot of that information her children didn’t piece together until she was diagnosed with cancer. Her daughter Karen sat with her before she died and attempted to get from her a list of those lost children. One of the last things she told them was about a son, born in 1963 in South Carolina.
It would be almost 15 years before they could find him with the help of 23andMe. For Lenny, it was the fulfillment of a life long quest.


“At last, my life’s great mystery finally revealed itself,” he said. “What an incredible blessing.”

<h6>Connecting</h6>

In June of 2015, seven of the twelve siblings met for what they called a “union-reunion” in the town of Sisters, Oregon. It was the first time Lenny was able to meet his brothers and sisters.
&#8220;They were all ready for me,” he said.
At the reunion, the siblings toasted their mother, talked about their lives and family, and pledged to continue to search for the siblings yet to be found.
“There is no way Jean could have ever imagined that moment, with so many of us together,” says Lenny, “but we all owe our lives to her, and in spite of what you might consider her questionable choices, we are all so grateful for our lives, and for each other.”

Boy. South Carolina. 1963.

Scott Fisher, the host of the syndicated family history radio show and podcast <a href="http://extremegenes.com/ep-104-23andme-dna-day-and-pursuing-a-jail-break/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Extreme Genes</a>, talked earlier this month with 23andMe’s Senior Director of <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-21027" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/@PITER-23andMe-JoannaMountain-43.jpg" alt="@PITER-23andMe-JoannaMountain-43" width="200" height="285" />Research Joanna Mountain.


For this episode, Fischer and Joanna spoke again about ancestry features focusing in on some of the more common questions from customers. Fischer previously spoke with 23andMe population geneticist Kasia Byrc, PhD, about some of the science behind DNA testing, and he will continue to feature an expert from 23andMe on his show each month to delve into the ins and out of DNA testing for ancestry purposes.
Talking to Joanna, Fisher learned that many customers from the United States have family stories about Native American ancestry and they often test with 23andMe to explore that side of their family history.
“Sometimes they find it in the DNA, but sometimes it’s not there,” Joanna said during the show.


That doesn’t always mean that those family stories are wrong, but that the Native American ancestry has been lost over the generations, Joanna said. The DNA evidence might not be there anymore but there may still be cultural evidence of that ancestry.
Fischer also asked about adoptees and what typically motivates them to test.


“Actually they have a lot of the same questions (as other customers),” Joanna said.
But for adoptees, testing is often the only option to find out some very basic information, like their ancestry, said Joanna, who oversees research projects and the development of ancestry product offerings at 23andMe.
The show also featured David Allen Lambert, Chief Genealogist of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and American Ancestors, Sarah O’Connor of <a href="http://www.geneartistry.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">GeneArtistry</a>.com, and Tom Perry from <a href="http://www.tmcplace.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TMCPlace.com</a>.


Check out the podcast <a href="http://extremegenes.com/ep-104-23andme-dna-day-and-pursuing-a-jail-break/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>.

Another Extreme Genes Podcast

Several media stories in the last few months have highlighted the potential of 23andMe to help adoptees.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-6586 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-300x300.jpg" alt="An image of 23andMe's logo." width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog.jpg 350w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
One of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/nyregion/a-son-given-up-for-adoption-is-found-after-half-a-century-and-then-lost-again.html">more touching pieces</a> highlighted a woman’s 50-year search for the son she’d given up for adoption at 19. She was able to find him using 23andMe, only to lose him again to cancer. Another interesting <a href="http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-21/korean-adoptees-are-using-dna-kits-get-glimpse-their-ancestry">story on PRI</a> looked at Korean born adoptees using DNA to learn more about their ancestry.
Inventor and scientist Thomas Park Clement, who was among the first wave of Korean adoptees to come to the United States in the 1950s, set aside a million dollars of his own money to cover the cost of other Korean adoptees who want to get tested.
&#8220;Everyone on the planet has the right to know who their relatives are,&#8221; Clement is quoted as saying.
Those stories and others highlight that while it’s not designed with adoptees in mind, 23andMe has become a resource for many wanting to fill in the gaps in what they know about their ancestry, their inherited traits or family history. 
For many of us we take for granted knowing this basic information about ourselves, but for many adoptees using a DNA test is the only way they could find out this kind of information.
<div style="float: center; text-align: justified; width: 650px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;"><a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/more-than-just-luck">More Than Just Luck</a> 
With the help of a genetic genealogist and her 23andMe results, a woman abandoned behind a grocery store as an infant is able to identify her biological mother.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-22519 size-thumbnail" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-150x150.jpg" alt="A photo of brothers who found each other using 23andMe with a quote that says &quot;Stories of this kind, they are hard to believe…”" width="150" height="150" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul-quote1.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> 
Not an adoption story, but this story tracks some of the same kind of ordeals adoptees have to go through to find out about their biological families. In this case, half brothers– one who lives in Brazil, the other in the United States – connected through 23andMe. Their story, which spans over several decades and includes some harrowing childhood trauma, ends with the two brothers meeting for the first time.
<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/goodnight-son/">Goodnight Son</a> 
Not every reunion between an adoptee and his or her biological parent or sibling is a happy one, but for Mike Reed the meeting with his biological father couldn&#8217;t have gone better. His biological father welcomed into the family and introduced him to his nine half siblings.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-21929 size-thumbnail" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-150x150.jpg" alt="A photo of Liz with the quote: “To site and talk with someone who is your sibling, or your biological parent … who you have never met… incredible.” " width="150" height="150" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Liz-Quote.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> 
Abandoned in a laundry mat as an infant, Liz Kellner used 23andMe and ultimately found her sisters and biological parents.
<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/an-unexpected-discovery">An Unexpected Discovery</a> 
Cody tested to find out more about his health, but in the process he found his biological parents and half siblings. He also learned that he&#8217;d been conceived when his mother was a young teen and that&#8217;s why he&#8217;d been put up for adoption.
<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/its-a-girl">It’s A Girl</a> 
Although not an adoptee story, Kelli&#8217;s story highlights some of the anxiety many go through when trying to connect with a biological parent. They simply don&#8217;t know how it will play out. For Kelli the experience was a good one. She used 23andMe to help her find her biological father. Once she made the connection her biological father, who hadn’t known of her birth, welcomed her into the family.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-21348 size-thumbnail" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Jeremy-small-quote-150x150.jpg" alt="A photo of an adult son who found his biological father using 23andMe and how the two later became friends: “I am awed by how this happened.” " width="150" height="150" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Jeremy-small-quote-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Jeremy-small-quote.jpg 200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> 
An adult son connects with his biological father and they become friends.
<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/a-siblings-story-from-23andme">A Siblings Story</a> 
Using 23andMe Tricia found her half brother and half sister. They were able to tell her more about her biological father and the three of them met and became friends.
</div>

Searching With 23andMe

The amazing <a href="http://www.yourgeneticgenealogist.com/p/about-me.html">CeCe Moore</a>, a genetic genealogist and 23andMe Ancestry Ambassador, has done it again, solving a family<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-12939" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/CeCephoto.jpg" alt="CeCephoto" width="114" height="162" /> mystery and helping a woman connect with her biological mother for the first time.
“DNA,” Moore told the Orange County Register, “was the only way to solve this.”
<a href="https://www.ocregister.com/articles/tovo-670236-kayla-baby.html">The story</a>, which appeared in the Orange County Register, generated a lot of questions and some strong reactions. CeCe and her team had helped Kayla Tovo, a 27 year-old mother and US Army veteran, solve the mystery of her birth.
Kayla was just a few hours old when a janitor found her wrapped in a towel in a milk crate left in the back of an Alpha Beta grocery store.
Her story could have ended in tragedy if not for being adopted by a wonderful loving mother and growing up in a supportive home. But after having children of her own, and a brush with death in Afghanistan, Kayla decided to try in earnest to find the woman who abandoned her. She wanted to know why. A friend connected her to CeCe. Kayla then tested with 23andMe and found a first cousin once removed, providing her the pivotal lead to connect her to her biological family.


“I received questions from all over social media on this story,” CeCe told us. “(Kayla) was lucky, and some have complained they don&#8217;t have matches that close.”


But as the database grows, so too does the possibility for new and closer matches, she said.


“New matches are coming in all the time and the newer ones are more likely to respond and share family tree information than the older matches,” CeCe said.
Check out Kayla’s <a href="https://www.ocregister.com/articles/tovo-670236-kayla-baby.html">story</a>.

More Than Just Luck

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

How I Met My Father

It was a cordial conversation, but as the phone call came to an end Mike Reed wasn’t sure how to sign off and then the man on the other end of the line did it for him.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22524" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_8768-300x236.jpg" alt="IMG_8768" width="300" height="236" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_8768-300x236.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_8768-768x603.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_8768-1024x805.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_8768-880x691.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_8768.jpg 1050w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“’Goodnight son,’” the man said.
“I was just floored,” said Mike.
The man on the other end of the phone was Dennis Fay, Mike’s biological father. The two connected for the first time using 23andMe. Initially Mike, a 60-year-old adoptee, had used 23andMe not to find his biological family, but just to learn a little bit more about his ancestry. He said he&#8217;d been frustrated when his kids would ask him about their ancestry.
&#8220;I&#8217;d just tell them we were &#8220;American,&#8221; he said joking.
But he was curious to learn more, so he tested. And learned more than he could have imagined. Not only did he find out his ancestry is mostly from the UK and Ireland, but testing connected him to a woman who turned out to be his half-sister. She in turn connected him to Dennis, who they ultimately figured out was Mike&#8217;s biological father.
The two met in person for the first time in May. Their meeting, and Mike getting introduced to his nine half siblings, was covered by the <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865628808/Murray-man-meets-son-he-didnt-know-he-had-60-years-later.html?pg=all" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Desert News</a>. Check it out.
Stay tuned for more about Mike and his family.
<script height="338px" width="600px" src="https://player.ooyala.com/iframe.js#ec=JrdGozdTp2-ZWXOM5X7R54UE20x2MAyq&amp;pbid=3ce6404476914e86994d87aac3e4391b"></script>

Adoption — Page 5