If Lisa hadn’t used 23andMe, it’s hard to imagine how she would have ever known about Nelly.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-24612 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-300x300.jpg" alt="lisa-p-quote" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LISA-P-QUOTE.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Lisa hadn’t been searching for her. When she tested with 23andMe, Lisa was mostly just curious about the science of personal genetics.


“I was fascinated that the technology had advanced so far so quickly, and that I could get my DNA tested so easily,” she said.
A 47 year-old designer who lives in Durham, North Carolina, Lisa first heard about 23andMe in a Wall Street Journal article that ran a few years ago.
She thought the name was cool, but put off testing until a friend who’d used 23andMe convinced her to give it a try.
“On a lark, I decided to take the test,” Lisa said.

While she was still very interested in the science, Lisa was also curious about whether she could learn a little about her grandfather’s family. Her grandfather had been adopted, and raised by a loving and well-to-do family. He didn’t know and didn’t share much about his biological family with his daughter, Lisa’s mom. As a result that page of the family history was largely blank.
There was some speculation about his ancestry – that he was Irish – but nothing firm.
“I decided to take the test to either confirm or deny what little I knew,” Lisa said.
The speculation about having Irish ancestry was correct, but there were also some surprises, like having Balkan and Native American ancestry. Lisa’s biggest surprise was finding a close “DNA relative” she never knew she had.
“Within two days I got an email from a woman who matched as a second cousin,” Lisa said.
It was a lucky break because Lisa’s new found cousin was a gold mine of information, quickly filling up the blank pages in the family history.


“She opened everything up,” Lisa said.


Her cousin, a forensic genealogist, had pieced together her grandfather’s origins and the story of his grandmother, Lisa’s great grandmother Nelly Scofield.
Lisa learned that Nelly’s husband died and that she couldn’t care for her two young sons, forcing her to give up Lisa’s grandfather and his brother. The two boys went to different families, and were raised apart. According to Lisa’s cousin, many years later when Lisa’s grandfather was about 21, a man came to his work.
“I’m your brother,” the man said to Lisa’s grandfather.
He’d found his brother to tell him that he too had been adopted, that he had recently found their biological mother and that she wanted to see him. Instead of going to see his mother, Lisa’s grandfather told his brother to go away.


“He had a good life and a good family,” said Lisa.
That was the last contact the two had. Exchanging messages with her cousin, Lisa learned that the family had always known of her grandfather’s existence but they didn’t have a name. Lisa’s cousin also shared with her a newspaper clipping about her grandfather’s brother’s reunion with their mother, Nelly. And she shared more details about the family with Lisa, including their roots reaching back to a small island off the west coast of Ireland, and their love of music.
“It’s was amazing to learn what ancestral traits my grandfather had in common with his unknown relatives,” Lisa said.
And it wasn’t just his looks, but also his hobbies and talents, Lisa said.
“Who plays the Irish accordion when they don’t even know they are Irish?” she asked.


But for Lisa what was most powerful was what this connection meant for her mother, who will soon be meeting her cousins in person.
“She now knows, even if her dad didn’t, who his birth family was,” Lisa said.
And Lisa has advice for others considering using 23andMe.


“If you are even thinking about taking the test, do it.” She said. “ It&#8217;s anonymous and you don&#8217;t need to share anything, if you don&#8217;t want. But you never know what secrets are waiting to be unlocked and how your life might change just from spitting in a tube!”

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

Whoa Nelly

By James Rathmell, 23andMe Privacy Fellow

Our mission at 23andMe is to help people access, understand and benefit from the human genome. One <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-6586" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-200x200.jpg" alt="23andMe_Logo_blog" width="200" height="200" />way we do this is by giving community members the ability to connect with distant and close genetic relatives with our sharing tools. We have two main tools you can use to compare your DNA and connect with others: “Share and Compare” and “DNA Relatives.”


It’s important when using these tools to think about your genetic privacy and be mindful about how you share your information. This post explains how the tools work, discusses what you should think about when using them, and shows you the tools you can use to control how your information is shared.
<h6>
Share and Compare</h6>

With Share and Compare, you can share your reports directly with close family and friends to examine <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-24591" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Share-and-Compare-Selection-300x188.png" alt="share-and-compare-selection" width="300" height="188" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Share-and-Compare-Selection-300x188.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Share-and-Compare-Selection.png 619w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />genetic differences. When you open Share and Compare, you’ll see a family tree. By clicking on the different relationships, you can invite family to view your 23andMe results – even if they haven’t been genotyped.
You can also share your results with friends and more distant relatives.
When you invite someone to share results, you have two options: you can either share all of your reports, including health and segment-level data, or share only your ancestry results. Sharing goes both ways; that is, if you share all of your reports with another customer, not only can they see all of your reports, but you can see all of their reports.
Under “Manage Connections,” you can review all of the connections you have. By clicking on a connection, you can change your sharing level or choose to remove the connection.
<a href="https://you.23andme.com/tutorials/share_compare/">Click here</a> to see the Share and Compare tutorial.

<h6>
DNA Relatives</h6>

DNA Relatives (DNAR) allows you to find and connect with the broader community of 23andMe members to <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-24595 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DNA-Relatives-Home-People-View-300x232.jpg" alt="dna-relatives-home-people-view" width="300" height="232" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DNA-Relatives-Home-People-View-300x232.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DNA-Relatives-Home-People-View-768x594.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DNA-Relatives-Home-People-View-1024x792.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DNA-Relatives-Home-People-View-880x680.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DNA-Relatives-Home-People-View-1180x912.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DNA-Relatives-Home-People-View.jpg 1261w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />discover shared genetics, relationships, and family history. If you choose to participate in DNAR, you have a number of different options, which you can change any time by clicking on Update DNA Relatives Preferences.
Your DNAR setting decisions only impact what information is viewable within the tool. It does not affect your broader 23andMe privacy settings.

<ul>
<li>Open Sharing. If you participate in Open Sharing, you will share your full name, ancestry reports, and overlapping DNA segments with all of your DNA relatives. You can also compare your results with any of your DNA relatives that are also participating in Open Sharing. If you don’t participate in Open Sharing, you can choose to send individual sharing requests to anyone whose reports you want to compare with.</li>
<li>Display Name. If you are participating in Open Sharing, your full name will be displayed. If you are not participating in Open Sharing, you can choose to display just your first name and last initial (Jane S), just your first initial and last name (J Smith), or just your initials (JS).
</li>
<li>
Enhanced Profile Settings (Optional). You can also choose to provide additional information to help other members find you and make connections. For example, you could add a family surname, the birth country of a grandparent, or a summary of your interests.
Once you’ve made connections on DNAR – either by participating in Open Sharing or by making individual connections – you can use the DNA tab to compare your connections to one another. This also means that any of your connections can compare you to any of their other connections, whether or not the other connections participate in DNAR.</li>
</ul>
<h6>
Other Ways of Sharing</h6>

Your genetic data is yours to benefit from, explore, and understand. With this in mind, we offer tools for you to export and print your raw data and reports.
There are many different websites and apps that will allow you to upload your raw genetic data to connect with new communities or receive different types of genetic reports. You may also want to discuss your results with a healthcare professional. Or you might want to share some of our fun traits reports on social media. Anytime you export or share information, though, it’s always important to think about who the intended audience is, and to consider the impact on yourself and relatives especially when sharing sensitive insights.

<h6>
Taking Control of Your Genetic Privacy</h6>
You can easily edit your Share and Compare and DNAR settings from your Account Settings page. If you don’t want to receive invitations from other community members, you can block all invitations. You can also view and manage all of your connections to change sharing levels or to remove connections. It’s worth reviewing these settings once or twice a year, and taking a look at your existing connections so that you have a full picture you’re sharing genetic results with. Sharing genetic results is incredibly exciting, and you can learn a great deal about yourself by connecting with close and distant relatives. However, it’s important to be thoughtful about sharing your information. Here’s a quick checklist of things to keep in mind.
<ul>
<li>
Have you thought about how sensitive information could impact others? When using Share and Compare, DNAR, or sharing your results elsewhere, there’s always the chance that you could learn something about yourself or your family – such as sensitive health information – that could be upsetting. Please be sensitive to others&#8217; right to choose for themselves whether they would like to know this kind of information. Ask the people you are considering sharing with if they’re okay learning more about your genetic reports.
</li>
<li>
Have you thought about what kind of information other people can learn about you? Whenever you give someone else access to your data – genetic data or not – there’s always the risk that they might choose to share it with others. While unlikely, it’s also possible that your connections could learn additional sensitive information about your genetics if you share segments with third parties. Think about what kinds of information you would be comfortable with others learning about you whenever using any sharing tools on 23andMe or elsewhere.
</li>
<li>
Are you comfortable with security and privacy of other apps/websites? Before you upload your raw genetic data to a new site or app, make sure you’re confident that they have strong security and that they will protect your privacy.
</li>
<li>
Have you talked about sharing with family and friends with profiles on your account? If you have several people sharing an account, and you choose to connect with someone, you can choose which profiles in the account to share. Ask the other people who share your account if it’s okay to share their results.
</li>
<li>
Have you thought about your legal rights? The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) prohibits the use of genetic information to determine health insurance eligibility or premiums or for employment decisions such as hiring, firing, pay, and promotion. But, the law does not address other potential uses of genetic information, such as for determining eligibility and premiums for long term care insurance or life insurance. This is particularly important to think about with Share and Compare, and when using your genetic data on other apps and websites. Since you share genes with your family, you may want to consider how information you post could impact them as well.</li>
</ul>

James Rathmell

Sharing and Protecting Your Genetic Information

I love family. Modern families. Blended families. Adopted families. And, DNA families.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-24348 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Anne-and-her-sisters-300x229.jpg" alt="Anne and her sisters." width="300" height="229" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Anne-and-her-sisters-300x229.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Anne-and-her-sisters-768x585.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Anne-and-her-sisters-1024x780.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Anne-and-her-sisters-880x671.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Anne-and-her-sisters-1180x899.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Anne-and-her-sisters.jpg 1252w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Over the last ten years, I’ve seen the ancestry part of our genetic service change lives. Every day I watch people connect with their DNA family, and see how the concept of family can evolve into something greater – and even more meaningful.
There’s always been the possibility of learning about your family’s past through historical documents and public records, but the scientific data – your genetic data – can make the story of someone come alive in another way. From sperm donor brothers and sisters finding each other; to adoptees meeting cousins; to co-workers finding out they are related; to simply seeing what you share with the family you already know, DNA gives us deeper insight into ourselves. In fact, customers write in and tell me how they’ve been able to discover records and photos and share the oral traditions of their rich family history, through their new, 23andMe connections.

<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">23andMe Ancestry Service Highlights
• In 2008 we were the first to conduct comprehensive autosomal analysis for ancestry across all 23 pairs of chromosomes to inform ancestry reports.
•  In 2009 we launched our Relative Finder tool (now called DNA Relatives) that allowed users to find relatives in our database based on shared segments of DNA.
•  In 2011 we introduced our Neanderthal Report, allowing people to see how much Neanderthal DNA they carried.
•  In 2012 we broke new ground with our Ancestry Composition Report, based on a proprietary machine learning algorithm, that provided insights into ancestry from 21 populations. We have since updated that report to use an even more reference populations – 31.
• In 2016 we launched our Relatives in Common tool, which allows customers to see how their known relatives and mutual relatives are related to each other based on their DNA.</div>
We all have a beautiful rich genetic story inside each of us. I believe looking at your genetic ancestry is as important as being able to look at yourself in a mirror. Understanding who you are and where you come from is one of the most powerful ways to learn about genetics.
From the very beginning, 23andMe has been focused on two things: providing people with access to information from their own DNA, and building a world-class scientific organization to push the boundaries of genetics research in both health and ancestry. While I firmly believe in the power of everyone accessing their genetic health data, I understand some people want to explore genetics through the journey of their family first. (And family is first for me!)
Today, I want to enable more families to come together to learn who they are and where they are from – and have the choice to see the world as one big, modern DNA family. All of us here at 23andMe are excited to offer a $99 ancestry service with ancestry-only reports.
Our population geneticists, statistical geneticists and computational biologists have worked with our engineers and designers to build fun and engaging features backed by our research.
We feel this standalone ancestry service offers some of the best features on the market, as we pioneered many of the most powerful DNA ancestry tools including autosomal analysis, ancestry composition and DNA relatives since the beginning.
The future of genetic ancestry is exciting.  We are all in this together.
Coming together as a global genetic family can only help all of us understand how we are genetically related to the world around us. (Remember we are 99.9 percent genetically the same!)   As the world of genetics continues to expand with new health and ancestry discoveries, so do the personal insights we each will gain, deepening our own understanding into who we are as individuals, as humans, and possibly as part of one big DNA family.

Reinventing The Way We See Family

After she retired from teaching theater at a Florida college, Julia Gagne’s life took on its own unexpected dramatic arc.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-24256" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Julia-Doug-300x300.jpg" alt="Julia &#038; Doug" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Julia-Doug-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Julia-Doug-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Julia-Doug-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Julia-Doug-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Julia-Doug-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Julia-Doug-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Julia-Doug-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Julia-Doug-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Julia-Doug.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Although she’d been adopted at birth more than 65 years ago, Julia hadn’t spent much time searching for her biological family. When she tested with 23andMe a few years ago, it was more to simply learn a little about her ancestry.
She was a little curious about what else she might learn, but she didn’t expect it would change her life.
She understands how all that sounds overly theatrical – she’s directed enough plays to know – but this plot twist is real.
“It sounds dramatic,” Julia said, “Because it is dramatic.”

<h6>Her Early Search</h6>
Julia was raised in a loving family. She didn’t really pine for her biological family, but in the early 1980s she did get some records from the state of Michigan about her adoption. There was nothing in the records that would help her identify her birth mother, but Julia learned her mother’s age, what she did for a living and her level of education. That and a few other facts were all she found. She filed those papers away for a few decades and went on with her life. Then a few years ago, Julia signed up for 23andMe.


“The results were interesting,” she said.


She didn’t find any close relatives, at least not at first. And then about a year ago she got a close relative match, someone listed as a first cousin. For Julia, who had never met or known any biological relative, finding a first cousin was a big deal. She was taken aback.
“What?” she thought.
<h6>Her First Connection</h6>
So using 23andMe she sent the man a message, explained who she was, where she was born and when. And, of course, she told him that she’d been adopted. Then she waited.
“A few weeks later, I received a message that would change my life,” Julia said.


She’d actually been out with a friend, getting ready to go into a movie, when she noticed she’d gotten an email. She opened it up and read.


“I think you are my aunt. I think your mother was Beatrice,” her newfound nephew said. “I think you have a half brother who is alive, and a half sister who has passed on. But let&#8217;s figure it out.”


And there was more.
“He gave me a phone number, and told me my brother was waiting for me to call,” Julia said.
<h6>
 Much in Common</h6>

Of course, she called.
On the other end of the line was her brother, Douglass Fiero, also a retired college professor, although he taught literature, not theater.
The connection was immediate. Doug hadn’t known of Julia’s existence, but the timing of her birth suddenly made sense.
A few years older than Julia, Doug remembered a time when he was nine and his sister six and they spent two months sleeping in the kitchen of his father’s small apartment. His parents had been divorced, and his mother who’d been raising him and his sister, had left the children with their father for a time. That’s when Julia was born.
On the phone so many years later, Julia and Doug spent a lot of time trying to get to know each other. He told her about her half sister, who’d passed away, about his sons and his work. But most of all Doug wanted Julia to know about their mother.


“Probably the most intelligent person I’ve ever known,” he said.

<h6>Their Mother</h6>

Julia saw a little of herself, but also some of the same traits that so distinguished her own adoptive mother. Both her mother who raised her and her biological mother attended college in Kalamazoo. And both women ran businesses and raised kids on their own at a time when that wasn’t common.


“The main thing I wanted to do when we first talked was to tell (Julia) about our mother,” Doug said. “She is really important. Someone, who along with my wife, is the most significant person in my life. I was really excited to share that with (Julia). It’s been a wonderful and startling thing to be able to do that.”
Julia eventually visited Doug and his wife in New Jersey. They shared their own histories, and the coincidences in their lives: Julia’s love of theater had been sparked by a summer stock theater, uncannily the same theater to which their biological mom took Doug and his sister when they were children; moreover, Julia spent all of her career and Doug spent the major portions of his career teaching at the university level.
For Julia it’s the kind of drama that would be hard to make up, and she’s still a little shocked that after so many decades she’s pieced together the story of her birth.
“My birth mother had told no one of my existence,” she said “Without the DNA analysis at 23andMe, I would never have found any members of my birth family. No adoption registry would have provided answers ever. I am very grateful, incredibly surprised and delighted by this turn of events. It is still somewhat incredible to me that this could happen after more than six decades of life. Amazing.”

Drama in the Family

As a wedding planner, Wendy Wojcik pays close attention to even the smallest of details, yet in her own life she always ignored one big one – the identity of her biological father.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-24251" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Wendy-W-Quote-300x300.jpg" alt="Wendy W Quote" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Wendy-W-Quote-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Wendy-W-Quote-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Wendy-W-Quote-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Wendy-W-Quote-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Wendy-W-Quote-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Wendy-W-Quote-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Wendy-W-Quote-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Wendy-W-Quote-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Wendy-W-Quote.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />


That all changed recently. Upon reaching her 50th birthday and mourning the loss of her mother, Wendy realized she wanted to know who her father was, what he may have passed on to her, and what it might mean for her now.
“When I turned 50, I wanted to know those details,” she said. “Then I got 23andMe as a gift, and I’ve learned so much. It’s been the gift that keeps on giving. All of this stems out of doing 23andMe.” 

<h6>Different Dads</h6>

What she learned changed her, her two sisters and her brother. Wendy and her siblings grew up in the Pacific Northwest knowing that their dad wasn’t their biological father. Their mom was always pretty frank about it, letting them know that they each had different fathers, but never telling them who those men were.


“We all look different,” said Wendy.

Their mom, who’d been a nurse, shared a few details of her rough years when as a teenager she had her kids, but it wasn&#8217;t much. The details were a few names that meant very little, as well as some dates and cities, but it wasn’t enough to identify their fathers. And over time, Wendy and her siblings just stopped asking. They didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. And, according to Wendy, they were fine with not knowing, or at least they thought they were.
“When you don’t know, it’s always in the back of your head, but we’d tried to forget about it,” she said.

<h6>Turning 50</h6>

And in a way Wendy, her two sisters and her brother did forget about it. But then two things happened – Wendy turned 50; and her mother died. Suddenly Wendy felt she had permission to start her search.
In early 2016, a friend gave Wendy a 23andMe kit as a gift. Wendy sent her sample back to the lab and waited. Her results came in and that’s when things started happening, really fast. She connected right away with someone who was listed as a close cousin.
“I recognized the last name,” said Wendy. “It was one of the last names of the men my mom dated when I was young.”


She thought that   it was more than just a coincidence, and her cousin must be related to the man her mother once dated and that he, “must be my dad.”

<h6>A Big Surprise</h6>

Her other surprise was that her younger sister Elena was not her half sister, as she’d been lead to believe, but her full sister. They share the same biological father.
Through her cousin found on 23andMe, Wendy and her sister were able to find the man they believed was their biological father. He was still alive, so they reached out and he immediately wanted to meet. They eventually were able to confirm he was their father, their mother’s former high school boyfriend.
Wendy immediately realized how much this search and information could help the rest of her family.


“It was so fast and as soon as I found my father, I said, ‘we’re all going to get a kit, and we’re all going to find out who our fathers were,’” Wendy said.

<h6>Narrowing Down the Possibilities</h6>

One by one over a few months, Wendy’s other sister, Tamara, and her brother Paul, tested with 23andMe. They each found cousins who were able to help them in their search. One of their cousins, well-versed in using genetic genealogy, helped Wendy quickly sort through matches and identify the most likely candidates.
And they used the bits of information they had from their mother like dates, names, and cities to narrow the search.
And then they found who they had been looking for. Wendy’s oldest sister’s biological father turned out to be a former race car driver, and their brother’s father was their mom’s former square dancing teacher. They were all still alive and Wendy and her siblings, who range in age from 49 to 55, each got to meet their fathers. They all welcomed the news.  Wendy and her siblings got a chance to meet their extended families and other half siblings for the first time.


“The best part about this is that even though our mom is gone, we’re gaining a whole new family, some of whom were even looking for us and all seem happy to know us,” Wendy said. “It’s kind of cool that even though we lost a parent we gained a new one.”

Our Three Fathers

&nbsp;
Maria felt conflicted.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-24234" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-300x300.jpg" alt="Maria quote" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Maria-quote.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />


Here she was celebrating her parents’ 63rd wedding anniversary, and the last thing she wanted to do was upset her elderly mother. But on the flipside she had to ask her.
Maria now knew her mother’s secret, a secret that brought up many questions, serious questions. Maria wanted to know why her mother hid her true origins. Maria wanted to ask those questions and so many more, and her mother was the only one who could answer them.


“So I said to myself: ‘If she mentions the necklace, I’m going to say something,’” said Maria, a mother of young twins who lives with her husband in New Jersey.

<h6>A Mother&#8217;s Secret</h6>

Her parents had come back to New Jersey for their anniversary celebration. The couple met in New York City at a high school dance. Maria’s mom was 18 when she married her father. The couple raised four kids together, part of a large extended Italian family. But that large family was all on Maria’s dad’s side of the family. She knew nothing about her mom’s family.


“My mom’s story was that she was adopted and her parents died and she had no siblings,” Maria said.
Her mother told her kids very little about her biological family except to say there was a rumor that they were Italians who’d immigrated through Argentina to the United States.
Yet after testing with 23andMe and seeing her results, Maria discovered that her mother’s story just didn’t add up. Maria was only half Italian, and almost 20 percent African.


“When I saw it at first I was like ‘wait a second!’” Maria said.
She thought it was wrong.
When she told her sisters and brother they were in denial.
“Mom can’t be black?” they said.


Or could she?
<h6>Hidden African Ancestry</h6>
Both Maria’s sister and brother tested and they too had close to the same percentage African ancestry. So after that initial shock, Maria started to dig a little deeper, connect with cousins found through 23andMe, and that’s how she pieced together her mother’s family story.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-24235 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_4769-e1471282681353-300x213.jpg" alt="IMG_4769" width="300" height="213" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_4769-e1471282681353-300x213.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_4769-e1471282681353.jpg 723w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
The family’s story is surprising, but finding “hidden African ancestry” is much more common than many know. While most African Americans are aware that they have “white” ancestry – a vestige of the ugly history of slavery – fewer “white” Americans know that they may have “hidden African ancestry” in their families. This too is a legacy of slavery and segregation in America. For those families with hidden ancestry, it means that at some point in history someone in their family likely “passed” for white.
Each story is unique but commonly this was to escape the consequences of racism directed at African Americans that limited job and education opportunities.
For Maria learning this about her mother, didn’t so much change her identity as it changed how she looked at her family.
“It’s strange,” Maria said. “I grew up thinking I was one way and actually I’m not who I thought I was.”

<h6>Identity</h6>

Maria wanted to know why had her mother kept this secret for so long, but before she asked her questions she wanted to be sure, so she dug a little deeper. And then that day at church she said a prayer. She told herself that if her mother asked about the necklace she’d take it as a sign that it was OK to ask her mother.
As they left the church her mother noticed the necklace telling her daughter how much she liked it. Maria took it as a sign to start asking questions.
“It’s your sister’s necklace,” Maria told her mom.”


Her mother, who had always told her children that she’d been an only child, was stunned.


“’My sister? What do you mean my sister?’” Maria’s mother said.

<h6>The Great Migration</h6>

Maria told her mom whom it had come from and that she had not just found her mother’s sister but connected with a brother and a few more aunts.
Maria had learned that her mother wasn’t of Italian origin, nor was her biological family originally from Argentina, as she’d once told her kids. Her mother was born in Illinois. Her parents were African Americans from Mississippi, and her mother had had at least 19 siblings. Her mother’s family had moved from the Mississippi to Chicago for job opportunities, part of the wave of African Americans to move north in what is called the “<a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129827444">Great Migration</a>.”


Maria had learned that at some point her mother and three of her siblings, who could pass for white, moved to New York City. Maria’s mom was 15 at the time. The four siblings used a Latino sounding last name. Over the years they either lost ties or cut off contact with the rest of the family back in Illinois and Chicago. Maria’s mom soon met the man, who would be her husband at a school dance. When they got married it caused another rift in the family. After the marriage, Maria’s mother lost contact with her three siblings in New York.
Maria learned about this from relatives she found through 23andMe. One of the connections she made was with cousins in California who were the children of her mother’s brother.
<h6>Siblings Connect After Decades Apart</h6>
After making the connection Maria told her mom and together they traveled together to visit her mother’s 96 year-old brother. The two hadn’t seen each other in 64 years. Maria was also able to find two of her mother’s sisters who were still alive. She talks to them weekly and recently traveled to Chicago to meet one of them and her newly found cousins in person. These connections have given Maria a chance to see family photos of her grandparents, her mother as a young woman, as well as aunts and uncles she never knew she had.


“It’s fascinating and crazy,” Maria said. “I never knew these people existed and now it&#8217;s like I&#8217;ve known them my whole life.&#8221;


As for learning about her and her family’s African American ancestry, Maria said it didn’t really change how she thought about herself. It did change how she thought of her family, and the power of being connected to all these family members she never knew before.


“To me it’s an amazing story of a family’s racial divide, but with a very happy ending,” she said.

Bridging A Family’s Racial Divide

By Jonathan Fischer
My name is Jonathan Fischer.
I was adopted shortly after birth in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Not <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-24099 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Jonathan-F-quote-300x300.jpg" alt="Jonathan F quote" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Jonathan-F-quote-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Jonathan-F-quote-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Jonathan-F-quote-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Jonathan-F-quote-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Jonathan-F-quote-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Jonathan-F-quote-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Jonathan-F-quote-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Jonathan-F-quote-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Jonathan-F-quote.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />knowing more than where I was born, I always wondered about my origins and who my parents were. But I was also afraid about what I might find out, so for years I did nothing.
Then not too long ago I tried 23andMe.
Little did I know how much it would change my life.
My decision to take the leap and explore where I came from started in a small cafe along Alki Beach in West Seattle in the summer of 2013. I sat and talked to a dear friend, who is also a genealogist. I told her about both my curiosity and my fears.
She recommended trying 23andMe, so I did.


Right away I learned some health information, and that I was over 3 percent Neanderthal, something my wife says explains a lot.
But I also found people I was related to genetically. Using 23andMe’s “DNA Relatives,” I connected with many cousins some very distant and others much closer and even received a message from one of these close cousins. Turned out he was related to me through my paternal side, and, fortunately for me, he was also a genealogy buff.
He told me that finding me – a second cousin he’d never heard of – piqued his interest. How were we connected, he wondered. Our emails finally led to a phone conversation.
Although my initial intent hadn’t been to find relatives, when he asked me if I wanted to know the identity of my biological father, I didn’t hesitate:


“Yes!” I told him. 
Analyzing a family tree, he used a simple process of elimination to identify the man he thought was my father, and offered up a name.
After that phone conversation I wondered what I had just done. I had no idea what piercing the veil of secrecy would mean for me or this man and his family, but finding a name pushed me to take the next step, so I began taking a more traditional approach: filling out a form with the state of Wisconsin’s Department of Children and Families asking for my adoption file. This would give me access to a redacted file of my adoption.


What I got was my birth certificate and some basic facts about my biological mother but without any identifying information. I learned that only a single parent was listed on my original birth certificate, as my biological mother had not chosen to establish paternity. Although paternity was not established, there were details from the caseworker about my alleged father. Enough detail in fact that I was able to compare some of that information to the information supplied by my newly found second cousin, giving me some confidence that indeed I had the correct name for my biological father.


So in January 2014 I took a deep breath, and wrote him a letter.
The day it arrived, my biological father called four times trying to get in touch. When I got home from work, I quickly called him back and we talked into the night. It was like being born all over again. He confirmed that I was indeed his son, something we triple checked later when he also tested with 23andMe. We stayed in touch and arranged to meet in person.
In August of 2014 I met him, his brother, my uncle, and my half-brothers and sisters at a family dinner arranged for my visit. I had to muster all my courage to walk into that room. While my half-brothers and sisters were initially shocked to find out they had an older brother, they were friendly but guarded. Our relationship has grown since then.
Back when I had asked the state for my adoption file, I had also checked a box requesting contact with my biological mother. I was fortunate for how easy it was for my caseworker to find her.
Because of the success with my father, I also I got my hopes up that I would get a chance to meet her too. But that was not the case, at least at first. After much consideration she declined to establish contact. For years, I’d never allowed myself to even hope I would find her, but being so close and then her declining to make contact was disappointing to say the least. I was crushed.
But I decided not to let it go at that. I still wanted to know who she was.
Using the information I had from my case file, as well as information from the 1940 Census, I found her name. Although there was nothing stopping me from writing her a letter, I felt any contact that didn’t go through the state would be totally inappropriate. Occasionally I would Google my mother’s family. It was a difficult time. I worried that although I knew who they were, I’d never get a chance to meet them.
Then I thought of a quote from the Book of Lamentations:
“The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”


So I waited.


In May of 2016, I was visiting my biological dad for his birthday when I received a text from my wife. Check your email she said. There was a message from my caseworker telling me that my biological mother had changed her mind. She was ready to have contact, and my caseworker wanted to know if I was still interested in meeting her. I said yes, emphatically.


A few weeks later I went to Michigan to meet my mom, and my half-brothers and half-sister and their families.  My half brothers and sister were delighted to find out that my existence was real after all.
Since connecting with them, I’ve been able to establish close relationships with both my biological parents. I talk to my mother every week and my father daily.


I’m a lucky man. I once had but one family, now I have three. My adoption experience was special and I was fortunate to have been adopted by a very loving, successful, happy and intelligent couple. After adopting me my parents conceived my sister.
Now I’ve met both my biological parents and their families, who are also filled with successful, happy and intelligent people. I’ve gone from having one sister to having ten siblings, and a passel of nieces and nephews. Not many adoptees have this kind of success finding biological relatives.
I guess I would have to say that I’m a very lucky guy thanks to 23andMe.


Jonathan is a CPA living in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and two kids.

A Lucky Man

Sandi had 50 years to prepare for this moment, but as she walked off a plane in Sacramento she felt the anxiety and doubt well-up inside.
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<div id="attachment_23917" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23917" class="size-thumbnail wp-image-23917" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Candance-Christine-Sandra-Sandi-200x200.jpg" alt="From left Candace, Christine, Sandra and Sandi, having lunch the day Sandi met them for the first time." width="200" height="200" />From left Candace, Christine, Sandra and Sandi.</div>
“It was like the night before you get married and you get cold feet or jitters,” said the 50 year-old mother from New Hampshire. “You just know that in a moment your life is going to change, and you worry that maybe you’re not ready.”


Adopted at birth in Florida, Sandi had spent her whole life looking for her biological mother, wondering if she was out there somewhere.
Then after decades of searching without success, she found her after discovering a second cousin named Steve on 23andMe. Her cousin, who is about ten years older, had remembered when his aunt, Sandi’s mom, was pregnant with her. 
<div id="attachment_23916" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23916" class="size-thumbnail wp-image-23916" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ChristineSandi-200x200.jpg" alt="Christine, left, and her sister Sandi." width="200" height="200" />Christine, left, and her sister Sandi.</div>
It was through Steve that Sandi was able to connect with her mother and sister. Sandi’s trip across the country – just two weeks before Mother’s Day – was her chance to meet her mom for the first time. It was a meeting she’d fanaticized about her whole life, but as Sandi got closer to meeting her mother, she became more and more nervous.
While she splashed water on her face in the airport bathroom and ratcheted up her courage, her mother Sandra Freeland and Sandi’s sisters, Christine Herrera and Candace Campbell – who she was also meeting for the first time – had their own anxious moments as they waited for her in the terminal.
Christine had already bonded with Sandi through Facebook and several phone calls, but seeing Sandi in person for the first time triggered all sorts of emotions.
“There was so much going on inside me it’s hard to describe what I was feeling,” said Christine, who is Sandi’s full sister.


All her life, Christine felt like something or someone was missing. She had known most of her life that she had a sister out there, who’d been given up for adoption by her mother. Now after finding Sandi she felt like she was uncovering a missing part of herself.
For their mother, Sandra, meeting her daughter Sandi instantly brought her back to the few days she had with her as a newborn just before giving her up. At the time she’d been an out-of-work single mother trying to raise another another young daughter. County social workers in Florida had encouraged Sandra to give up the newborn for adoption, telling Sandra that if she kept Sandi there was a chance she’d lose both of her girls. It was an awful choice, but Sandra thought that giving up Sandi would offer her a better life than she could give her. But it was agony letting her go.
“I never stopped thinking about her,” Sandra said more than 50 years later. “Never. She was constantly on my mind.”


Each of the women were wound tight with emotion as Sandi walked into the terminal and into her mother’s arms for the first time in 50 years. As they held each other Christine stood next to them with tears in her eyes and her hands over her mouth.
They held each other for a very long time, and then Sandra whispered into her daughter’s ear.


“I told her it felt so good to hold her again and that I never wanted to let her go,” Sandra said. “And then I told her that I always loved her and I never stopped loving her.”


As she looked into her daughter&#8217;s eyes she instantly remembered holding her as an infant and the staring into her young eyes then, she said.
Almost weak in the knees with her own emotion, Sandi said none of the millions of meetings she’d imagined having with her mother over the years was quite as good as what really happened.
Sandi had been raised by a couple who’d been unable to have children. They were older when they adopted her, and they both passed away by the time Sandi was just 25. Although she adored her adopted father, she said her relationship with her adopted mother was more difficult. Still Sandi is thankful they provided her a stable upbringing. But Sandi never stopped looking for her biological mother, and over the years she’d fantasized about meeting her.


“To be held like that was something I’d dreamed about my whole life,” Sandi said. “I mean, it was my own mom holding me in her arms telling me she loved me, telling me how much she loved and missed me my whole life. It was amazing.”


For Christine, too, the moment was a bit surreal and overwhelming.
<div id="attachment_23918" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23918" class="size-thumbnail wp-image-23918" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Candance-Sandra-Sandi-Christine-200x200.jpg" alt="From left Candace, Sandra, Sandi and Christine." width="200" height="200" />From left Candace, Sandra, Sandi and Christine.</div>
“I’m still in awe, still dumbfounded by it,” she said.


Just 11 months younger than Sandi, Christine said meeting her sister – their older sister had passed away more than a decade ago – was also something she’d dreamed about. Deep down Christine always thought she’d been a twin, and that missing twin sister was out there somewhere. Finally meeting Sandi and spending time with her she felt like reconnecting a missing part of herself. The connection she has had with her sister is like nothing she experienced before.
After meeting at the airport, Sandi spent a few days with Christine, and then met her extended family at a dinner in Sacramento – including her cousin Steve with whom she connected on 23andMe and who helped her find her mother. Sandi also got some more one-on-one time with her mother. She had a week on the coast before having to return home to her own kids.


“It’s crazy to have spent my whole life looking and then to finally find her,” she said. “It’s been amazing. It’s something I’ve yearned for my whole life, and that yearning never went away. It was important to hear that I wasn’t some kind of mistake. That I was loved and missed.”


And now she has someone she can wish Happy Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day Delayed

On Mother’s Day last year, Robin Butler’s children gave her 23andMe as a gift, not knowing it would change all their lives.
“I thought it would be fun to learn about my genome,” Robin said.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-23673" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Robin-Quote.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="200" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Robin-Quote.jpg 200w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Robin-Quote-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
But testing ultimately revealed something no one knew – the man she thought was her biological father wasn’t.
“I was in total shock for three days, and I am still dealing with the aftershocks,” Robin said. “My whole family was shocked. My mother was shocked, and so was the man we believed was my (biological) father for 49 years.”
23andMe allows people to explore what their genetics tell them about traits they might share with family, or about their health and ancestry. But doing the test can also reveal the unexpected. Sometimes those surprises can be fun, but, as in Robin’s case, they also have the potential to have profound implications.
For Robin, learning that her father wasn’t her biological father sent a shockwave through her family, but it didn’t tear them apart.
Robin had a unique relationship with the man she had known as her father. He and her mother had lived apart almost all of Robin’s life, and she had only lived with him briefly when she was 13. Although their relationship was distant, she embraced him as her father, just as any daughter would. Robin’s own children also knew him as their grandfather.
When her kids gave Robin 23andMe for Mother’s Day, she turned around and got a kit for her mother. When she got her results, she saw her connection to her mother in the DNA Relative feature and a third cousin she didn’t recognize. The two connected, trying to figure out how they were related. The cousin didn’t show up in her mother’s results, so Robin knew she had to be connected to the cousin on her father’s side, but she didn’t recognize any of the woman’s family names.
Robin had also gotten a kit for her dad for Father’s Day. When his results came back, they quickly realized he didn’t share any DNA with this third cousin or with Robin.
“I thought it was a mistake,” she said. “I even called 23andMe to confirm that the results were correct.”
But she also noticed that her father shared DNA with cousins who had names Robin knew.
“That’s when I knew that this was his DNA and he wasn’t my father,” she said. “That’s when I was thrown into shock.”
While the news was hard to accept, it didn’t devastate the family. Instead, it triggered many new questions for Robin about her family and herself.
It also propelled her on a new search.
“I knew I had to find my biological father,” Robin said.
Robin talked to her dad about it.
It wasn’t easy, but his response wasn’t anger or sadness but encouragement. He told her she needed answers that he didn’t have.
“I know you need to know,” he told her.
He understood how important it was to her.
“My dad helped in the search, too,” Robin said.
Looking at her 23andMe results, Robin returned to the third cousin with whom she first connected and noticed other second and third cousins. This prompted her to search for their surnames, which were unfamiliar to her. She got additional information from her mother, who had the first name of a man who was the only other likely person who could be Robin’s father. Pooling all this information together helped narrow her search. When she connected again with her third cousin and shared some of this information, they identified who they thought her father was. Her cousin even provided Robin with a picture, which Robin then showed to her parents. They recognized him immediately and said that was who they believed was her father.
“Remarkably, through my 23andme DNA relatives (and other information), I was able to find the man who I truly believe is my biological father, all within a matter of days,” Robin said.
But her cousin thought that Robin’s biological father had passed away. It wasn’t until Robin tracked down another cousin that she learned he was still alive. Using additional information, she was able to find an address. She took the next difficult step of sending him a carefully worded letter filled with details about her mother and her own connections through 23andMe with several of his relatives.
“I mailed the letter off on August 31, 2015, (and) I prayed to Jesus,” she said.
A few days later, Robin got an early morning phone call. It was him.
“Of course, this was a great shock to him and his family, but he called,” Robin said. “Thank God he called, and he remembered my mother. Like me, he just wanted to know the truth, and so did his wife of 47 years.”
He asked to do a DNA test, and Robin sent him a 23andMe kit. A few weeks later, the results confirmed what Robin thought – she’d found her biological father.
“His response was brief, and that&#8217;s the last I&#8217;ve heard from him,” Robin said. “I&#8217;m still waiting, but I have hope. I know I will have a relationship with my father.”
Robin is his only biological child. She doesn’t know how this news impacted him, but finding him was important in understanding herself.
It made her wonder what part of herself she inherited from her biological father and what was from her upbringing.
“I thought that knowing him would help me to better understand myself,” she said.
Making the connection gave her insight into where she came from.
“I not only found my biological father but I was introduced to extended family and ancestors that I hadn’t known of before,” said Robin. “Finding him and knowing about his family tree through our cousins made me feel complete and whole.”

DNA Relatives — Page 7