Jayne Berry’s adoptive parents let her know she was special. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/23andMe_Logo_blog-300x300.jpg" alt="23andMe_Logo_blog" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-6586" 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" /> 
As a child, her parents told her: “Most children are just given to their parents, but you were chosen to be our daughter.”
Jayne felt lucky to have the parents she had, but because she never wanted to hurt them, she waited to ask more about where she came from. Who was her biological mother and why she’d been put up for adoption?
After testing with 23andMe and connecting with a niece, she finally got answers, met three full brothers and one half brother and learned about her now deceased mother. Her story was featured on Lexington, Kentucky television station and the local paper.
We asked if we could share her story with our readers.
“I would be honored,” Jayne said. “My goal is to help those who are still searching.”
Check it out.
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Sharing Her Story

When Kelli read the message, she froze thinking that her next move would likely change her life forever.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KelliODonnell2-300x300.jpg" alt="KelliODonnell2" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-21525" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KelliODonnell2-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KelliODonnell2-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KelliODonnell2-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KelliODonnell2-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KelliODonnell2-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KelliODonnell2-1180x1180.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KelliODonnell2-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KelliODonnell2-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KelliODonnell2-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KelliODonnell2-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KelliODonnell2.jpg 1304w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
It was a note from a fellow 23andMe customer, who’d been identified as a second cousin. She had sent Kelli a message asking to share family information. The cousin – who Kelli never knew before – stated that she’d like to connect.
Kelli hesitated.
She was raised as the only child of a single mom and knew nothing about her dad. Once when Kelli was five, she’d asked her mother, “Why don’t I have a father?”
Her mother immediately broke down.
“My mom started crying and said, ‘That’s just the way it is.’”
It was so painful that Kelli simply never asked her mother again. It took 30 years and then, testing with 23andMe for Kelli to answer that long nagging question. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/welcome-300x300.jpg" alt="welcome" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-21519" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/welcome-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/welcome-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/welcome-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/welcome-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/welcome-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/welcome-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/welcome-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/welcome.jpg 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“I never asked again because our relationship was so perfect, and I (wrongly) assumed that either something bad had happened to my mom or when she had told my father she was pregnant he wanted nothing to do with me,” Kelli said.
But then she made a connection to a second cousin using 23andMe, and together they learned the truth.
It all started because Kelli wanted to use 23andMe to learn a little more about herself.
“I never dreamed of what would happen next.”
Kelli decided to go ahead and connect with her second cousin and wrote her back. She told her that she didn’t know anything about her father. That her mother had gotten pregnant as a 19 year-old college freshman, then dropped out of school and moved back in with her parents to have Kelli.
After filling her cousin in on her story, Kelli gave her a way out.
“I gave her the option of ending contact with me,” she said.
But the opposite happened. Her cousin contacted her own parents, who said they wanted to help. They were thrilled that they found Kelli.
“And even if my father didn’t want to know me, they did,” Kelli said.
She also wanted to make sure her own family was OK with what she was doing.
“Probably one of the hardest things I had to do was tell (my mom),” Kelli said.
All the pain of the past was gone. Her mother and her family supported what she was doing.
Kelli had grown up in her grandparents’ home, with her mother and her aunt, who was 14 when Kelli was born. It was a large and loving family, and Kelli had always been close to her mom and her aunt, who was more like a sister.
As she connected with her cousin, the two began what amounted to a game of detective. Her new found cousins got tested, and they were able to see which side the family Kelli was related to. Then using what they knew about where Kelli’s mom had gone to college, they figured out which male cousins may have been at Penn State around that time.
Then they tested who they thought was Kelli’s grandfather. He was and that lead them to Kelli’s biological father.
“His and his family&#8217;s reactions were amazing, they were so excited to know about me,” Kelli said, who received messages from new family members welcoming her into the family.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/DSC_0582-300x201.jpg" alt="DSC_0582" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-21518" width="300" height="201" />
When her biological father’s test results came in, his sister got him an “It’s a girl” balloon.
Kelli met her new found family in person in June.
“They even surprised me with presents and a cake for my birthday that was coming up, offering to sing to me 36 times to make up for the years they weren&#8217;t there,” she said.
Besides finding her biological father, she now has a new stepmom, a sister, a brother, a niece, grandparents and new uncles, aunts and cousins.
Her mother encouraged her to make the connections and has supported her all the way. Her mother’s father, her &#8220;Papap,&#8221; had passed away a few years ago. He had always been like a father to her, and for a time she felt pangs of guilt. She didn’t want it to appear that she was trying to replace him, but her family assured her that he would’ve approved.
Since connecting with her new found family, Kelli has moved back home to Pittsburgh from Chicago to get to know them better. She’d grown up just 30 miles from them. She’s learned that she and her biological father share an aptitude for math and a love of pizza, and she’s already grown close to him.
“I’d say right now we have a real father-daughter relationship,” Kelli said. “He insists I call him ‘dad,’ invites me to family vacations and we’re getting to know each other.”
She hesitates for a moment and adds:
“He cries sometimes when he thinks of how much of my life he missed, but we’re going forward now,” she said.

It’s a Girl

Jeremy Kuykendall grew up in Texas, went to college there and settled down. He has a good job, is happily married and has two daughters. His life is pretty normal.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Jeremy-300x225.jpg" alt="Jeremy" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-21349" width="300" height="225" />
“I’m just a middle class family man,” said the 38 year-old IT worker.
But the regular trajectory of Jeremy’s life took an extraordinary turn after testing with 23andMe. His results connected him for the first time with a guy named Steven, a man he’d never met, who just happened to be his biological father.
“I am awed by how this happened,” Jeremy said. “The chances of us ever meeting and learning about how we are related would have been impossible without a service like 23andMe.”
<h6>Connecting</h6>
Steven is single, 58, and lives in Fort Worth. His life – working dozens of different jobs, serving in the Army and moving around the country before settling into a job with the Veterans Administration in Fort Worth – has been anything but ordinary. Yet even Steven says connecting with Jeremy has been one of the craziest things that’s ever happened to him.
“I remember telling him on the phone once that I don’t know what to say to him or how to feel,” Steven said. “We’re in uncharted territory here. I know I can’t be a father to him. The best I can do is to be his friend.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Jeremy-Steven-300x169.jpg" alt="Jeremy &#038; Steven" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-21352" width="300" height="169" />
And the two men – who are strangers although they are father and son, have gotten to know each other – they’ve started to become friends.
<h6>Creating a Family Connection</h6>
This sudden connection has probably been most jarring for Steven. While Jeremy always knew he’d been adopted, Steven never knew he’d even fathered a child, and long ago given up on the idea of ever having a family.
“I never got married, never thought about having a family a whole lot honestly,” he said. “I just never got to that point. I was engaged once but I got cold feet and called it off.”
So it was a surprise when he got his results from 23andMe. He’d signed up because he wanted to use 23andMe for his genealogy research, but his results were unexpected.
“It said I had a DNA match with someone who is identified as my son,” Steven said. “It was a shock.”
23andMe’s DNA Relative feature matches customers with other 23andMe users who share DNA. Customers can choose not to take part in DNA Relatives, remain anonymous or opt-out of viewing close relatives. Both Jeremy and Steven had opted in. When Steven saw that he and Jeremy shared 47.5 percent of their DNA, he decided to send him a message via 23andMe.
“I didn’t say much, I think I said ‘it appears as though we’re related and I was wondering where you were born.’”
Steven misread Jeremy’s profile and thought Jeremy was ten years younger than he is. Doing the math, Steven knew he lived in California when at the time Jeremy would have been conceived. Thinking back he tried to figure out who the mother might have been and was at a loss, so he wasn’t sure if the match was real.
While Steven anxiously waited for an answer to his message, Jeremy was suspicious about who he was. Jeremy always knew he’d been adopted, but he’d waited until he was in his 30s, when he was having children of his own to try and make any contact with his biological mother, who he did meet. They got to know each other. He learned she’d gotten pregnant in high school. She’d given Jeremy up for adoption because she was just too young to raise him on her own. But she’d watched him grow up from a distance. Occasionally seeing his sports or school achievements in the local paper. Jeremy’s adoptive mother worked as a nurse in the clinic that his biological mother went to for care, although she never identified herself as his biological mother.
“Our relationship has been positive and amicable,” said Jeremy, who has since also met his two half-sisters.
His mother also shared with him as much information about his biological family as she knew, including, he thought, the name of his biological father, a man she identified as Wayne.
“The stories she told me were not very flattering,” Jeremy said.
Based on all that, Jeremy decided not to reach out to him.
“It was enough to have this good interaction with my ‘Bio-Mom,’” he said.
Then all a sudden Jeremy gets a message from a guy named Steven.
Jeremy had tested with 23andMe because he wanted to know more about his ancestors and from where they came. He didn’t expect anything else, so the message from Steven caught him off guard. He was a bit suspicious.
“I responded: ‘What do you want dude?’”
Before getting the response, Steven had almost given up hope of hearing from Jeremy, he said.
“When I didn’t get an answer back I thought, you know, maybe he already knows who I am or maybe he didn’t know his real father was not his real father or a dozen other reasons why he wouldn’t want to talk to me,” Steven said.
He tried to be philosophical about it, telling himself that, “whatever happens, happens.” But that was easier said than done.
“Anyone would be really curious,” he said. “It would drive you crazy wanting to know.”
Although they both were skeptical that they were indeed father and son, they connected through 23andMe nonetheless. Steven had thought he was in California at the time of Jeremy’s birth, which was in Texas. That was until he learned that Jeremy was born in 1976, 10 years earlier than he thought.
Steven explained to Jeremy that when he was 19 he’d lived in Dallas for nine months and during that time spent about a month in Menard, Texas.
“Now you’re freaking me out,” Jeremy told Steven. “I was born in Menard.’”
He sent Steven an old photo of his birth mother. Steven thought he recognized her, but he wasn’t sure. Jeremy’s mother doesn’t remember Steven, but the dates and timing of everything matched up.
“Look I was a product of my time, a real wild child,” said Steven. “It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s just the way it was.”
Jeremy and Steven have since met in person. Jeremy looks more like his biological mother, but Steven can see some of his brother in Jeremy.
“They have the some of the same mannerisms,” he said. “He’s real gentle and hardworking like my oldest brother.”
Steven said he’s still trying to get his head around meeting a son he didn’t know he had.
“It’s certainly not a bad thing, mainly because he’s such a wonderful person, highly intelligent, very successful and a great family and everything,” Steven said. “You can tell. He had wonderful adoptive parents.”
And while Steven knows he could never be a true father to his son, he said he thinks the two men will be friends, and that he could get to know his family and Jeremy’s two young children.
“I’d like that,” Steven said.
For Jeremy the experience has reminded him how lucky he was to have had such supportive adoptive parents. But the experience has also left him wondering more about what makes him who he is – how much a role genetics plays versus the environment he grew up in.
“It’s been very positive,” he said. “But I’m struggling with this whole nature versus nurture thing and how much of what we are is genetic and how much is you know influenced by our environment. I’m amazed by how much comes from my blood.”

An Extraordinary Turn

If he hadn&#8217;t known his story was true, Phil Silvers said even he would have been skeptical.
“Who would believe it?” said Phil, a 72 year-old retired middle school social studies teacher in New York City.
<div id="attachment_21257" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21257" class="size-medium wp-image-21257" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image-300x225.jpeg" alt="Phil with his grandson Frederick Silvers." width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image-300x225.jpeg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image-880x660.jpeg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image-1180x885.jpeg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image.jpeg 1280w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Phil with his grandson.</div>
“If they put something like this in a television show no one would think something like this could happen.”
He grew up in New York City, and although he wouldn’t say so, his early life was tough. He wasn’t particularly close to his parents, and they never told him of his origins.
<h6>“It might have been better if they’d told me when I was young but they didn’t do that back then,” Phil said. “This was the 1940s and they didn’t talk about this sort of stuff then.”</h6>
<h6>
</h6>
<h6>Making His Own Way</h6>
Phil&#8217;s father had always been distant, which Phil thought was just part of his culture.
“I figured it was a European thing. He just didn’t take much interest in me.”
<div id="attachment_21254" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21254" class="size-medium wp-image-21254" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/image_2-300x199.jpeg" alt="Phil on the right with his daughter Katie and his brother William. His biological father Norman Aghassi is in the photo on the right." width="300" height="199" />Phil on the right with his daughter Kate and his brother William. </div>
But nonetheless Phil was thankful for what his parents gave him:
“They did do one thing for me that made up for all that.”
They sent him to college, he said.
Phil became a teacher. His father died of a brain tumor in 1963 and Phil’s mother eventually moved to Florida. Phil married, raised two great kids, who became successful on their own. The closeness he lacked with his own parents he made up for with his wife and kids. He was happy.
<h6>A Surprising Revelation</h6>
But when Phil’s mother died. She left him – her only child – out of his will. She’d said he would know why. He didn’t, and her decision started him asking questions. What Phil learned was that he’d been adopted. Although there had been some hints that maybe he wasn’t his parents’ biological child, Phil hadn’t known. Some of his cousins knew however.
“It was a bit of a soap opera,” he said.
So at 50, Phil started to learn a bit about his history. But what he found out just deepened the mystery.
<h6>Unraveling the Mystery</h6>
He heard from a relative that he’d been adopted from a Jewish agency that took in the children of unwed mothers, but he couldn&#8217;t find out much more. Phil was born in 1942. He did the math and realized he’d been conceived right around the time of Pearl Harbor. Lacking the real story, he’d thought maybe he’d been the product of a liaison with a sailor who was being shipped off to war. It was a nice story, but it wasn’t true, as he would find out much later.
After learning he’d been adopted, Phil soon stopped keep digging for information. He figured his biological parents were possibly already dead or at the very least elderly, so he didn’t pursue it.
“Fast forward 20 years,” his daughter Katie said.
<div id="attachment_21248" style="width: 233px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21248" class="size-medium wp-image-21248" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/IMG_6958-223x300.jpg" alt="Phil's biological father Norman Aghassi." width="223" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/IMG_6958-223x300.jpg 223w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/IMG_6958-655x880.jpg 655w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/IMG_6958.jpg 762w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 223px) 100vw, 223px" />Phil&#8217;s biological father Norman Aghassi.</div>
<h6>Breaking Things Open with DNA</h6>
They’d been watching the PBS show Finding Your Roots with Louis Gates Jr. who explores the ancestry of his guests using historical records and DNA testing, including testing done by 23andMe.
“I convinced him that we should use 23andMe to at least find out where we come from,” Katie said. “None of us really thought we’d find actual family. We did the test and were amazed at our results.”
Because he’d been adopted from a Jewish agency in New York, Phil and his family believed he likely had Eastern European ancestry. When they got his results, however, they saw something unexpected.
<h6>23andMe Makes the Connection</h6>
Although Phil’s maternal line showed Eastern European ancestry, his paternal line showed ancestry from Iraq.
“This surprised me,” Phil said.
For a long time, there was a sizable Jewish community with a long and rich history in Iraq dating back to the days of Babylon. But many Jews began leaving Iraq in the 1930s and in the decades that followed. For Phil and his daughter, just learning where they came from was enough, they said.
<h6>Finding Family</h6>
But then a few years after learning this, Phil got a message from a 23andMe customer, who was identified as a possible first cousin.
“I told the person that we didn’t know anything about where our family had come from,” said Katie, who helps maintain her father’s account for him. “The next thing I knew the same person contacts me saying that his father and my father are matching as half brothers.”
Phone calls followed and finally, Phil and his entire family met his half brother and his family.
“I was in shock,” said Phil.
<h6>Connecting with His Brother</h6>
He was taken aback by the similarities. He and his half brother were both teachers in New York City schools. They both have a daughter and a son. Their daughters are both lawyers and their sons were high achieving students. (Phil’s son became an actuary, while his half-brother’s son is an oceanographer.)
His half brother shared photos of their father with Phil and he immediately saw the resemblances. He learned that he’d been a good dad. Phil also learned he’d been conceived before his biological father was married.
<h6>Learning about his Father</h6>
His father came to New York in 1939 and lived in NY before visiting Iraq in 1947 where he met his bride and then returned to New York to raise a family. Phil also learned that one of his family names is Aghassi, and he wonders now if he’s somehow related to the famous tennis player Andre Agassi. There’s a lot for him to learn about the history of his ancestors, he said.
“But much of my life is over now,” he said. “I wish I’d learned some of this when I was younger, but I’m thankful to know. I’m going to read some books and learn about the ancient history of Baghdad.”
He also plans to get to know his half brother better. Phil has visited his brother and his family at their home in upper Manhattan. His brother’s family will also be attending Phil’s grandsons first birthday.
Phil’s daughter Katie is still amazed that the mystery of her family’s ancestry is solved.
“It was truly an incredible experience and would not have happen without 23andme,” she said.

Who Would Believe It?

David was 17 when a few words change him forever.
His mother and father were having a bad patch and his mom had had a little bit too much to drink when she let something slip.
<div id="attachment_21151" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21151" class="size-medium wp-image-21151" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/David-Kevin.002-300x225.jpg" alt="David, left, in his graduation picture. His biological half brother Kevin at around the same age. The two only recently met." width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/David-Kevin.002-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/David-Kevin.002-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/David-Kevin.002-880x660.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/David-Kevin.002.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />David, left, at 17. His half brother Kevin at around the same age.</div>
She told David he was her favorite child and then slipped in something that it was “because she wasn’t sure if I was my father’s child,” David said.
The next day she tried to backpedal, chalking her to having too much to drink.
“But you can’t take something like that back,” David said.
Now 54, David, who owns a small construction company in Colorado, said he could never shake what his mother said.
“This was the most devastating news I had ever heard in my young life,” he said. “I had a very loving dad who would do anything for his children. He is my hero. My mom, she did the best she could.”
But what his mother told him triggered a flood of questions. If it was true, David wanted to know who his biological father really was. He felt he needed to know so he could make sense of some of the differences he could already see that set him apart from his siblings, but for 20 years his mom wouldn’t discuss it, leaving him with one question:
“Who am I?”
<h6>Finding Out</h6>
It wasn’t until he tested with 23andMe last year that David got closer to answering some of those questions. The experience changed him for the better, he said.
“The biggest thing I learned is that distance, time and environment cannot change the traits you were born with,” said David.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-21157" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Taz-Tattoos-300x214.jpg" alt="Taz Tattoo's" width="300" height="214" />
But David’s journey to get to that point was a long one. His mother’s revelation changed how he saw himself. Even though what she said also seemed to explain a lot, it also set him apart from his family. And it left him feeling angry.
It took David another 20 years before he could confront his mother about what she’d said. But even then, she gave him a false lead and until the day she died ten years later, told him nothing more about it.
“I gave up all hope of ever finding out the truth,” he said.
Then late last year he tested with 23andMe, and he was matched with a first cousin named John. Then one of David’s brothers tested. The results showed that the two were actually half brothers, confirming what his mother told him so many years before.
“I wasn’t really shocked,” David said.
But seeing that result helped David identify that he and his first cousin, John, were related paternally. Now David knew that he was on the right path to identify his biological father. But he needed more information.
<h6>A Hunch</h6>
David grew up near the border between Michigan and Wisconsin where hunting is a big deal and where out-of-towners often came during hunting season. David knew he was conceived around that time, so on a hunch, he asked John whether any of his uncles were hunters.
“He had an uncle who was,” said David. “The problem was, his uncle was married at the time of my conception.”
It would be a delicate thing to ask about, but John talked to one of his uncle’s sons, who agreed to test. Waiting to learn the results were “the longest of my life,” David said.
“I had to prepare myself for the possibility that I may of found out who my father was or that I had a brother I never knew of!” David said.
He also had to prepare himself to be disappointed or rejected, he said.
Meanwhile, John wanted to make sure his cousin understood what it might reveal.
For David the days of waiting were unbearable. He fretted that maybe he’d pushed too hard.
But then he got a late-night text from John.
“David, let me be the first to welcome you to the family,” it said.
David couldn&#8217;t believe his luck: “I can’t describe the emotions that were flooding through me.”
<h6>So Much In Common</h6>
He learned that his biological father was still alive and that he had two brothers and they wanted to meet him.
“I was thankful that they didn’t “kick me to the curb,”” David said.
When he first talked to his brother Gregory, he was dumbfounded.
“NEVER did I expect to be speaking to my brother,” David said. “We spoke to each other for over an hour and a half. We had so many things in common! We liked the same things. We thought the same way.”
And after sharing some photos they saw that they also looked alike. David then talked to his other brother Kevin. Kevin and Greg invited him to visit them in Chicago and meet their dad, David’s biological dad. Excited David made arrangements to travel to Chicago from his home in Colorado.
<h6>Talking to His Dad</h6>
But before he went to Chicago to meet his biological dad, David traveled back home to Michigan to talk in person to his father, the man who raised him.
“I told him that I have always loved him and always will but, he was not my biological father,” said David. “He immediately hugged me and said ‘I knew that David. I was never going to say anything because I don’t want to hurt you.’”
It was as if a huge weight was lifted from David&#8217;s shoulders. His father told him he was happy that he was able to learn the truth.
“He is an amazing man,” David said of his father. “The love and respect I feel for my Dad is immeasurable!”
<h6>Brothers Meet</h6>
When David arrived in Chicago he first met with his brothers.
“I felt from the moment I met my brothers an immediate connection to them and they said the same thing,” he said.
<div id="attachment_21152" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21152" class="size-medium wp-image-21152" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Peterson-Group-300x168.jpg" alt="From left David, John, David's 1st cousin, his half-brothers Kevin and Gregory, and Harry, David's biological father. " width="300" height="168" />From left David, John, David&#8217;s 1st cousin, his half-brothers Kevin and Gregory, and Harry, David&#8217;s biological father.</div>
They noted not just the physical likenesses but other things. They shared some of the same personality traits and oddly both David and one of his brothers had a Tasmanian Devil tattoo on one of their arms.
<h6>Call Me Anything You Want</h6>
Meeting his biological father also proved to be beyond words, David said.
His biological father told him: 
‘Wow, this is something. Now I got three sons. Can I call you son?’”
“You’re my father,” David told him. “You can call me anything you want.”
His biological father was most distraught that he had a son for all these years who he knew nothing about. And he was upset that he couldn’t remember David’s mother. But it didn’t hold him back from welcoming David into the family.
“I was welcomed with open arms by my father’s family,” he said. “I can’t remember ever feeling the love that I had felt those four short days I was visiting.”
<h6>Making Up For Lost Time</h6>
One of his brothers soon came to Colorado for a visit and now they plan on making up for the lost time.
For his part, David is still shocked that this mystery that nagged at him for most of his life has been solved. But he’s also fascinated by how even without ever meeting his brothers or his father, that he can still be so much like them.
“How does one explain how much a person has in common with a sibling or father they have never met?” asked David. “I have always wondered why I did the things I did, who I looked like… now I have my answers.”

Can I Call You Son?

In her 30 years of searching, Perline Porter had to chase down rumors, uncover lies and overcome false assumptions, but in the end she discovered the truth.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20880" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Perlines-Photo-278x300.jpg" alt="Perline's Photo" width="278" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Perlines-Photo-278x300.jpg 278w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Perlines-Photo-768x828.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Perlines-Photo-950x1024.jpg 950w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Perlines-Photo-817x880.jpg 817w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Perlines-Photo-1095x1180.jpg 1095w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Perlines-Photo.jpg 1493w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 278px) 100vw, 278px" />
“I finally know where I came from,” said Perline, a 58-year-old retired computer tech. “I found my biological father and family.”
The searching – dizzying in its twists and turns– finally ended last year when Perline found her half-brother using 23andMe. Her decade’s long search and ultimate success in finding her lost biological family became the fodder of her book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/My-DNA-Search-my-Roots/dp/098962000X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&#038;qid=1396908948&#038;sr=8-2&#038;keywords=my+dna+roots" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“My DNA Search for My Roots.”</a>
The pages of her story track the years of disappointment Perline endured during her search. Through it all she never lost hope, a hope fueled by a feeling that ever since she was young she knew there was something about her that set her apart from her family.
“When I was around 10 years old I suspected something was different,” she said.
Her older brother and sister used to tease her saying she had a different father. On her own, she also found evidence that all the stories she’d heard about who her father was didn’t add up.
At the same time, Perline felt proud of who she thought was her dad, a man named Harry Holbert. But she looked nothing like her two older siblings who were fathered by Harry.
Perline had a tough childhood. Her mother drank, and she grew up in an alcoholic dysfunctional family. At 16, Perline got pregnant and married her boyfriend. She lived with his family and worked in the kitchen of a rest home.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20884" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/My-DNA-Search-Book-Cover-200x300.jpg" alt="My DNA Search -- Book Cover" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/My-DNA-Search-Book-Cover-200x300.jpg 200w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/My-DNA-Search-Book-Cover.jpg 231w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
When Perline was 17, her mother, in a drunken stupor, finally told her the truth about Harry. He wasn’t her father he had died before she was born. Her mother said Perline’s father was a man named Buck Casper, a close friend of Harry’s but it turned out to be a false lead that took decades to unravel and it wasn’t the only one. Perline learned that her mother had somehow changed the name of her father on her birth certificate.
As she searched through the years, Perline got very good at tracking down names and addresses and using public records. She also went back into her mother’s history. Harry ran a bar in Kelso, in California’s Mojave Desert where they lived. Kelso was a train depot not far from Barstow.  Perline realized that although she was born in Utah, she must have been conceived it Kelso, so she knew that learning more about her mother’s time in Kelso might help her find her biological father.
Over the years she got close to who she thought was her biological family only to learn she was wrong. All that experience taught her something too. Much is said about being able to track public records and people to learn the truth. But Perline asks: “What about when people and paperwork lie?”
Perline eventually turned to 23andMe to get tested because she knew that at least, “DNA doesn’t lie.”
When she tested in 2011, she got a match with a second cousin and his daughter. But she was still fixated on finding “Buck” and she ignored the match. She did find Buck, and although Buck was not well, his son tested. Perline was sure they were related, but it turned out what her mother told her was not true, Buck was not her father.
That’s when she went back to her second cousin match on 23andMe.Using the help of genetic genealogists, Kathryn Johnston and CeCe Moore, Perline zeroed her search for her father to three brothers John Collins, Edward Woodrow (Woody) Collins and Hugh Collins. Because of their ages, Perline thought for sure it was “Woody” or “Hugh.” She didn’t consider John Sr., who would have been 17 at the time of her conception. Her mom had been 25 at the time, was a widow with two small children.
It turned out Perline was wrong. As she was contacting relatives of the brothers, they all seemed to be saying the same thing – the younger brother John Sr. was the lady’s man. They thought he was her father.
Eventually, Perline contacted John’s son, John Jr.
He wanted to know more about who she was and because Perline had already met relatives of his through 23andMe, she recommended he contact them about her. Eventually, he did and decided that Perline wasn’t trying to scam him and he agreed to test with 23andMe. Perline traveled to California and met John Jr. She immediately noticed their similarities in John Jr., and her and saw pictures of John Sr. that resembled her two sons.
“I was totally amazed at how much he looked like my two boys,” she said.
They were able to confirm the connection using 23andMe.
John saw in Perline his father’s mannerisms and even the way she told a story or liked to drop one-liners. It all seemed uncannily similar to his dad.
“It is truly amazing how you can inherit traits from your father without even knowing who he is,” John said in a newspaper article about their reunion.
He also introduced Perline to her half-sister Carey, and they all got together in person in Fallon, Nevada.
For her part, Perline marvels at ultimately finding who her father was. There were many times that she was so discouraged that she wanted to abandon her search. Indeed she’d sometimes stop and focus on her life, but she never gave up entirely, she said. She was driven to find out the truth about herself.
&#8220;When you don&#8217;t know who your other half is, you&#8217;re just missing something,&#8221; she said.
23andMe provides genetic testing services for informational purposes; your results may or may not help you to search for or identify relatives or family members.

Searching For Her Roots

Anyone with a brother or sister doesn’t need a national holiday to remind them how special bonds between siblings can be, but in recognition of<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siblings_Day"> National Sibling Day</a> we bring you another in a long list of stories of siblings who found each other through 23andMe.


Tricia had a few details, but never enough to find her father.
John and Charlene, her brother and sister, never knew Tricia even existed. Apparently neither did their dad. It wasn’t until Tricia tested with 23andMe that they found each other and learned that they were all related.
<div id="attachment_20717" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20717" class="size-medium wp-image-20717" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Siblings-on-dads-bench-selfie-300x232.jpg" alt="Trish, center, and her brother John and sister Charlene." height="232" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Siblings-on-dads-bench-selfie-300x232.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Siblings-on-dads-bench-selfie.jpg 574w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Trish, center, and her brother John and sister Charlene.</div>
Tricia first started searching for information about her biological parents more than a decade ago. With the help of her adopted brother, Tricia had tracked down the name of her biological mother, who’d passed away.
She was also able to find the town where her mother had lived, even the old school she attended. When she visited the old school building she saw for the first time a photo of her biological mother hanging on the wall. It was a striking moment for her to see some of herself reflected in the face of a person she’d never met.
“That was a kick in the pants,” Tricia said. “To see her face and that ‘Oh yeah, I got all things from her.’”
Later she tracked down her biological mother’s sister, who helped her cobble together a few more details around her birth. Her aunt told her that her parents were college students, when she was conceived. Her mom at Oregon State University, and her dad was a basketball star at a nearby college.
“In my head I thought maybe it was one of those spring break flings,” Tricia said.
According to her aunt, once the family learned of the pregnancy they took her mom out of school. The family moved to another town, and Tricia was put up for adoption and given to a new family on Christmas Day in 1957 a few days after her birth.
Those were all details Tricia had never had before. She learned a little about her mother, saw some more photos and learned that she had Irish and Norwegian ancestry.

<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">
More Stories About Siblings
&#8211; <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-20609 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling-300x219.jpg" alt="Mike &#038; Leslie smiling" height="219" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling-300x219.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling.jpg 697w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
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Hey Bro&#8217;
&nbsp;
</a><a href="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square.jpg"></a>
</div>

But in all those details there was nothing about her father. And she left it at that, until she tested with 23andMe in late 2013.
Tricia said she signed up for 23andMe to find out a little bit more about where in Europe her ancestors came from.


“I was tickled to find out how much Cro-magnon (Neanderthal) I was,” she said.


But a match with a first cousin named Randy was a total surprise, she said.
“I did not expect that,” Tricia said.


She and Randy began exchanging messages and Tricia’s surprises kept coming. He wanted to figure out how they were related and began asking her about her background. Tricia told him what little she knew. A few of those details stuck out, basketball, a small college town in Oregon and the date of her birth. Randy connected the dots.


“I think my Uncle Ralph was your dad,” he said.


Tricia was stunned. Randy explained that his uncle had died a few years ago, but he added a happy surprise.
Ralph had two children, a son and a daughter. Tricia had a brother and a sister.
She didn’t know what to say.
In Texas, a woman Tricia had never met soon got a surprise of her own. When Charlene’s cousin Randy called, he started the conversation by asking if she was sitting down.
“My first thought naturally was, “Who died?” Charlene said.


Randy quickly explained that he’d tested with 23andMe, gave her a short description of DNA testing for ancestry and said he told Charlene that when he tested he’d connected not just to third and fourth cousins but to a single first cousin, who he didn’t know. He tried to explain how overlapping genetic segments are used to calculate “relatedness.” That the closer a relation the longer the overlapping segments. Charlene wasn’t following all of what he was saying until he got to the punch line.
You’ve got an older sister Charlene, he told her.
She said she was thankful that she was sitting down.
Charlene then talked to her brother. Randy helped connect them to Tricia and after exchanging messages, photos and family details, it was clear that they were indeed siblings.
“I’d always wanted a sister,” Charlene said.


Around Christmas time 2013 Tricia flew to San Diego where her half brother lived and her biological father was buried. She met him and Charlene. They spent the holidays together. They visited their father’s grave. They bonded. They learned of some uncanny shared family traits – an interest in painting, the sea and oddly dragonflies.
For Tricia the connection to family couldn’t have happened at a better time. Over the last few years she’d endured some difficult health problems and a divorce.
Now she feels blessed and finds herself, &#8220;smiling like a Cheshire cat all day long.&#8221;
She recently spent a week in Texas with Charlene and her family.


“Life is good thanks to 23andMe,” she said.
23andMe provides genetic testing services for informational purposes; your results may or may not help you to search for or identify relatives or family members.

A Siblings Story From 23andMe

Leslie grew up with a family secret – somewhere out there she had a big brother named Michael, her father’s illegitimate son from before he married her mother.
<div id="attachment_20604" style="width: 300px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20604" class="size-medium wp-image-20604" alt="John Lesley Scott, Jr." src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/John-Leslie-Scott-copy-290x300.jpg" width="290" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/John-Leslie-Scott-copy-290x300.jpg 290w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/John-Leslie-Scott-copy.jpg 697w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px" />John Lesley Scott, Jr.</div>
As a child, Leslie made this mysterious brother her imaginary friend. And as she grew older, she became determined that one day, she would find Michael.
Meanwhile, in another part of the country, Michael had struggles of his own.
The man he thought was his father left the family when he was still a baby and married a woman he was having an affair with. Michael grew up fatherless and wondering why.
He had his doubts about the man he thought was his biological father. Then in the early 1990s, as the man he thought was his dad lay dying of cancer, Michael asked him if he was really his father. He didn’t know, so Michael asked him to take a DNA test, even though it upset many people in his family. Michael said he had to know whether the man who left him and his mother, was really his father. It turned out he wasn’t.
“I was glad to know,” he said, “but it left unanswered the question of who was.”
<h6>
Searching for Scotty</h6>

It took years of search by both Michael and Leslie and some help from 23andMe to finally answer those questions.
Back when he first learned the man he thought was his father, wasn’t, Michael went to his mother for answers, but she was little help and even tried to stop him from looking. Although Michael had a name on his birth certificate – the surname Scott – his mother had told him that it was just a friend named “Scotty.”
He took what she said at face value, but in retrospect, Michael admits it was obvious she was hiding the truth.
“People don’t casually put their names on birth certificates.”


Michael tried everything to figure out the mystery, but at some point, he said he gave up. He thought he might simply have to accept that he might never find his father.

“I wasn’t at peace with it, but I sort of had to come to terms with it,” he says.

<h6>Houston</h6>

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Michael someone was looking for him.
Leslie was hard at work. She’d found a birth certificate, which gave her a name – Michael Scott – and a birthplace – Houston, Texas.
So tried calling all the Michael Scotts in the phone book. She hired private investigators but got no leads. When she heard about 23andMe, she decided to take a chance.
“I knew it was a long shot, but I was just hoping that he was in the system,” she says.


He wasn’t.
So Leslie finally confronted her father as he lay dying after a car accident.


“I told him what I knew,” she said.
Her father didn’t remember his illegitimate son’s birth date, but he knew Michael’s mother’s last name.
She also learned that her father had only been 23 when he had the affair with Michael’s mother, then a woman of 43. At the time, he said he’d promised her that he would “stay out of their lives,” so he never tried to find his son.
Armed with a name, Leslie then decided to search for Michael’s mother instead. What she found was her obituary. Among the survivors, it listed a Michael Dougan living in Seattle, Washington.
That was her brother she thought.
“I almost threw up,” Leslie said.

<h6>
Like A Freight Train</h6>

It turned out he was an illustrator, and she was able to find a phone number online. She didn’t wait, calling him right then and there.


“I should have tried to calm down a little,” she says, “but I was like a freight train, out of control.”

&nbsp;

There was no answer, so she left a breathless message.<iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="450" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/139432651&#038;auto_play=false&#038;hide_related=false&#038;visual=true" frameborder="no" scrolling="no"></iframe>
Michael had heard the phone ring, and didn’t pick up, but when he listened to the message and heard the words “John Lesly Scott,” the name on his birth certificate, his heart skipped a beat. He rushed to pick up.
“I went to grab the phone, and I’m trying to figure out how to answer it, and then the call gets cut off,” he said.


For an agonizing five minutes, he tried to figure out and then realized he could use automatic redial to call back.
Leslie picked up the line.
“I was shaking,” Leslie said. “We spoke for probably three hours.”

<h6>
Missing Pages</h6>

There was no doubt in her mind that she’d found her long lost brother.
But Michael was more skeptical.
“She said, ‘you’re my brother.’ And I said, well I think I might not be. I don’t want to get your hopes up because there’s really a chance that we might not be related, and I was always told you were not.’”
To confirm their kinship, they agreed that he should take a DNA test through 23andMe, where Leslie already had tested.
“I thought, at least I’m going to get a chance to prove another negative,” said Michael, who agreed to get tested.
While they waited for the results, Michael and Leslie talked a lot on the phone, they swapped photos and arranged live-video chats.


Leslie saw in Michael’s gestures and expressions her own father. She just knew, she said.
Michael wasn’t so sure.
“No matter how many pictures we showed each other, none of them could provide the smoking gun.”

<h6>Bingo</h6>

Then it was Leslie who started to lose faith.


“I freaked out,” she recalls. “I started crying and went to bed. I thought if this is not right, I’ve destroyed this guy’s life. I just dropped a nuclear bomb in the middle of his life.”


Michael finally got his results.


“And bingo, it was right there,” he said. “I realized this was it, that it doesn’t get any clearer than this.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20609" alt="Mike &#038; Leslie smiling" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling-300x219.jpg" width="300" height="219" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling-300x219.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling.jpg 697w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
It was 2 a.m. He texted Leslie, telling her to get up and go to the computer. They talked until 5 a.m.


“It’s like finding the other half of me,” Leslie says on reflection. “We have so much that makes us connect.”


He likes spicy food; so does she. He’s an illustrator; she’s artistic. She sings the blues; he plays blues guitar. She’s a chef; he loves to cook. She has olive skin; so does he.
Leslie had found her big brother, and Michael found a sister. They both answered questions that had eaten away at them all their lives.
Michael said up until the moment the connection was confirmed by 23andMe, his search for his father had been like an unfinished mystery novel.
“You get all the way to the end and the last five pages are missing,” he said.
Now he has the ending.


“It’s like finally finding the last five pages of that novel, and feeling, ‘So that’s how it turns out!’”

23andMe Helps Brother And Sister Connect

In the best children’s stories, the parents are done away with early on.
Mom or dad – sometimes both of them – are dead and gone even before the opening “once upon a time.”
<div id="attachment_20441" style="width: 204px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20441" class="size-medium wp-image-20441" alt="Cover of 1915 edition of J. M. Barrie's novel, first published in 1911, illustrated by F. D. Bedford." src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Peter_Pan_1915_cover-194x300.jpg" width="194" height="300" />Cover of 1915 edition of J. M. Barrie&#8217;s novel, first published in 1911, illustrated by F. D. Bedford.</div>
It’s a plot device that helps the reader make an emotional connection with the characters. It also starts the arch of the protagonist’s transformation from, say, a cinder-covered floor washer to a princess, or from puny sorcerer’s apprentice to King, or from a group of lost children into adventurers in Neverland.

<h6>Learning a Secret</h6>

As a successful children’s book editor, “Marcia Brady,” knows all about this storyteller’s tool. She’s even used it before. But what Marcia didn’t know was that the plot of her own life story had just such a twist.
In her early 30s, while Marcia was busy juggling her career and tending her young kids, she learned that the man who raised her wasn’t her biological father.
Her parents had used a sperm donor when they were told they couldn’t conceive on their own.
“I never even suspected it,” she said. “I look more like my dad than anyone else in my family.”
<h6>
 Donor Conceived Children</h6>

Marcia is not alone.
In a modern twist to the search for roots, donor kids like Marcia are turning to 23andMe for answers about their ancestry. For some the reasons to test often have less to do with finding a biological father and more to do with simply learning basic information about ancestry, medical history or finding out about whether they have siblings. They want information about themselves they can&#8217;t find any other way.
In Marcia’s case the revelation that her parents had turned to a donor to conceive, drove what turned into a years-long search into her background and family history. Even before coming to 23andMe, Marcia used the same kind of pluck and drive seen in the best characters of fiction to track down two half-sisters through a donor registry.
<h6>Turning to 23andMe</h6>
They confirmed their sisterhood with a DNA test. Then a few years later, when 23andme opened for business, she got tested.
<div id="attachment_20438" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20438" class="size-medium wp-image-20438" alt="Cynthia Lund, left, and Kathleen LaBounty." src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen-300x206.jpg" width="300" height="206" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen-300x206.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen.jpg 648w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Cynthia Lund, left, and Kathleen LaBounty.</div>
When Marcia’s results arrived, she was shocked to find a match for a half-brother. Because he was six years younger, Marcia assumed he would be the biological child of the donor, which would lead her to the donor’s identity.
“He didn’t log into his inbox on 23andme for three months. Those were the longest three months of my life!” she said. “When he finally saw my letter he replied that same night. It turned out he was another offspring of the donor. He hadn’t known of anyone else in his situation and was really excited to learn more.”
<h6>
 Connecting with Sisters</h6>

They discovered they only lived two hours apart and hit it off from the moment they met. Two years later, a new half-sister joined their 23andme list.
“It’s very exciting!” Marcia says. “I can’t wait to see if anyone else is out there.”
Unlike those great old children’s books, Marcia’s story isn’t fraught with suffering. She loves her father, the man who raised her. In fact, she’s never told him that she now knows that he isn’t her biological father, because she didn’t want to somehow hurt his feelings.
That’s why she wants to remain anonymous.
But still the news that he wasn’t her father changed Marcia’s understanding of who she is and it raised many questions.
Who was her biological father? Would he want to know about his offspring and (ten!) grandchildren? What traits might he have passed onto her that she has in turn passed on to her own children?
She and her newfound half-siblings feel like a family now, although one with a big mystery at the core. A mystery they are determined to solve.
Marcia isn’t alone in trying to fill in the blanks in her family history. Just like adoptees have done before them, the children of parents who used “assisted reproduction” to conceive want to learn more about their biological ancestry.
But this push for more information sometimes pits the desire of the donors to remain anonymous against the rights of their children to know even the most basic facts about their background. 23andMe allows people to contact members with whom they may be related, but keep both parties identities private. It’s up to the individuals whether they want to respond.
This kind of search for ancestry has even woven its way into popular culture.
The plot of 2010’s “The Kids are All Right” and the 2013 comedy “The Delivery Man” revolve around the offspring of donors searching for their biological fathers. Also in 2013 was a documentary on MTV called “Generation Cryo” that followed a teenager’s quest to find her biological father and her half-siblings.
But for many donor kids testing is less about finding a biological father but simply learning basic information about ancestry, medical history or connecting with a biological sister or brother.
<h6>
Finding A Sister</h6>

Cynthia Lund, a 33 year-old massage therapist in Salt Lake City, said that when she signed up for 23andMe in the back of her mind she had the idea of possibly finding her biological father. But for Cynthia, who knew since her 14th birthday that she’d been conceived using a sperm donor, it was also simply a practical decision.
“I had no family health history for one side, and I wanted to know if there was anything I should be concerned about,” Cynthia said.
She subscribed to 23andMe, in part, because she wanted to know about any potential health risks. In the back of her mind she wondered if she’d learn something more about who her father was.
Instead, she found her half-sister.
“I was playing with the site’s Relative Finder when I noticed a link to ‘view your close relatives,’” Cynthia said. “There was a disclaimer that said something like ‘are you sure you want to know’ and my heart started racing, of course I want to know.”
It was overwhelming, she said. She was crying and “freaking out.”
“As soon as I composed myself I started typing a message,” she said. “It probably took me an hour. I checked every five minutes for the next several days until I finally heard back.”
It took a little over two weeks before her half-sister saw the message. Then it was her turn to “freak out,” Cynthia said.

“She and her mom freaked out just like me and my mom did,” she said.
She responded to the email and the two women, who are about two years apart, finally talked on the phone. They spent several hours sharing their life stories with each other, finding that they had more than just DNA in common, but that they had some similar interests and personality traits. A few weeks later, Cynthia took a flight from her home in Utah to see her newly found sister in San Diego.
“It’s ridiculous how much alike we are,” she said. “We definitely pass for full siblings. We look SO much alike!”
Both Cynthia and her sister were raised as a single child, so finding a sister was both exciting and a little surreal for them both.
Since their first meeting, the two have become very close. They went together to Italy for a 10-day vacation, and they now are visiting each other pretty regularly. Cynthia said they’re either exchanging phone calls, texts or emails almost daily.
“It’s so great having a biological sibling, especially when I hadn’t had that experience for my first 30 years,” she said.
“We’re definitely family! “
While Cynthia is still interested in learning about her donor dad if possible, that’s not something that her half-sister is focused on.
“I don’t want anything from him, I just want to see what he looks like and help me understand family medical history,” she said.
“It’s hard to explain but I only have this half picture of myself. 23andMe is perfect service for anyone like me who has this sort of black hole in their history and wants to know more about themselves.”
<h6>
Still Searching</h6>

Kathleen LaBounty, another donor child searching for information about her biological father, has been searching for years. Oprah and National Public Radio featured her six-year search for her biological roots and her advocacy on behalf of the donor children.
In her Herculean search she’s sent more than 600 letters to prospective fathers, all went to the same medical school in Texas from which donors were used at the fertility clinic her mother used to conceive.
A well-grounded and happy child, Kathleen said that when she was 8 years old her mother told her she’d been conceived with the help of a donor.
The first thing Kathleen did was run downstairs and hug her father, saying she felt so much love for him for making her his own.
The revelation also helped her understand some of the most obvious differences between her and members of her family. She’s short and skinny. They’re tall and burly.
“In family photos I don’t blend in well,” she said.
<h6>
 Family History</h6>

Her search for more information about her ancestry has taken on more import in part because she now has children of her own. She wants to know about her family medical history. Recently she joined 23andMe. She learned that she has Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Raised as an agnostic but one who attended a Baptist school, this was news to her.
Many of her closest matches in 23andMe’s Relative Finder are from Russia. She connected with a third cousin, who lived just ten minutes from her home.
“He looks like Ben Stiller,” she said.
She’s been able to communicate with other distant relatives connected through 23andMe’s DNA Relative tool, which she said has helped her get a better picture of the paternal side of her ancestry.
She’s also recommended 23andMe to others who, like her, we&#8217;re looking for family. Two of those who she recommended the service to, turned out to be half-sisters, she said.
“I would love it if close relatives would eventually submit their DNA and I could connect through 23andMe, but if it never happens that’s OK at least now I know my heritage,” Kathleen said.

Finding Family — Page 4