It can be quite astonishing what a simple ancestry DNA test can do. You order a kit, send in a simple saliva sample and your entire genome is checked over thousands of locations in order to reveal your ethnicity, genetic markers, relatives, and sometimes unexpected family secrets.

Finding out that you’re adopted or discovering a sibling that you never knew even existed sounds like something you see in the movies. But when Reddit user VideoFork asked, “People who have taken an ancestry DNA test and accidentally uncovered a family secret, what was it?“, thousands of replies started pouring in.

We have collected some of the most surprising comments from this viral thread, so continue scrolling! And if you have some family mysteries you want to share, don’t be shy and write them in a comment below.

#1

My son is my fourth cousin. We adopted him as an infant from an agency. Fun to find that we are actually related!

Image credits: iawegian

#2

I was adopted and always knew I was adopted. My parents told me that I came from a family that lived several towns over, and I was a surprise. When the tests came back, I found out I had a first cousin. I emailed them, started comparing notes, and wham! First, my biological mom was single. Second, I was not a late addition. I had four sisters and one brother. I was the baby, but only by a couple of years. Third, most all of them lived nearby.

Finally, nobody knew I was alive! My biological mom had passed. She had kept the pregnancy secret from everybody else. Before she died, she confided in one of my biological sisters that she had a baby a long time ago, and she had put the baby up for adoption. She told nobody else. When my sister told the rest of the family they didn’t believe her! So when I finally looked them up, she was like, ‘See! All those years! I told you so! We have a baby brother!’ It was an amazing experience.

Image credits: ExistentialismFTW

#3

My aunt discovered that her mother cheated on her father and she was a product of that affair, meaning she was actually only half-siblings with her four siblings. The rub was that my aunt’s husband was married before he married her. The woman he was married to is the daughter of the man involved in the affair. So no one knew this, but my uncle got divorced and then married his ex-wife’s half-sister. I guess he has a type.

Image credits: Herd_That

#4

I did the health DNA one 18 months ago because I wanted to see if I had the breast cancer gene, as there are several incidences on both sides of my family. Got my results and became very confused because it claimed I had no Italian despite my father’s grandma literally coming over from Sicily in 1920. It took me a few minutes to realize what that actually meant. My parents have been together since my mother was 14, I was born when she was 17, and my father joined the military and married my mother. I called my mom and she literally said, ‘That’s interesting’ and then she asked me not to talk to my father about it.
My sister ended up doing a DNA test and it showed that we were half siblings.

Image credits: sunshineykris

#5

I found a half sister that none of my siblings or mother knew about. My dad had an affair 50 years ago and is dead now. For us, it wasn’t really a surprise, we already have a half-sister from another affair, but for the newly discovered one it answered a lot of questions and gave my mom some much needed closure. We all met a few times, it was pleasant.

Image credits: AztecWheels

#6

My wife is adopted, but found her biological mom and did one of the genetic tests. Someone matched with her and asked if she knew such and such a name. She found out her dad wasn’t her biological dad, but he was actually her mom’s boss.

Image credits: valeyard89

#7

My grandmother is the world’s sweetest person, and had a horrible horrible woman as a mother. Her father, though, was incredible. She always talks about how I remind her of him, the small and sweet things they did together, and how much she misses him. Recently, she told me that her mother would tell her “he isn’t your real father, you know” whenever she felt like hurting my grandmother some more. This continued until the day she died, and her father escaped her mothers abuse, and never spoke to my grandmother again. My nana doesn’t blame him at all, and still loves him very very much to this day.

She decided to go on Ancestry because she said that she needs to know before she dies, although she said it wouldn’t change anything about how she felt about him.

Turns out, her mother was right. My grandmother found her biological family and loves to talk about her French heritage that she’s now learning about. To this day, she doesn’t hold anything against her non-biological dad.

He took care of my grandmother when her mother wouldn’t, knowing it wasn’t his child. He loved her, soothed her, and nurtured her through as if she was his own and he made sure thought she was. He saved my grandmothers spirit, ill tell you that much. He helped shape her into the most miraculous human being I’ve ever met.

To this day ill always refer to him as my great grandfather, and if I have a son ill be naming him after him. This story always gets me teary eyed, but the thought of Alistair, my nanas pretend dad, always makes me really happy. I know it makes her happy, too.

Image credits: avendac

#8

I found out I had a full 100% older brother.

My mother got pregnant by my father before they were married, which was scandalous in 1960. So, mom left town and lived with my aunt until the birth. She gave the baby up for adoption and then returned home. A couple of years later, she married my dad and had three more children together, including me. Fifty five years later, after both my parents had died, my aunt let it slip that me and my siblings were not the only children of our parents. My sister took a DNA test, and soon thereafter, we met our new big brother and his family and have become quite close.

Image credits: Freeagnt

#9

Found out that my brother is only my half-brother. Our parents were never married, but my mom has insisted my whole life that my dad is my brother’s dad. He never acknowledged my brother — claiming that the man my mom was living with at the time was probably his father. My mom has always said the other fellow was simply her roommate.

Image credits: Grave_Girl

#10

That my grandmother was biracial. She was abandoned shortly after birth at a church by an older white lady, adopted by a white farmer with 11 kids, and stopped talking to most of that family due to nondescript unpleasantness as an older teen. She died 20 years before I was born and looks like Maya Rudolph in the few photos I’ve seen, but insisted she was part-Sicilian.
Anyway, my mom got me a DNA test a few years ago. My grandmother was definitely half-Black, and I have no Sicilian or Italian DNA. I’ve connected with a few distant cousins over email and Zoom, am waiting for the pandemic to mostly end to talk to my dad about it and introduce him to more family.

Image credits: ReddishWedding2018

#11

Being a white male raised in the south with some really racist family members they were shocked that we had 4 percent African in us.

Just goes to show you how stupid racism is.

Image credits: Scared-Mortgage

#12

Not me, but a friend.

My friend (34F) decided to get her twin sister and parents a DNA testing kit for Christmas. When her parents opened the gift they looked at each other and said “Oh…thanks.” They quickly tried to move on to other presents. My friend was slightly confused, but dropped it.

Later they went for their Christmas Day walk. The mom and sister were walking ahead while she walked with her dad. Her dad spilled the beans! Her and her sister were adopted. The mother looked back and started crying – she couldn’t believe her husband told her daughter without them talking about it first. They were going to keep it a secret forever.

She had never suspected she or her sister were adopted because they look a lot like their parents. They are also very short, as are their parents.

Whoops!

Image credits: hyggelady

#13

A few years ago my wife and I both took the 23 and Me test. One of her matches came back with 23%, which is high for someone non-family. She messaged him and they started talking. He was about 10 years older, said he was adopted, and the only thing he knew was some basic biological info. Because of his age, that would have meant her mom was about 14 when she had him, but her mom never said anything about it. She asked her youngest uncle and he said when he was a kid he remembered his sister going away for a few months because she was ‘sick’ and the family just pretended it never happened. So my wife now has a brother.

Image credits: last_to_know42

#14

I have an uncle that was put up for adoption. He contacted my grandma and she thought he was going to extort her (they’re well off). Turns out he’s a multi, multi millionaire on his own.

They still have limited contact, though my dad has reached out and formed a relationship. Apparently they look exactly alike and have the same personality (which sounds kind of stupid now that I’m writing it out, but they’re only half-siblings).

Image credits: RolandDPlaneswalker

#15

I found out about my real father and three half siblings. It ended up being a really good discovery.

Image credits: CatMakes3

#16

My male cousin did one and found a female cousin we did not know about. He reached out to her and apparently our deceased uncle was good friends with her mother. Mom wanted a baby so uncle got her pregnant simply as a sperm donor. Female cousin lived a few blocks away from my grandmother. She had met her a few times going around selling Girl Scout cookies or something. My grandmother had no idea that she was buying cookies from her granddaughter.

Image credits: OrangeTree81

#17

My wife was adopted at birth. This wasn’t a secret, as she is brown raised by very white parents. But she lived her whole life thinking she was ethnically Hawaiian, as that was what her mother told her. She took a DNA test, not Hawaiian at all. It came back Native American (the Central America variety).

Flash forward a few years.

There was a falling out with her adoptive parents and communication was cut off. A match for a second cousin shows up one day and we decide to reach out. I figured it was a long shot, as odds are pretty strong a second cousin wouldn’t know anything about an adoption 30+ years ago, but the 2nd cousin started asking her family about it and they all started taking DNA tests. Through this process we end up finding an Aunt who was able to help piece together who her biological father l

Image credits: kikachuck

#18

That my father is a registered sex offender.

Image credits: marques33

#19

My uncle took the test and found a brother and a sister that were given up for adoption, but the family had been told that they died during childbirth.

My grandma died before they did the ancestry test and my grandfather was on his death bed when the first “lost sibling” was discovered. He died and no one brought up to him that they found them and we all met her at his funeral. She is the youngest of all the siblings.

The second lost sibling was found a couple years after that and it turns out he is the oldest of all 10 kids my grandma birthed. We have no idea her reasons for giving her first and last born babies up. Obviously she never thought anyone would find out.

Image credits: what-in-the-actual

#20

Found out I have a different father. My dad also took a DNA test at the same time and found out his father of 52 years was not his biological father either. As it turns out, I come from a line of bastards.

Image credits: Benevolent_Burrito

#21

Genetic genealogist here. I have handled both volunteer cases and paid cases. The most shocking case I have seen was a person whose DNA led to his mother’s admission that she was raped by her older brother. Very difficult situation for the family all around. The person who came to me ended up discovering their uncle was also their father.

I now warn clients, DNA can solve your cases, but they can also uncover difficult family secrets, so really think through the possibilities first.

#22

My ex-husband’s family were proud of their Dutch heritage and claimed to be one of the founding families of the historically Dutch Holland, MI. His ancestry results didn’t show any Dutch ancestry. Instead, he had primarily English/Irish ancestry.

Image credits: faye_okay_

#23

I took a DNA test and found I am ethnically 25% Ashkenazi Jew. After eight months of serious digging, I found out my grandpa is not my father’s biological father.

Image credits: ameliacantlove

#24

My cousin took a test and goes on and on about how she’s almost completely Irish. Our grandpa was German. I’d heard from my mom as a kid that my aunt’s biological father was probably her friend’s father. I’ve looked the family up on Facebook and my aunt looks just that friend. My cousin seems to have no idea of any of this. I don’t think my aunt does either.

Image credits: jelly-8

#25

Not me, but a family friend.

He did the test and found out he had a half-brother. Turns out his dad had an affair a while back, and that kid was a product of that affair.

Image credits: [deleted]

#26

A friend discovered that her father was not really her father. Her mom had an affair and she was the result. It tore her family apart. Her father did not know he was not really her father.

Image credits: AgentElman

#27

A long lost relative contacted me. He is the same age as my dad and looked straight up related. He was adopted and wanted to connect with his birth family. Long story short, I found out that my grandfather had an affair with my great aunt and they put the baby up for adoption. My great aunt went away while she was pregnant and came back with no baby. It was the 60s. The family was freaking out about it trying to keep it all hush hush. I felt bad for the guy so I did my best to help him out. So technically, he’s my uncle/cousin. And we live in kentucky, which makes it even funnier.

#28

My grandma found out her two sisters are actually only half sisters.
After some snooping she comes to find out that her real dad was the guy who owned the corner store where her mom worked growing up.

Image credits: NagaStoleMyKodo

#29

My FIL found out hes the milkmans son so to speak and everyone else including his sister knew. It explained why they treat his wife and kids like black sheep.

Image credits: callmenoodles

#30

My coworker found out he had a daughter from a girl he was with once at a party when he was 17. He is in his mid 30s, has a wife and children now. Turns out the mother died of cancer when his daughter was young and she was raised by her grandparents. They met and keep in contact now.

#31

Not me, but my brother-in-law. Put my nephew’s test results on Ancestry and got a match that someone nearby had a genetic match. His dad was something of a womanizer so he figured maybe his dad had had a kid in a nearby city on the down low back in the day. Contacts the person, turns out it’s a woman he knows because my nephew has been in a class with this woman’s son. He tries to be gentle in asking about her family, she tells him straight up “oh, I’m the product of a one night stand, his name was (my dad’s name)”. My BIL is like “that’s my wife father…” Turns out my dad had hooked up with her mom once while on a brief return from being overseas in the Marines. Her mom got pregnant and married another guy who was happy to raise her as his own. My dad never saw the woman again. Funnily enough he also got another woman pregnant within a few weeks and married that woman. My oldest sisters are only about 5 weeks apart but didn’t know of each other until they were in their 50s.

#32

Not me, but an elderly customer at work the other day.

She came down with some serious illness and the doctor had her take a DNA test to see if it was hereditary. Turns out it was from her fathers side. But not the man who raised her. So she went hunting to find her real father. Turns out that he was a Korean War vet. Took part in Chosin Reservoir and loads of other things. Two years after she found him and all of her half siblings, he passed.

Image credits: huefnerd

#33

I was adopted as a baby and was looking for my birth family. I ended up connecting with a lady who similarly in the dark and was also looking to connect with her father’s family. Apparently her father hated his father for unknown reasons. But she did know her grandfather’s name and through that I was able to do some research and was able to find my birth mother. Talking to my birth aunt, who keeps track of all the family records, that lady’s unfamiliar grandfather was my great grandfather. But my aunt/grandmother/pretty much everyone else in the family had no memory of these other people. Turns out that the families were living just a few blocks away from each other at the same time. THE GUY HAD A WHOLE OTHER FAMILY HE KEPT SECRET.

TLDR; went looking for my birth family and discovered that my birth great grandfather had a second family down the street and they didn’t know about each other.

#34

My father in law who is a devout Christian was actually fathered by someone else. Turns out his biological father is an infamous drug dealer. A side surprise is that he had always believed he was a certain nationality. He doesn’t have one single drop of it.

#35

Found a new first cousin. My Dad’s youngest sister had a child out of wedlock and gave her up for adoption. She reached out to me via Ancestry e-mail account and when I read her message I about fell out of my chair. She gave me her phone number and I left work so I could call her. When she answered the phone she just started crying. She never could find any connection to her Mother (my aunt) even though she had her name. She doesn’t have any info on her Dad or his family. Her adoptive parents both died by the time she was 35 and she never had any children. So, other than her husband and his sister, she had no other family. I was able to inform her that she had a half sister and 2 half brothers and 5 cousins! Unforunately, her Mother had passed 7 years earlier.

After we hung up, I called her sister and gave her the news. She was totally shocked but reached out to her brothers and told them. they contact her the next day and it has been a happy connection.

It just so happened that I was traveling to her area for work 10 days later, so we met up. I couldn’t stop starting at her while we talked because she looked just like her Mother and sister. No denying they were related.

We have visited her and kept in touch these past 2 years and exchanged presents. She is a truly wonderful person and I’m so happy that she has found a family connection with all of us.

#36

If you have any uncertainty before you take a dna test just make sure you’re prepared for the repercussions that it will certainly bring. It will cause irreparable damage once “the secrets out”. My wife hasn’t spoken to her mother in years because she found out the man she had been calling dad until his death was not her father and her real dad died about 6 months before she took the test. Everybody in her family already knew and nobody told her.

#37

My father in law had a child back In the 60s. He was a really nice guy. Didn’t want any money or anything, just wanted to say thanks for putting him up for adoption instead of abortion. He had a good foster family and turned out well rounded. Also it turned out he lived a few miles from my in laws yearly vacation spot. They met up and had a few beers and caught up. The birth mother wasn’t as cool. She was a grandma and didn’t want to spoil her identity. To each their own.

#38

“I found out that my dad is not my biological father. Turns out my dad is the family friend I grew up calling ‘grandpa.’ And he was also my mom’s bariatric surgeon

Image credits: agrajag159

#39

My dad and Aunt found out they had an older brother!

Long story, my grandfather had a fling before he met my grandmother, never even knew he had a son, went and lived his life and some near 60 years later, BOOM! Ancestry test, here you go!

So another really good story from this one.

#40

I found out my paternal grandfather was not my real grandfather and that my father was the product of an affair or [something else]. I found the entire family I am related to, my last name isn’t really accurate and I was told I was an ethnic group I always thought I never looked like. I think my father’s sister KNEW just looking back but that he NEVER DID. I found cousins on that side but sadly due to my age in my 50s, most relatives had died off, real grandfather died in 1969. This explains why I never met any great uncles or aunts on my father’s side of the family, they basically had nothing to do with us.

I found evidence in newspaper articles that my grandmother [real] knew and step/adoptive grandfather’s family knew the family I would be related to. They were all from the same town. I am no contact from my family so no one found out. What is weird is I thought I was adopted for years. I joined ancestry to find out if I was, and always thought my last name was “wrong”.

Real grandfather was a very busy man…..I had relatives all over the place. One grew up in foster care and knew nothing of her real parents. He would have been her real father.

#41

My mom found out her father wasn’t her biological father. She looked at close relatives and realized she recognized the last name of one of them- family friends. Oh, but this wasn’t your standard mom-cheated-and-didn’t-tell-dad story.

She always suspected she wasn’t actually her father’s daughter because he told her he wasn’t. Legit. But her mom and aunt and grandma held true to the story.

With the DNA test, Mom got out of her mom the truth. The other man, my mom’s true biological father and their family friend, was considered “uncouth” by the family. So instead of marrying him, my grandma married this other guy who was considered much more societally appealing. He knew, and agreed to raise the baby as his own.

The sad part is, he was a s**t dad. Total [jerk]. My mom met the other guy, her biological father, about 3 years ago and they have had an amazing relationship so far. She feels like she missed out on her “good dad” for so long, but is happy to have it now. She also gained a half-sister, which is cool because they’ve known each other since they were little and used to call each other sisters without knowing the truth.

PS- Her bio dad didn’t know the truth, but had some suspicions. But he couldn’t very well have come out to his family friends and been like “that’s my daughter!” because it would’ve been super rude and crazy if untrue.

#42

My wife no longer knows who her father is. We are about to approach her mom about this, but that’s a delicate relationship balance to approach due to her mom being very straight laced and proper.

Its shook my wife 45f entire foundation. She was from 6 generations of Texans….now she is lost. I don’t know how to help her. She is not real interested in finding out who her real father is yet. She is also relieved because the man she thought was her father is a weird [jerk]. I wish her “dad” her moms current husband of 40 years was her real dad…..though he did legally “adopt” her years ago when the guy she thought was her dad abandoned her.

Its s mess. Hard pass on the DNA tests for me, I’m good being just 90% f**ked up.

Image credits: Fatherof10

#43

Not me, but a friend never knew who his father was (mom had a weekend fling in college and never contacted the guy after) and his wife helped him use ancestry.com to try and track him down. My friend reached out and the guy was obviously surprised, but flew across the country to meet him. They have a great relationship now, the dad attended his wedding, and they try to get their families together a couple times a year or so

#44

My dad’s side of the family is from the American Southwest, and is of purely Mexican heritage, but one of my cousins has deep blue eyes. The joke was always that her father “wasn’t really her father”, as nobody on that side has anything other than dark eyes. She looked enough like her father, though, that it was just a joke, but still nobody could explain it.

We had a family reunion a few years back, and it was discovered that she had some German ancestry…which was quite a shock, because as far as we knew there were no Germans in our family history that we’d known about.

It wasn’t until watching the Selena series on Netflix that my wife said that Tejano music sounded a lot like Polka. I looked into it, and come to find out, in the 1800’s some Polish and German folks emigrated to the Northern Mexico/Texas area, and brought a lot of their music with them! Not saying this is why, necessarily, but it does explain why there might be some German in a purely Mexican family’s genes.

#45

Not really a secret but my paternal grandparents swore up and down I wasn’t related and my mom was a whore. Did the test and boom they are right there on the list of family, and when my dad did it it said I was directly related. So I hope their years of being asses was worth it.

#46

Turns out, my parents are VERY distant cousins like 12 generations back… still pretty wild though

#47

I found out the person who I thought was my father was not. This is something I long suspected, which is why I took the test. I exchanged messages with my newly discovered Uncle or half sibling for awhile. I was unable to determine our exact relation. They didn’t want to pursue a relationship and didn’t pass my information on, so the mystery of who my father is ended there. I did a bit of Facebook stalking and found probable suspects but I never reached out. On the plus side, even though the person who I believed to be my father was not, I grew a new appreciation for him. He was a terrible father, but treated me the same as his bio kids.

#48

My grandpa knew he was adopted, but didn’t know much about his bio family. He did have a few very specific details (there was a set of twin girls, for example, one redhead, and one blonde, and he knew the names of one of their adoptive parents). His adoptive parents knew the other adoptive family, and he even met one of his biological brothers briefly when he was very young.

I tracked down one of the twins through her adoptive parents’ names, and slowly pieced together other siblings. 14 in total. At least 4 were adopted out, but many were kept by the bio parents. My grandpa isn’t one of them. My DNA doesn’t match these siblings DNA.

So, it’s anyone’s guess where he came from, or why his parents lied about who his biological mother was. MY guess is that they were protecting some woman who got pregnant and needed to keep it a secret (it was the late 1920’s), and since they knew this other woman had had many children, and had given some of them up for adoption, they used her as a scapegoat. But until I can find a DNA match, it’s impossible to say!

#49

That my dog is apparently related to royalty.

I didn’t trust that these ancestry DNA tests were accurate, so I paid for one, but instead of sending in my DNA, I sent in my dog’s DNA. I filled out the written part of the test with a bunch of lies about “family heritage” and “family history.”

Not only did they not detect that the DNA was not human, the information they claimed they learned from the DNA matched the written information very closely.

In other words, they didn’t bother to test the DNA at all and are making up stuff that will sound exciting to people who are willing to pay the $99 for lies.

But, chances are, they are keeping the DNA and building a DNA data base for use by organizations (both government and corporate) that they shouldn’t be using it for.

#50

It turns out I’m the result of an affair between my mother and (who I thought was) my uncle (dad’s brother), and my mother and father (technically uncle…?) had a son who was stillborn that they told nobody about right before I was born. Luckily I found this out after I already yeeted the whole family, so haven’t really had to deal with it – but they don’t know that I know, so that might be a good one for a funeral or a surprise visit.

#51

A woman over in Chicago decided to find out who her real parents were. She was getting close to 60 and realized that there may not be much time left to find her father. So through the magic of ancestry she was matched to my grandfather.

She seached out to him and told him who her mother was. He didn’t recognize the name but dug up his little black book and lo and behold…there she was.

So now I’ve got a new aunt!

#52

My friend was adopted through a closed private adoption. Her adopted parents got her an Ancestry test for Christmas a few years ago. She matched with her birth mom and half sister then made contact through Facebook. After trying to get basic family info and medical history (my friend has lots of health problems including cancer) it became clear that her birth mom was keeping secrets.

Another friend of my friend did some searching online and found the birth dad and made contact against my friends wishes. Turns out the birth mom had slept with her brother-in-law and gotten pregnant. My friend was given up for adoption to hide the secret. It caused some scandal in their family and my friend no longer talks to them.

She did meet her birth dad and he was a nice guy. Turns out he and his wife wanted to keep my friend but the mother didn’t give him a choice.

#53

I found out my grandpa isn’t my grandpa. I was showing my Mom my ancestry results and we were scrolling through the DNA relative list and a woman who did not share any family names with me popped up as most related to me. My Mom saw the woman’s last name and burst into tears. Apparently this woman shared the last name of my grandma’s former boss… my mom turned out to be the result of an affair and it is unclear whether my “grandpa” knows. My mom always suspected something like this to be true as she didn’t look like any of her “dads” family but this was confirmation and she took it rather hard 🙁

#54

My father was Sicilian, my mom was Ukrainian.

I’m not Italian, not even half a percent.

Called my elderly aunt, then my mom’s childhood friend, both in their seventies. Before I even finished the question they each said “Yes, I know.”

#55

My stepmom was very proud of being Spanish and Catholic. Turns out she’s just Catholic.

#56

Did a test as a teenager with my boyfriend just for s**ts and gigs. We got extra curious and looked into the meaning behind my family’s last name and found my father’s marriage certificates for two marriages prior to my mother. Asked my mom about it and she had no idea so that was super fun.

#57

Always thought my grandfather on my father’s side was adopted and thought our last name was just of the family that adopted him. One DNA test later and the family figures out that my great grandparents got pregnant out of marriage and ran away. They came back with a child saying it was adopted so they wouldn’t be shamed for him. That’s how we figured out that my last name is for sure from blood

#58

My sister did one through 23andme maybe 3 or 4 years ago now, and discovered we had a cousin. His profile was public because he had been adopted and was hoping to reconnect with his birth family. We were able to figure out that he would have belonged to my dad’s sister. My sister wasn’t sure how to bring it up with her, so she asked my dad if he could talk to his sister about it, but he dragged his feet a bunch so my sister eventually had to let her know.

It turns out she got pregnant in college back in the sixties and the father bailed, so she went to stay with a friend across the country, had the baby, and put him up for adoption. She ended up telling her parents years later, and they were like, “Oh, okay, thanks for telling us,” and never brought it up again because they are extremely repressed. She had also told her husband prior to their marriage, and when their kids were teenagers they had been filled in as well, so it wasn’t a HUGE family secret – it was just one the extended family didn’t really know about.

Anyway, my sister put our new cousin and our aunt in touch. He had done the DNA test hoping to learn more about his medical history, but also because he wanted to let his birth parents know that they made a great decision and he had an amazing adoptive family and had had a really happy life and had no bad feelings towards them. That was a HUGE relief for my aunt, because she had always worried about that. The two of them have built a great relationship now and see each other often. I haven’t met him in person yet, but several of my family members have including my dad. My aunt and dad and grandma have all become close to his adoptive parents too, as well as our cousin’s wife and kids. His birthday was actually day before yesterday – I’m Facebook friends with him and saw it there.

#59

So I live in a very small town and when I was about 9 or so I went to my friends birthday party. This girl hung out with another group of girls so I didn’t know everyone there too well. I’m not sure how we got on the topic but one of the girls told me her dads name was Steve and she wasn’t allowed to talk to him. And I was like huh that’s weird, I have a cousin named Steve and you kind of look like his son a bit. I asked my mom to send a picture of Steve and the girl said it was her dad. Obviously I didn’t understand very well but I told my mom it that Steve was my new friend’s dad. She told me not to say anything about it. Well Steve had been married for many years at this point and had two sons only a few years younger than me…so for Steve to be my friends dad that meant that he would have had to of cheated on his wife.

I didn’t think about this for many years and we all sort of blew it off. I never really hung out with this new friend again and she grew up to have a very difficult life. I know her family struggled financially and her mom was out partying it seemed. The poor girl was even found in a porn video that ended up circling in the town. Meanwhile Steve is living in a very nice large house, his kids have everything they need and he is living the life.

So I do 23 and Me and the friend is a suggested match as my cousin. I sent her a connection request and I’m waiting for her to accept it. I’m not really sure if I should mention it to Steve or what. I told my parents only. I just feel so horrible that had Steve stepped up and fathered this girl as he did his other children her life could have been drastically different. Or at the very least paid her mother child support.

#60

Oh, well that would be when I brilliantly gave everyone ancestry tests for xmas and my husband subsequently learned that his beloved upstanding Jewish grandfather had fathered a secret child with a lovely black woman back in the sixties—times were different!—and he has a whole set of cousins and so on who look SO much like him, all of which then surfaced some repressed memories about being taken to a house when he was a kid and having to wait around while grandad went off with this woman, etc etc.

So THEN, we had to run super quick over to his mothers house and secretly steal the test she fortunately hadn’t done yet, because that would prob kill her, and so now that’s a huge secret too.

Great gift, 10/10.

#61

My family discovered that we should have a different last name.

We did the ancestry DNA test and found we had cousins with a last name we had never heard of, even with our extensive ancestry research in the past.

We found that it had to do with my great great grandmother. She was married to a farmer (with my last name). There was a socialite family, a doctor and his wealthy daughters, living a mile away from her. They happened to have this new last name!

So, my great great grandmother kept a secret from everyone that she got pregnant from this wealthy doctor and had a boy, my great grandfather.

Absolutely no one in my family knew until we took this DNA test. It blew our minds!

#62

I (34) found out that my dad (78) is not my biological father. He learned that I was awaiting results of the test, which was an innocent birthday gift from my wife, and broke the news to me over a beer in an awkwardly crowded bar (about a week before quarantine started).

My parents used a donor that was selected from a local medical school by their fertility doctor, the only basis seeming to be that this student “looked like” my parents. I haven’t been able to find any useful leads on who my biological father might be, just distant family relations.

#63

My mother found out that she had another brother through one of the ancestry sites.

My mother received a letter in the mail from a man claiming to be her brother. He attached a copy of his birth certificate and a picture of himself as a child. At first my parents, my mom’s brother and the rest of our family didn’t know what to make of the letter. The birth certificate had both my (deceased) grandparents name and signatures from a hospital in a state that we don’t live in and the photo of him as a child bared striking family resemblance. At first they thought it was maybe a possible scam?

My mom and uncle ended up agreeing to meet this man and he explained that he had been adopted at birth and lived in that state ever since. He did one of the ancestry sites since his birth parents always interested him but he never had the resources to track them down. Overall my mom and uncle said he was a nice guy and he had his own family now and I think it provided a good amount of closure for him.

However, I’m not sure how it affected my mom and uncle that they found out that their parents took this secret with them to their grave.

#64

A colleague of mine found out that she was dating her cousin when she was in HS.

#65

My great gran (who I knew) was an orphaned live in servant in Greenock, Scotland in 1900, got pregnant by her employer, kicked out, ended up in the poorhouse where she abandoned the baby. DNA turned up the granddaughter of the baby. Met her in Glasgow a couple of years ago. She turned up as a cousin via DNA.
Source: boredpanda.com