20 People Reveal How 23andMe Unexpectedly Destroyed Their Lives
Answers found on Ask Reddit
You might want to think twice before agreeing to take the test.
1. “I’ve been searching for my father my whole life and through 23andme I just found a half-brother, finally answering the question. Our father is unfortunately passed, but we’re meeting in person in April.
A couple weeks after we found each other we were also contacted by another half-sister.”
2. “My brother got our whole family 23andme kits for Christmas last year. Everyone did the swab and got their results back which showed how we’re all related and yada yada yada, but my results came back inconclusive. 23andme sent me a new kit to do it again and THAT one also came back inconclusive. So the company sent me an email basically saying I can never do it again probably because I’m using a bunch of resources with no results.
Anyway now my family says I don’t have any human DNA and that I must be a lizard. They make lizard sounds when I’m around and I am ashamed.”
4. “Not me, but one of my bar regulars did the test with her older sister. Turns out not only are they not related to each other, but both of them are adopted. And, their adoptive parents are both dead. And, their entire extended family knew the whole time but no one ever told them.”
5. “I discovered that I have some of the highest known neanderthal DNA, more than 99% users and over 4% of my total DNA. 3 tests submitted and a flight provided to a university in Australia for a testing. Was cool at first, an then not.
It bothered my wife a bit at first thanks to watching a couple documentaries.”
6. “In September I found my birth mother. We talked and she invited the man I thought was my birth father to dinner and my older brother who was from the same parents and we were adopted by the same family and grew up together came too.
We had a great time and we all clicked immediately. The man who I thought was my birth father was amazing and my birth mother and I liked so many of the same things. We made plans to see shows and I was finally going to meet her mother my grandmother and learn about the heritage I never had.
Then the 23 and me test came back that I took right before finding her came back. I found my uncle. Originally I thought it was her brother but it wast it was my birth fathers brother. But my birth father wasnt the man I met. My brother and I were only half siblings. Which there is still some tension between us for.
My birth mother went ballistic for me finding out. She called me every name in the book saying i was ruining everyone’s lives and how it was my fault this happened. It came out she knew all along I wasnt the birth fathers kid. Everyone stopped talking to her and was pissed.
Except for my actual birth fathers wife. Turns out they were friends from high school. My birth mother has been texting and calling her constantly telling her how it’s all my fault and telling her I’m an awful person and to not let my birth father talk to me.
Through all this stress I dont really know if I want my birth father in my life.
The funny thing is my brothers birth father the man who I thought I was has been the most amazing man in all of this and is the only person in this invited to my wedding and i cant wait to have him there.”
7. “When my birth mom was pregnant with me she was too ashamed to admit who my father was. She was too young to be a mom and so she gave me to my current parents when I was born. (They were 10 years older than her and already had a kid.) I love my parents and couldn’t care who my birth father was but I wanted to see what I was made of.
Everyone was pretty pissed when we found out my dad was my birth dad.”
8. “Can’t speak for myself but one of my old high school teachers took an Ancestry DNA test and found out his dad wasn’t actually his biological father. His mom had cheated on her husband. He joked around so much that when he told our class, I thought he was joking. Nope.”
9. “Family wasn’t destroyed but my dad found out he has a 43 year old daughter he never knew about that was conceived when he was 16, (I was his oldest, I’m 23) and my mom found out her grandad had an illegitimate child there was no record of. Wild.”
10. “Not destroyed but my 75 year old grandmother just found out her dad was not her real dad. Turns out her mom had an affair with the family doctor and never told a single soul. Not only did she find out her family doctor was her real dad (the one who birthed not only her but also all of her own children) but turns out this family doctor was sleeping with a lot his patients. She now has a bunch of new half sisters and brothers, some of them knew who their real dad was and some of them didn’t. My great grandmother was quite the secret keeper.”
11. “Not destroyed, it just confirmed what we already knew that there was more than one Father between 5 siblings. At least three as it turned out.”
12. “Spouse found out his dad wasn’t his dad. His judgmental holier than thou catholic mom had some explaining to do. He lost an immense amount of respect for her, especially when the bio dad tried to reach out to him. She is still in contact with the married man she had an affair with over 4 decades ago. He refuses to speak to him and has limited contact with her.”
13. “My grandpa passed away from Alzheimer’s, so my family uploaded our raw DNA to another site to see if any of us have the same genes that make it likely for any of the rest of us to have it as well. Luckily most of us didn’t have the gene my grandpa had, but my uncles have it. So while my immediate family knows we’ve got average chances, my poor uncles are probably dreading the future.”
14. “Ours was backwards. A French lady messaged my mom and said she thought they shared a father. Very believable because Papa was a proven whore. Sure enough she did a 23 and me and sure enough papa is a great big slut. Rest in peace.”
15. “It’s not something that has happened but it’s a fear I have. I don’t have the same father as the rest of my siblings and it’s not a secret but I’m the only one who knows my father was not a past boyfriend but just some psycho who kidnapped and assaulted my mother. My younger (half) sister is always carrying on about all of us getting those things done and has insinuated she’s thinking of buying us all a kit. I’m really apprehensive about that because if my sperm donor has other family members who have done it, and that’s not far fetched at all, I’ll be linked to them and I DO NOT WANT THAT. I think I know who he was and I definitely don’t want confirmation of that staring me in the face, or relatives of his trying to get in touch with me, or anything else like that at all.”
16. “My Aunt is 60+ years old now. When she was 18, she claimed she was raped by her Uncle, and he got her pregnant. No one believed her, she became a heroine addict, lost contact.
She’s my mom’s half sister. So she has absolutely no blood relation to my Mom’s Mom’s (Grandma’s) side of the family. Well my Aunt had the baby, and that baby had a daughter, and she had the DNA test. Turns out she’s related to my Grandma, who also took a DNA test.
To cut through the confusion. It confirms my Aunt was in fact telling the truth, and no one believed her. I never had contact with her, so I am not really effected. But that’s messed up.”
17. “When my grandma passed, my aunt went through her old journals and found out three of her five kids weren’t fathered by my drunken, abusive grandfather. One of the non-biological children was my dad. I hated my relatives – my family is full of, I shit you not, drug kings (my uncle), prostitutes, thieves, and jailbirds. My dad confirmed through ancestry that not only is the asshole who raised him not his father, but he’s apparently of the swap-babies of the 60’s, so his mother isn’t even his mother. He cut ties with everyone since he’s no longer got any obligation to talk to anyone.”
18. “23andme showed me the dad who I knew as a child (left early, so no real relationship) wasn’t my bio dad. Then about a year later, my sister on my bio dad’s side (I thought I was an only child and didn’t know who bio dad was) reached out because 23andme told her about me. Now I have a bio dad, a brother, and a sister. They are all really nice and we are all trying to forge a new relationship.”
19. “Not destroyed, but we did find out that two family members have been sperm donors. One has 40+ children, is unmarried, and likely lost his last serious relationship after she found out. The other only has one donor kid that we know of, but he’s married and has a family. Wife was not happy, but the donation was over 30 years ago.”
20. “We thought there were 4 of us kids. Actually there are 13. Dad was a slut and a narcissist: there are 4 kids with his first name (2 of them female). Many are same age or younger or older than us so: cheating. He even had a daughter who is OLDER THAN MY MOM.
I made it my mission to meet them all and let me tell you: nature had way more influence than nurture. I wouldn’t have believed this until I met my siblings who grew up in different countries speaking different languages and with all kinds of different upbringing yet we had: same laugh same taste in food/music/film/fashion same sense of humor same general level of success same mannerisms same intelligence same friggin quirks and other things you’d think come about by experience. We are the same people.” 