Ancestry DNA or other tests...

[Poli]

Have you done one? I did about 3 or 4 years ago and it led to a cousin I didn't know about. I met him in Sacramento in 2019. Kid you not, apparently my uncle had a thing with a midget stripper.

I didn't know much about my family...either side, really. My parents are gone. I'm just about estranged from my only living grandparent...which is just bizarre, but whatever. When my father passed away in 2007, I found out that I had a lot of family in the Polston side that I had no clue about. I began looking into that whole thing. I started a family tree to connect dots. Eventually, that led to the DNA test.

I found other interesting things, but maybe nothing tops the midget stripper. A shirttail cousin who's husband was the commissioner of the CFTC in DC. My father's cousin was a starting fullback for Indiana in the 60s. My son goes to school here in Wentzville MO with a distant cousin...it's a small world, but I didn't think it would be that small. Various great somethings and cousins removed that fought in wars. Not many of my family is connected to Missouri, but as a teenager I went to church in Park Hills MO with a man that turned out to be my fraternal grandfather's second cousin. My youth pastor from that church is a distant cousin from my mom's side. Many, but not all, of these discoveries were from the DNA test. I'm sitting on a big one, because I haven't completely researched it as of yet.

It's also been pretty great for filling in gaps. Someone who takes that DNA test in a family line I wasn't previously aware of suddenly opens a door to more information.

Have you taken a test? If so, anything interesting?

[spleen1015]

I haven't done this myself, but 23 and Me led to some discoveries in my family.

My father has 4 half sisters that no one knew about. He thought 1 of them was a step-cousin for about 50 years.

2 of them found each other with 23 and Me, then the 3rd found them a couple years later. Then, the assumed cousin found them and it didn't add up. How could she have half-siblings when her parents were unable to have kids. One of the other 3 knew from her mother that my grandfather was her father and the cousin pieced it together.

My grandfather and step-grandmother had a kid. There was question as to who the father was so he made her give the baby to her sister.

My grandfather was a dog, man. I am sure there are more out there.

I went to HS with a cousin and I didn't know he was my cousin until after HS.

My father's side of the family is fucked up.

[thesloppy]

I had a friend who had been told by her mother and grandmother for her entire life that her father had died trying to rob a drugstore. She discovered her father was very much alive, with an entirely normal and non-criminal history, and finally met him after taking a DNA test at 45 years old.

[NobodyHere]

That must one one heck of a child support bill!

[sterlingice]

I'm kindof curious. However, I'm also a bit worried because we don't protect our genetics at all by law and those places farm out your (wink, wink) un-identified results. I'm figuring my curiosity isn't worth the potentially stupid insurance bill/pre-existing condition fight later.

However, my parents have gone and done it and my mom has been big into genealogy the last decade or so and I'm glad they're running with it.

SI

[Ksyrup]

My MIL did ancestry about 5 years ago and found a sibling no one knew about. The kicker - it wasn't a step-sister from either the father or mother, or due to an affair. It was a full-blood sibling that the mother and father had, pre-marriage, and had given up for adoption because it was born out of wedlock. Then they got married several years later and had the normal family she thought was the entire family.

The families actually knew each other, but not well, and no one knows whether they were aware of the connection (that the adopted child of the one family was the actual child of the other). Some hints had been dropped by the mother of family no one had met, but they had no idea she was talking at this level.

The unknown brother died years ago, but my MIL and my wife have become friendly with their new-found cousins. And everyone who knew him said he was a bitter, angry man, suggesting he knew something about his life that no one else knew.

[thesloppy]

None of these stories make me all that eager to do my own test.

[Kodos]

Yeah, that and the probable abuse of my privacy = a hard "No."

[Lathum]

I did 23 and me. I am adopted and knew nothing about my heritage.

At one point a common relative popped up and based on the DNA he could only have been my biological uncle. I looked up his name on facebook and based on location and it being a unique name found a picture. Definitely some resemblance. I was a little tripped out by it. I log back in a few days later and he was gone. He must have been freaked out also.

[JPhillips]

I found a woman who was the daughter of my father's father or uncle. There were three men of that generation and one of them raped my biological grandmother. The woman was very nice and seemed to accept that we were closely related, although I left the rape part out.

I think a lot, maybe most, family trees are a lot messier than we think.

[Poli]

I've definitely found a share of terrible things but I've also met family that I otherwise would never have known of in California, Texas, and Ohio.

[GrantDawg]

I would like to, but my wide is totally against it. Even though she is a genealogy nut. I think she is convinced someone in her extended family has committed some horrible crime. I want to do it because I KNOW someone in my extended family has most likely done some horrible crime. I just want the story to pull out at parties.

[Lathum]

It seems line ancestry has a lot more family history than 23 and me

[Ksyrup]

I have no interest in doing it. I have a fairly good knowledge of both sides, or if I wanted it, I have people on both sides who could fill in some cracks. The only thing it would do is bring out some horrible story of my dad having an affair or something, and I have no interest in that kind of drama. Otherwise, it would just be distantly-related cousins who someone in my family already knows about, we've just never met.

But yeah, I'm semi-tempted to put my DNA on ged-match just so I can get interviewed when we find out one of my great uncles committed a 45 year old murder.

[PilotMan]

I've actually done both because I was curious and wanted as much info as I could get. Then I had all my kids do theirs, primarily because I wanted to check to see if they were carriers for some of the health markers. I am a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis (which I found thanks to 23&Me) and I wanted them to know before they decided to have kids. Thankfully, none are. There are some other medical information in there that's very nice to know, and some that might be troubling if you do know, but that's life, and it's not a death sentence either. So I think you need to go in with that mindset.

My oldest is not mine biologically, and while he did his too, he did not put his information out there to find any other family from his biological donor's side. He has no interest in learning or wanting to know about them.

I really haven't delved too deep into the genealogy part. I want to, because I want to know the stories. One side of my family is new to the country, I think 4 generations ago, and the other has been here almost since the very beginning.

They genetic makeup, and 'where are you from' parts are quite similar, with some variation, but not enough to make me think either one are wrong.

And if someone in my family does do anything awful, I hope they use my DNA and burn that motherfucker to the ground after they catch him.

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by Lathum

It seems line ancestry has a lot more family history than 23 and me

Do you remember when Ancestry was just a computer program and subscription service for looking up Genealogy? It came with like 10 CD's and you could do research on dial up.

Oh well, that's why the family side is a lot beefier than 23 and Me, it's just been around a lot longer with more to offer on that side.

[Poli]

I had two uncles convicted of murder in the 80s. Authorities were convinced they had committed others, but were unable to prove it and they would not confess.

A few months ago I was watching, "The Innocent Man" on Netflix. The story is based in Ada, OK. One of the murders they were accused of was in Oklahoma...and Ada rang a bell in my head so I had to look into it. Thankfully, they weren't connected to this in any way.

The murder they were connected to happened in OKC. It just about matched everything in the murder they were convicted for and the authorities could at least prove they had been in the area about that time. I remember this part...even as a kid I could recall everyone, everyone thought they did it. I certainly did. I'm fairly certain a reporter was trying to get my mom to get her brothers to confess.

I've paused the show at this point and I'm looking to see what ever happened in that case. It turns out, this woman's son became an attorney and eventually (in the 90s) got the state to test a cigarette butt found in his mother's car for DNA. The article was clear. He was convinced my uncles killed his mother and this would finally prove it.

Only they didn't. The DNA test showed it wasn't them.

Fortunately, the story doesn't end there. In 2008, a man was sent to prison for assaulting a woman who eventually died. When his DNA went into the system, it was flagged for this unsolved murder. The man entered an Alford plea in 2009 to avoid the death penalty.

The son is now a judge in Oklahoma.

[Poli]

Such a weird thing to be tied in to my family, but I'm so happy this family got the justice they deserved.