Npe

[Bruce Wrenn]

With all this tasting of DNA, to find where you came from, there is the dark side. Just try to imagine the horror / shock / divorce that occurs when a child finds out that the man she/he calls dad, isn't their biological father. Term for it is NPE (not parent expected.) Something I have never understood, is when a pregnant woman is murdered, why DNA isn't taken from the fetus. If the fetus's DNA doesn't match father's then that brings in a new list of suspects, or it may be the reason spouse committed murder in first place. Several years back, we had such a case here. Woman found dead, pregnant, and know to be having an affair. Somebody other than her spouse could have wanted her dead. No positive evidence to convict husband, but he served time while awaiting appeals. In appeals, wound up with a sentence of time served. It was a case of heads the state wins, tails, the accused loses.

[Frederick Skelly]

Had a case at work where a guy's wife had a baby. Couple years later, "dad" gets suspicious and has a DNA test done. It was an ugly divorce.

[Stan Calow]

Hey, if guys want to see how this works out in real life, watch the daytime show Lauren Lake's Paternity Court. People having a dispute over paternity go to court and the "judge" hears the ugly story and then produces the results of a paternity test. It was one of my mothers favorite shows so I had to watch a lot of it with her. We'd make bets on who the father was. No shortage of willing participants.

[Jim Koepke]

There is also the possibility of finding relatives you would rather not find:

From > https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/...ler/557263002/

You just wanted to find out if you were Portuguese or Spanish, but instead you found out you were related to a mass murderer.

This is a reality in a world where the alleged Golden State Killer, now known as Joseph James DeAngelo, was arrested after DNA found at one of the killer's crime scenes was checked against genetic profiles from genealogical websites that collect DNA samples.

Popular genetic testing companies 23andMe and Ancestry.com are holding on to more than information about your family tree, which raises privacy concerns. Experts confirm DNA in these databases can be accessed by law enforcement and third party companies under certain circumstances, revealing intimate information about user’s medical history and biological relationships.

Guys who used to sow a lot of wild oats before they settled down may someday have a knock on the door and open it to someone that looks a lot like their younger self.

Technology changes the game in many ways.

jtk

[Jim Becker]

As I mentioned in the other thread, I have a "new" cousin...actually, more than one...because of true parentage being identified by Ancestry.com DNA. She actually never felt that her mother's husband was her father, but never had confirmation until doing the DNA test. It was a relief to her to know for sure while at the same time "intense" in both directions. The actual biological dad (also a cousin) was more negatively affected at first. The new cousin that I've become pretty friendly with at least was born to a woman he was knowingly dating...they broke up about the time she got pregnant and she chose to never tell him. The second new cousin, whom I have not met/interacted with, is a different situation as she doesn't know who her biological mother is (adopted) so there's no way to identify so far the connection between that mother and the biological father. (my cousin) Interestingly, there are clear parallels between these two woman and their bio dad relative to things like career choices and hobbies.

While there's always going to be situations where "finding out" brings out some "dark thing"...I believe there will likely be a correspondingly larger set of happy occasions, particularly over time. Older generations are a lot more sensitive about "what happened" around pregnancies out of wedlock and adoption than more recent generations where adoption is generally open. This is becoming more of a thing relative to sperm donors now, too...while officially records are closed there are clear examples of some donors choosing to embrace contact with individuals they sired. There was an eye opening example of that with one of the early American Idol contestants this year...she was one of something like 26 individuals (I'm guessing at the number from memory) who now all know each other and get together with their donor dad in an open way. It was joyful and endearing to see this extended family interacting happily.

But it's also true that people will continue to do stupid things and get caught via DNA overtly or inadvertently. That's on them and not a negative of DNA testing.

[jared herbert]

A similar thing happened to the brother of a good friend of mine. The guy was in his 50s and had been married for a long time and had raised his family. One day there is a knock on the door and it’s “hello dad” from the mouth of a young man he had never seen or heard. It was his son.

[roger wiegand]

When the first DNA-based human genetic studies got under way back in the '90's the analysis worked best of you could analyze multiple generations of large extended families with a number of affected and unaffected individuals for the disease you were looking at. The work hit a very early stop that lasted a number of months while the scientists and ethicists tried to figure out how to deal with a large number of cases of unexpected parentage, most typically where "Uncle Fred" turned out to be the father. The investigators were completely blindsided by how often this showed up and had to completely rewrite their consent forms to include a lot more discussion of "you might find out something you don't want to know", and implemented systems and policies of completely blinding the data so that such information was completely untraceable. Pretty much every extended family had such an issue to deal with.

In the current unregulated environment for DNA testing I imagine there are quite a few 'interesting' conversations initiated.

[Karl Andersson]

my 58-year-old brother (first born) just found out he has a different father than my other two brothers and I, but the same mother. We even used two different genetic testers to verify. As far as anyone ever told us, he was born over a year after they were married and we all had the same parents. 23andme did the relatives search and told me my closest match is him, my now half-brother. Mom has some 'splainin' to do. Or not - he hasn't said whether it means much to him or whether he will ask her about it. I'll have to watch him - he jokes about it because we always did rib him about not looking like the rest of us and now we know why- but it could really be devastating.

The weird thing is that he didn't even buy the kit; his wife's sister got it for her because she thought his wife was from a different father during a time when her parents were separated. His wife refused to take the test because she believed her mother when she asked her. So my brother took it so it wouldn't go to waste- I guess that kit was just cursed.

Oh, and it's not just a little off. My genetics show my mom's eastern Slavic just like his and then 57% Scandinavian and northwestern European, He has the same Slavic from my mom, and then 47% Ashkenazi Jewish. His son is merciless, now ending every text with Shalom or Mazel Tov. I guess they've got that sense of humor- but hey, what can you do?

[Bruce Wrenn]

Our grandson's great grandmother was full blooded Cherokee. Birth certificate proves this. DNA showed no Native American blood lines. Go figure

[Jim Koepke]

Sometimes the DNA testing is off > https://www.healthyway.com/content/t...a-didnt-match/

Identical triplets in which two of them have fingerprints close enough that one could unlock the others fingerprint-lock safe.

The tests indicated some differences:

“Nicole, you’re 18 percent British and Irish,” Guerrero told the stunned sisters. “Erica, you’re 15 percent British and Irish. But Jaclyn, you’re almost 19 percent British and Irish.”

The differences kept on coming. The test found that Nicole was 11 percent French and German, whereas her sister Erica had more than twice the Germano–Gallic blood that Nicole has. The test said Erica was 23 percent French and German.

“I am surprised, though, because we came from the same egg,” said Nicole. “And we have the same DNA.”

It is explained in the article, but was still a bit of a surprise.

jtk

[Jim Becker]

Our grandson's great grandmother was full blooded Cherokee. Birth certificate proves this. DNA showed no Native American blood lines. Go figure

There was always a family story that there was a Native American ancestor somewhere on my father's side. That was disproved via DNA. There was also an ancestor on my mother's side that was purported to be a well known figure during the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence...not a signer, but a key figure. DNA says, "same name, different person" by both date and lineage. Then again...the only wife that King Henry the Eighth didn't cut off her head is a relative on my mother's side.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Remember her birth certificate lists her as Cherokee, actually Indian - Cherokee.