Consumer DNA testing may lead to both delightful and shocking revelations, according to experts. It is suggested that any person undertaking this testing should be mentally ready for all kinds of results such as uncovering hidden aspects of the family history, discovering unexpected relationships, or potentially not finding anything significant. This narrative brings forward the experience of some individuals who took this path.
Annamarie Daly (57), a Dublin resident, was delighted to finally have the clarity about her murky past. Born in the Sean Ross Abbey, a maternal and infant facility in County Tipperary that ceased operations in 1969, Daly was under the impression that she didn’t have any biological siblings. A DNA test, however, changed everything.
“My birth mother was already 40 when she entered Sean Ross Abbey, likely succumbing to societal pressure to surrender me. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at 42 and by 43, she had my full brother, the consequence of an extramarital affair with a married man. She became fatally ill by 45 and relocated my brother to England, where her siblings resided,” she recalled.
Daly had tried her best to trace her lineage using traditional methods, but found no leads in the records of Sean Ross Abbey, eventually resorting to hiring a private detective. The DNA test was the final resort due to the dead ends in the historical documents. The DNA test unlocked connections to her paternal cousins and a half-sister fathered by her dad with another woman. Discovering all these details created significant emotional upheaval in both families.
Through a DNA site, Daly connected with a cousin from her mother’s side, who informed her about her brother. Initially, Daly was perplexed as she only knew that their mother died of cancer when she was five, never imagining that in the interim five years, her mother could have had another child while battling cancer. The cousin even provided her with her brother’s name and his place of work in England.
Eventually, Daly found out that her brother had always been aware of her. “Despite our mother’s affair with a married man, we are full siblings,” she says.
In recounting her family history, one woman referring to herself and her brother told of the surprise they felt when they came across their father’s other offspring, their half-siblings, a revelation that included an unexpected half-sister. The woman’s father, who passed away in his fifties, was never part of her life. Despite the curious family dynamics, she feels a sense of relief in understanding the full, albeit not always palatable, narrative of her lineage.
She and her brother share a strong bond and she was also able to connect with her mother’s sister. The woman derived some comfort in finally visiting her mother’s resting place, a trip that brought closure to an aspect of her life that was shrouded in mystery.
In the case of a second woman, residing in Cork, she decided to take a DNA test out of monotony during a Covid confinement period. The test produced some eye-opening results about her father’s side of the family. Among her discoveries was a family member who had been deserted as an infant in a London air-raid shelter in 1943, a revelation that left her astonished.
Moreover, the DNA test led her to a cousin from America who she met last year. The pair enjoyed a wonderful reunion and are planning to meet again in the coming spring. Interestingly, this cousin had previously tried to trace back his Irish roots in 2017 but was unable to find her because she hadn’t registered at Ancestry, one of the gene-tracing platforms.
The DNA test also connected the Cork resident with her relatively unknown Northern Ireland heritage, ultimately tracing back to Armagh, a place with which she felt no prior connection. It was subsequently discovered that her grandfather had emigrated from Armagh to Manchester, where he met her grandmother.
Pondering over her decision to donate her DNA, she later admitted to potential threats involved. However, she candidly confessed, “I have no hidden skeletons to detest if my shared DNA exposes any. Perhaps it might trace a distant relative involved in criminal undertakings. Well, let them be discovered!” She passionately shared her joy of meeting an entirely new family and the thrilling experience of going across the pond to meet her kinsman. Being an only child, the revelation of her half-sister was intriguing to her.
Sarah O’Toole, raised without a father and as a single child, had a life-altering experience. Upon her husband, Andy’s sighting of an online DNA site advert, they both took the plunge to submit their DNA samples. They were both casual about what followed until their results arrived, which Sarah O’Toole deemed “incredible”.
Her mother, having travelled to America sometime around 1984/1985 as a nanny, returned home with the knowledge of her pregnancy. The man who her mother considered as her father, being Spanish, was told about the pregnancy, however, he decided to wash his hands off it. Sarah, thus, was left fatherless and without any siblings.
Sarah spoke about the surprising truth that the man her mother regarded to be her father was Spanish – a notion she found unmatched with her fair skin. After receiving her DNA test results, Sarah went on a relentless quest to find him on the company’s site, messaging the closest matches in an attempt to locate him.
The plot twist surfaced when an error in dating the pregnancy identified the wrong man as the father, revealed Sarah.
In a fortunate twist of events, a woman got in touch with O’Toole requesting details about her genealogical background. Although O’Toole had no knowledge of her father, she shared what she knew of her mother’s time in the United States during the 80s. She had indicated that she was searching for a man in his mid-seventies. Upon reviewing their genetic relationship, the woman spotted that her uncle and cousin shared DNA with O’Toole.
This prompted O’Toole to inquire of her mother if she had been in other relationships during her time in America. At this, her mother admitted to a relationship with Trent Nebeker who was already a divorcee and a father.
O’Toole communicated with the woman she now considered her cousin, verifying if her uncle’s name was Trent, to which the woman confirmed and mentioned that Trent had a daughter. After explaining the situation to her mother, she was understandably emotional. O’Toole was distressed too, considering her mother raised her singly, without the support she could have had. It was thus revealed that O’Toole’s newly recognized cousin informed Trent’s daughter, and O’Toole’s half-sister, Kelly, about what they unearthed. According to O’Toole, lab tests in America verified their deductions.
O’Toole ventured to her biological father’s residence in the States and was warmly embraced by her newfound relatives. She noted the noticeable height similarity amongst them, with herself standing tall at 5ft 11in. O’Toole started to connect the dots to understand certain inherent traits she possessed. She also got the chance to introduce her half-sister and father to her two kids – their only nieces or nephews.
Still adapting to the overwhelming revelations, O’Toole confessed it’s taking time to process. Having grown up as a single child with no siblings, she now had a half-sister and about 14 other cousins.