Unsplash | Ben White

It Only Takes One Christmas Gift To Tear A Family Apart

Updated September 4, 2021

Chances are, nobody knows your family members as well as you do, which can make finding the perfect gift for them both easy and challenging. Do you get them something practical or something fun? Or is something practical fun for them? It can be an opportunity to learn more both about yourself and your family members!

However, there's such a thing as knowing too much about your family. One gift that's becoming more popular to get your family is shedding an uncomfortable amount of light on some family trees.

It wasn't that long ago that genetic testing was both expensive and inaccessible for most people, but those days are definitely behind us.

Companies like 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA have made it much easier to get your DNA tested, at a fraction of the cost it was just a few years ago.

But the cash you fork over might not be the only cost a DNA test incurs.

Now, every family has its historian, right? You know, someone who combs through family records and traces all the branches of the family tree as far back as they can.

But what you find in county registries and newspaper archives won't tell you the whole story. Your DNA won't, either, but they're both important pieces. It's just that your DNA might hold some surprises.

Just look at Bill Griffeth, co-anchor of CNBC's Nightly Business Report.

Twitter | @BillGriffeth

He was his family's historian and, in 2012, he took a DNA test. The results changed his life forever: His Y chromosome didn't match his brother's. The two had different fathers. Bill had to confront his 95-year-old, churchgoing, teetotalling mother with that information, and she had to own up to a fling she'd had with her boss.

Just imagine that conversation at Christmas!

Bill went on to write a book about his experience with DNA testing and coming to terms with his family's history.

Twitter | @BillGriffeth

It was an emotional wringer for Bill. He'd been documenting the history of a family he no longer felt a part of.

And he never got to know his biological father — he had passed away 13 years earlier. But Bill's book, The Stranger In My Genes, has helped some others who have gone through similar revelations.

Unfortunately, Bill suspects that his relationship with his mother never quite recovered from that fateful DNA test.

"I didn't want this to define our relationship in her final years. Unfortunately, I think it did, though," he told the BBC. "There was sort of a coolness between us after that. I think she was mightily hoping that she could slip out the back door at the end of her life without this ever being exposed."

And harsh revelations aren't the only reason to avoid DNA tests as gifts.

For one thing, the tests haven't been shown to be altogether reliable. In fact, an NBC investigation into DNA test kits found that one company couldn't — or at least didn't — differentiate one of their reporter's DNA from a Labrador retriever's. Most companies would pick up on that, but it still does not inspire much confidence.

During that investigation, experts warned against using these over-the-counter DNA tests to check for genetic diseases, too.

Unsplash | ThisisEngineering RAEng

"We use very specific clinical tests to determine if there is a very specific gene mutation or a change in a gene that’s increasing a person’s risk," said Jessica Stoll, a genetic counselor at the University of Chicago Hospitals.

And then there's the matter of what these companies do with your information after they've tested your saliva.

Privacy has taken a beating in the 21st century, and unfortunately, it's not something you can get back with ease. Chances are, everybody's personal data has passed through far more hands than it was ever intended to by now. But does data get any more personal than the very building blocks of you?

So if you're planning on giving your family members DNA test kits this Christmas, do so with care. Or maybe just find a good book instead.

You might not be giving a fascinating look at your heritage as much as putting a bow on Pandora's box. Or, if you prefer, pulling the pin on an ancestral grenade.

h/t: BBC

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