Family history and genealogy can help people understand who they are and where they’ve come from. It can be both an informative and inspiring process to take a DNA test.
However, sometimes complex and even painful histories are revealed through such tests as long-kept family secrets, and perhaps even scandals, are brought to the surface.
Family history can bring some families closer.
It can be exciting to hear stories of our family trees and even look at old photos that we’ve never seen before. It can make everyone feel closer to hear heartfelt stories of the past and see how far their family has come, and where they are going.
However, family history can also be very painful. While most families are often built on love, they are also built by colonialism, slavery, oppression, affairs and a host of other elements that many people today really struggle to process.
When a family experiences multi-generational trauma, looking at the past can be emotionally triggering.
DNA tests have grown in popularity over the years.
With such companies as Ancestry.com, 23andme.com and many others, purchasing DNA tests for people as gifts is becoming more and more common.
People think of them as fun family projects for everyone to participate in, but sometimes unexpected results can catalyze family heartbreak.
One man thought family DNA tests would make great Christmas gifts.
In a Reddit post , he explained that he had noticed that AncestryDNA had kits on sale just in time for Christmas, so he bought six of them for each member of his family — his parents, his three siblings, and of course, one for himself.
In his mind, the man was giving his family the gift of understanding their ancestral background. But he had no idea just how much these kits would really reveal.
When the presents were opened on Christmas morning, his mother began acting a bit odd.
When she realized just what the man had gifted everyone, she actually began trying to convince her family not to use the kits.
“She told us how she didn’t want us taking them because they had unsafe chemicals,” he recalled. “We explained to her how there were actually no chemicals, but we could tell she was still flustered.”
Things quickly went from festive to frightening.
What happened next is what inspired this man to head to Reddit’s popular Today I F***ed Up (TIFU) thread to share the situation with the people of the internet.
“Later [mom] started trying to convince us that only one of us kids need to take it since we will all have the same results and to resell extra kits to save money,” he explained. “Fast forward: Our parents have been fighting upstairs for the past hour, and we are downstairs trying to figure out who has a different dad.”
He and his siblings were left deciding if they really wanted the DNA tests.
When he first shared his Reddit post , the man revealed that neither he, his two sisters, nor his brother had yet decided if they were going to take the DNA test yet.
But, he added, “no matter what the results are, we will still love each other, and our parents no matter what.”
What was supposed to be a family bonding experience quickly turned into a family nightmare.
In a recent update, the man gave the people of Reddit exactly what they wanted: some *answers*.
After all, many people had been left wondering just why the heck his mom was acting so strangely towards the DNA tests, and even began speculating in the comments as to what she could be hiding from her family. But eventually she came clean.
“My FU actually turned into a Christmas miracle,” the man shared. “Turns out my sister’s father passed away shortly after she was born. A good friend of my moms was able to help her through the darkest time in her life, and they went on to fall in love and create the rest of our family.”
He also explained that the reason their mother didn’t tell them this was because was a painful situation for her to relive.
However, thanks to her honesty Christmas was saved, and she even showed them old photos and stories that they’d never seen or heard before.
At the end of his post, the man revealed that everyone did eventually decide to complete their DNA tests after all, though given mom’s confession, it’s unlikely there were any more surprises.
The people of Reddit related to the man’s story, and even began sharing DNA test tales of their own.
One person explained, “My friend discovered through ancestryDNA that her grandpa wasn’t actually her grandpa.”
Someone also wrote, “My boyfriend just had this happen. We found out he had a half brother and the half-brother’s parents are my boyfriend’s god parents. It appears my boyfriend’s mom slept with the god father and passed the pregnancy off as husband’s.”
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It seems that most people have their own family DNA scandals and they are more common than we thought. Let us know in the comments what you think of this story and if you have your own DNA test family scandal that you’ve unraveled.
h/t: Reddit
