People who are curious about their heritage often turn to DNA test kits like the ones from 23andMe and Ancestry for answers. All they have to do is place some of their saliva into a tube and send the sample to a lab to have it analyzed. Within weeks, they’ll get information on their family tree and even find out what part of the world their ancestors came from.
But for some folks, these DNA test kit results didn’t just provide information, they changed their entire lives. Some people have been able to reconnect with their biological parents or even meet their long lost twin for the first time. But not all of the people who have taken DNA tests had happy stories to share after seeing their results.
She Was the Oddball
72-year-old Denice Juneski always felt like an oddball because she was the only blonde in a family of redheads and brunettes. But hair color wasn’t the only thing about her that set her apart from the rest of her loved ones...
She Wasn’t as Athletic as Her Siblings
Juneski recalled that her siblings were always full of energy and they excelled in sports or had some sort of athletic talent. She had none of these things. But she couldn’t quite put her finger on why she was different, so she decided to look for answers.
The DNA Test Revealed a Shocking Truth
Juneski took a 23andMe ancestry test, and what she found when she got the results was shocking. According to the test, she didn’t share the same genes as the rest of her family. She assumed the lab had made a mistake, so she took another DNA test.
The Results Didn’t Change
The second DNA test results were the same as the first. It showed that her DNA was not the same as that of her family. There was no way that 23andMe could have made a mistake twice. And then, a shocking thought crossed her mind.
She Contacted a Potential Long Lost Relative
The test indicated a woman who was younger than she was on the suggested list of relatives. So, she contacted a woman in her 70s named Linda Jourdeans and had her take a DNA test too. But what would it reveal?
The Women Had a Lot in Common
Like Juneski, Jourdeans was also an oddball in her family. She was born in 1945 in the same Minnesota hospital at the same time Juneski was born. So, when the DNA kit arrived, she took it and waited in anticipation for the results.
They Were Switched at Birth
It turns out that Juneski and Jourdeans were not blood related, but they had been switched at birth. So basically, they had been living with each other’s families for their entire lives. "It's a crazy thing," Juneski stated. "People just automatically assume they got the right family."
They Had a Family Reunion
The two 72-year-olds bonded over the switcheroo and eventually arranged for a family reunion and invited both families. This allowed everyone to meet their actual biological relatives. But this was not the first time 23andMe revealed shocking truths about a family.
DNA Kits for Christmas
Most families gift each other sweaters, power tools and kitchen appliances during the holiday season. But Reddit user Snorkels721 decided to gift his parents, two sisters, and brother some DNA kits for the holidays so they could all learn more about their genetic heritage. But that upset his mother which made him wonder if she had been hiding something all these years.
Mom Panicked
Their mom freaked out when she saw what everyone had gotten for Christmas. "Don't use those," she warned. "They're packed with dangerous chemicals." But the kids knew better and they informed their mother that there were no dangerous chemicals in the DNA kits.
She Was Running Out of Options
The kids were determined to take the tests, but she couldn’t tell them exactly why she didn't want them to. So, she kept trying to persuade them to skip the test. She knew there was a possibility it would all come out one day, and sadly for her, that day had come.
She Suggested They Skip the Test
With no time to lose, mom suggested that only one of the kids take the DNA test. She told them that since they all shared the same DNA, they only needed one kit to map out their genealogy. But there was one problem.
They Had Too Many Tests
The kids had considered their mom’s request, but they all had extra DNA test kits. What were they going to do with the extra ones? Then mom suggested that they sell the other unopened kits, and this led to a heated discussion.
Mom and Dad Started Arguing
None of the kids really knew why mom was so against everyone taking the tests. But then, they watched as their parents went downstairs and started fighting. Had the kits forced mom to reveal a terrible secret?
She Revealed a Family Secret
Mom had no other choice but to confess. So, she explained to everyone that she had married a man long ago and had one kid, which was the siblings’ eldest sister. Sadly, her husband passed away, and she never told anyone, not even the kids’ big sister, the truth.
They Started Out As Friends
The man they knew as their father was once a good friend of their mom. In fact, he had helped her get over her grief. In the process, the two of them fell in love, got married, and had children together.
Mom Shared Her Emotional Story
Mom had hoped to take her secret with her to the grave, but the DNA kits had given her no other option than to tell the kids about her first husband. Fortunately, they were all quite understanding. But there was another family who was also highly affected by a gifted 23andMe kit.
She Was Orphaned at a Young Age
Jennelle Rodriguez was only 6 years old when she lost her biological parents in a horrific car accident. To make things worse, she had no other family she could be placed with as far as they knew. So, she wound up in the adoption system.
She Bought a DNA Kit
Rodriguez was eventually adopted by an Arizona family, and she lived a normal happy childhood. Thirty years later, she decided to buy herself a DNA kit to see if she had any surviving biological family members she didn’t know about.
Another Woman Matched with Rodriguez
Meanwhile, Rachel Saucedo from Fullerton, California, had her own DNA tested using a 23andMe kit around the same time as Rodriguez did. When Saucedo got her results, they suggested that she was related to Rodriguez, but she had never heard of her before.
She Asked Her Uncle for Clarification
Saucedo was so confused by the results that she decided to get some clarification from her uncle, Frank Granados. After asking him some questions, six words escaped her lips that sent shivers down Granados’ entire body.
She Found His Daughter
"I think I found your daughter," she explained to her uncle, and she was right. Granados was just a teenager when he gave a baby up for adoption. This came as quite a shock to Saucedo, but not as much as it did to Rodriguez.
Rodriguez’s Adoptive Parents Lied
Rodriguez’s adoptive parents knew about Frank Granados being her biological father, but they were afraid that telling her the truth would make their adoptive daughter feel like she had been abandoned. So, they told her that Granados had passed away.
She Gave Her Biological Dad a Call
Naturally, Rodriguez had a bunch of questions she needed answers to, and the only man who had them was her biological father, Frank Granados. So, she gave him a call and prepared to bombard him with questions.
She Demanded the Truth
"Once I asked him questions that I had in my heart and my mind my whole life and wanted to know the truth from his side," Rodriguez said, "I could feel deep in my heart that he wasn’t lying to me." But would she feel that way about him when they met?
She Asked If They Could Meet
There were a million reasons why she could have chosen to back out and refuse to meet him. What if he wasn’t a good guy, after all? What if he told her more things about why he gave her up that would end up breaking her heart? But she had to know for sure, so she arranged to meet him and he accepted.
She Met Him Face to Face
"I could feel his true love," Rodriguez said about the way she felt after they met. "It was so natural. It was like he was only gone for a second, like he went on vacation or something."
Father and Daughter Spent Quality Time Together
There wasn’t a day that went by that Rodriguez and Granados didn’t talk. They even spent Thanksgiving together and went on a trip to Knott’s Berry Farm. But not everyone has had such a positive experience after using a DNA test kit.
Another Father and Daughter Gave DNA Testing a Try
Another Reddit user bought a DNA test kit that she and her dad were eager to use. Unfortunately, her mom could have cared less about her family tree, so she opted to sit this one out. But that was okay, because the user was happy to share this experience with her dad. The results, however, weren’t what they expected.
The Results Raised an Interesting Question
When the test results came back, both father and daughter were shocked. According to the test, the Reddit user had Scandinavian, French and German ancestry. But her father’s DNA contained mostly British ancestry. But this wasn’t the only inconsistency...
Their DNA Didn’t Match
According to the DNA test, they were not father and daughter. But the results did point her in the direction of another man being her father. Unfortunately, it was someone whose name she had never heard of before.
Mom and Dad Had a Fight
The Redditor user was upset but not nearly as much as the man who raised her. He was so angry that he got into a heated argument with his wife. And that’s when mom was forced to admit that she had slept with someone else while they were married.
This Revelation Raised Other Questions
Dad decided he could no longer be with the woman he thought had been loyal all these years. So, he ended up divorcing her. But he couldn’t help but wonder if he was the biological father of his other children and so he undoubtedly had their DNA tested as well. But this next Redditor didn’t have it easy either.
She Was Sick and Needed Answers
Redditor user Zambookster had been ill for quite some time. She had seen medical specialists like endocrinologists and cardiologists for more than six years to figure out why she was always suffering from joint pain and experiencing unexplained tiredness. But no one had any answers for her.
She Ordered a DNA Kit on Black Friday
Doctors had no answers for her, but she figured that perhaps her DNA would give her an answer to what was making her suffer so much. So, on one fateful Black Friday, she ordered herself an Ancestry kit online because they were half priced.
Her Results Indicated a Hereditary Disease
Her test results didn’t reveal a long-lost relative or a dark family secret, but it did show that she was suffering from a homogenous variant for HFE-related Hereditary Hemochromatosis. This condition builds iron in your organs over a period of time.
She Took a Blood Test
Thanks to the results she had gotten from the DNA test kit, she was able to tell the doctors what to look for. So, she had a blood test taken for Hereditary Hemochromatosis, and it was confirmed. But had she not ordered the test kit, she would have never known what she had and could have eventually died from her condition.
She Wanted to Find Her Biological Mother
Another woman had been adopted when she was a baby. As she got older, she wanted to know more about her ancestry, but the only thing she knew about her biological mother was that she had been too young to raise a child. So, the woman decided to order herself an ancestry test kit and the results gave her more than she ever expected to find.
She Had an Identical Twin
It turns out that she had a twin sister living only a state away, according to the test results. So, she reached out to her through social media and the two clicked right away. But the DNA test kit had a more life altering result for another woman.
Tests Revealed that This Woman Had an Impossible Son
A 40-year-old woman was completely beside herself after she took a 23andMe test and got the results. According to the test, she had a potential DNA relative. But the real mystery was that it suggested it was her son, except she had never given birth to him.
She Made a Decision That Gave Her a Child
She was completely confused by the test results. When a woman gets pregnant, it’s pretty hard to ignore. Labor pains, nausea, and cramps are pretty memorable. Suddenly, she recalled that she had donated her eggs to pay for college.
She Looked Up Her Son
Curious, she decided to search for her son’s name on Facebook. What she found was a 20-year-old man who looked a lot like her. She also learned that he lived in the city where she donated her eggs, so obviously, her theory of how she ended up with a son seemed plausible.
She Was Proud to Have Created a New Life
She wasn’t sure if this young man had been conceived from one of her egg cells, but it made her happy knowing that she had helped to bring a life into the world. But this wasn’t the only time that DNA test kits revealed egg donors.
They Decided to Have Children
Two women who were very best friends decided one day that they wanted children. But one of the women had no interest in marriage and the other woman was gay and wanted nothing to do with men. So together they came up with a unique plan to have kids.
They Used the Same Donor
To ensure that their daughters would be half-sisters, they decided to use the same sperm donor. That was their initial plan anyway. But a couple of years down the road, the first woman deviated from their intended plan.
The First Woman Altered Their Original Plans
The first woman met a guy, fell in love, and married him. She then went on to tell her biological daughter that the man she called dad was her biological dad and that her half-sister was nothing more than a very good friend.
Their Daughter Took the DNA Test
When the daughter was old enough, she ordered herself a 23andMe test. When she got the results, she learned the truth about her best friend being her half-sister. But the news didn’t sit well with her. In fact, it left her very shocked.
She Vented on Reddit
Angered by the truth, the young woman went on Reddit and wrote: "[My] father is not the man who raised me. My mom told me that they were planning on telling me eventually, but I sincerely doubt that's the case. Such selfish people. I hate my mom and 'dad' for lying to me." But it could have been much worse.
She Had a Lot in Common With Her Boyfriend
Reddit user _muff1n_ loved her boyfriend and they had quite a few things in common. "We both come from Mexican-born parents from different states (Durango, Nayarit, Zacatecas, and Guanajuato)," she wrote on Reddit. But there was more to their story than they realized after she used a DNA kit...
They Were Blood Related
According to the 23andMe kit, she and her boyfriend shared .27 percent of their DNA, which made them fourth cousins. Obviously, this news put a damper on their relationship. But all she added on the site was: "Now we’re wondering what sides of our families are related."