People Shared The Wildest Family Secrets They Learned From Ancestry Kits

As if this year didn’t start with enough drama, TikToker @Meezersqueezer asked their followers if anyone among them had accidentally uncovered a family secret after taking an Ancestry DNA test, and the responses are like a soap opera.

1.

Great grandpa’s Polynesian love child:

“My family identifies as Irish, but we have a Czech last name, so I took a DNA test. It came back half Irish and Scottish… nothing too surprising, I’m super white. A year passes and I get an email from a Polynesian guy, Fa’alongo, who tells me I’m his highest DNA match and he’s searching for his birth dad. So I give him access to my family tree. His team points out that my grandfather was born to an unmarried teen mom and she married the guy I knew as my great grandfather four years later. At this point, I get my family involved. My brother agreed to take a Y DNA test to help narrow down the paternal line, and we find out who my great grandfather is. He’s a guy named Albert who lived in Ohio and he fathered my grandfather, went to war, fathered Fa’alongo, came back to Ohio and had a daughter and a family there, and never told anyone.”

–@meezersqueezer

2.

You’re not my dad:

“My dad came up with the brilliant idea of giving the entire family Ancestry DNA kits last year for Christmas. I identify as Irish because my last name is McDonald and my hair is bright fucking red. Turns out, I’m 75 percent Norwegian and the rest is like German and British and there’s zero Irish. So I called my dad and said, ‘Guess what? I’m not Irish at all.’ He calls me at 10 o’ clock, which we all know is 3 a.m. dad time, saying, ‘There’s no way you’re not Irish!’ So with my dad on the phone, I logged into my account to see if I had any DNA matches, and I had an exact paternal match. It just wasn’t him!”

–@fretlessfeline

3.

High school sweethearts:

“My whole family decided to do 23andMe, but when we got the results back, we noticed that my mom’s siblings weren’t showing up as her full siblings, only half. This was pretty weird because my mom is the middle of five kids. To top it off, some lady from across the country emailed my mom saying, ‘Hey, we share a dad, how cool is that?’ We thought the lady was crazy, but we looked her up and she had an uncanny resemblance to my mother. So, my mom decided to hear her out. It turns out that my mom’s biological dad and grandmother were high school sweethearts, but my mom wasn’t born until six years later and in the middle of a marriage, so…”

–@berqq

4.

An unfortunate history lesson:

“I’m biracial — my dad is Korean and my mom is white. A few years ago, my white grandmother got super into the whole ancestry thing and she thought it would be really cool for me to take the test. Turns out, I have some Japanese blood in me. My sister took the test, too, and she got about 16 percent Japanese blood. That means my father is a good portion Japanese. If you know anything about history and Japan’s rule on Korea, you know why that is. My Korean grandparents are still upset about it.”

–@lee.shieun

5.

Reuniting lost families:

“Two years ago, my family got an ancestry test for Christmas. For context, my dad is adopted, he never knew his birth family and, on my dad’s test kit, it connected him with a cousin. So we messaged the cousin and we’re like, ‘Hey, we’re your family.’ And the cousin was like, ‘Oh really? Let me figure out who your sibling is.’ So we found out my dad has a few half siblings and one is a sister who lives 30 minutes away from us. My dad was really happy to meet her. She has a beautiful family and I have two little cousins now!”

–@realkingsht

6.

Maury, but make it from 1982:

“First things first, I’m adopted. I got my test results back and everything was a shock. I found a paternal grandfather, great-grandfather, uncles and aunts that I never knew existed. We emailed back and forth and, finally, I met them. I found out I’m the only grandchild in the whole entire family and they didn’t know I existed because back in 1982, what did my birth father say? ‘That girl’s lying. It’s not my kid.’”

–@larklady

7.

That one day in bio class:

“It was not Ancestry DNA, it was a biology class in high school and we were doing Punnett squares. I kept plugging in my mom’s blood type and my dad’s blood type and I couldn’t get it to work out. I called the teacher and she told me, ‘You need to have a talk with your mama.’”

–@comeonovervaleree

8.

When being right is wrong:

“My gramps had a couple older sisters and one younger brother, and he always suspected that his mom cheated on his dad and produced his younger sibling. This ostracized my gramps from the entire family. He was the only one that believed this and the only thing we know about his side of the family was that they were Syrian. When my dad got his DNA test results back, he had zero percent Syrian in his blood. So, not only was my gramps’ theory about his little brother being illegitimate probably true, but he was also probably not his father’s son. Great-grandma thought she took that to the grave!”

–@sweetcarolineofficial

9.

Now everyone knows except his wife:

“My sister came into my room and asked if I had been on Ancestry lately. It says we have a first cousin and we don’t know this person. So we look through, figure they had to be from my mom’s side and we narrowed down the father to being one of my two uncles. We called our aunt to confirm the cousin was on my mom’s side by making sure the person came up as her niece. Then she called my uncle and he fully admitted to it. His two other kids know about it and now the whole family knows except for his current wife.”

–@thatweirdgirl_07

10.

That one time you found out that you’re adopted:

“I got my parents and I 23andMe test kits for their birthdays and I took one for Christmas. I share no genetic relationship with my mom or my dad. I confronted them about it on Christmas Eve, and they denied knowing anything about it. Then a few days ago, on my birthday, they decided to tell me that I was adopted. I found out that my birth dad is a Catholic priest, I have two half siblings and that one of those half siblings went to high school with my boyfriend.”

–@undercoverk3vin

Have you made an unexpected discovery by taking an Ancestry DNA test? Let us know in the comments.

Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.