Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to mention that private companies now have your most private and confidential family information. Don't do DNA testing unless there is a dire need for it.

Idiot

Totally agree. The person having the testing done has total control over what’s given out or displayed. Vast majority of people doing these tests have a positive experience. Stop being a negative person.

Anonymous wrote:Not to mention that private companies now have your most private and confidential family information. Don't do DNA testing unless there is a dire need for it.

Idiot

Hi OP. I also found a half sister. She is a daughter of my father from before he married my mother. He did not know he had this daughter (long story, but the girlfriend who had the daughter thought he was dead in a war). We all recently met up and it was wonderful. I felt family-level connected to her. We will see what the future brings. I know the situation is heavy for her, so it is hard to say how it goes forward, but I hope we will all be family, and am happy that it came about.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Lots of cold people on here! I connected with a half-sibling through Ancestry and it has been great for our lives, we have vacationed together and our kids now have cousins.

It isn’t cold. How is a half sibling you meet when you’re 40 that lived an entirely different life any different from the person in front of you at Starbucks? Maybe you’d be best friends with them if the two f you decided to take your coffee together and sit and have a chat, then meet up again in a week.

What makes a sibling bond special is you grow up together in the same household. You share the same childhood and many of the same memories.

I do have a half siblings. They where born when I was away in college. Between the age difference, another set of parents divorcing, and not spending much time together regularly, the relationship is no where near the same level as my relationship to my sibling I grew up with. Sharing DNA is not enough to make a relationship.

Perhaps not to you, but for many there are feelings you cannot take away or replace

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Lots of cold people on here! I connected with a half-sibling through Ancestry and it has been great for our lives, we have vacationed together and our kids now have cousins.

It isn’t cold. How is a half sibling you meet when you’re 40 that lived an entirely different life any different from the person in front of you at Starbucks? Maybe you’d be best friends with them if the two f you decided to take your coffee together and sit and have a chat, then meet up again in a week.

What makes a sibling bond special is you grow up together in the same household. You share the same childhood and many of the same memories.

I do have a half siblings. They where born when I was away in college. Between the age difference, another set of parents divorcing, and not spending much time together regularly, the relationship is no where near the same level as my relationship to my sibling I grew up with. Sharing DNA is not enough to make a relationship.

Wow. Lots of cold people on here! I connected with a half-sibling through Ancestry and it has been great for our lives, we have vacationed together and our kids now have cousins.

Anonymous wrote:Suspected someone close to me didn't have a bio kid from another woman. They were stupid and never established paternity when the woman claimed he was the dad. I could see it, he was completely scammed. DNA test ended up proving what I already knew. He paid child support for someone else's kid, probably happens a lot.

He needs to move to Georgia
The one state where a man can get out of an established paternity on the grounds of not being the father

I don’t understand why people do this. Keep your DNA to yourself or better yet, share it frequently with your spouse. Do NOT send it to a for-profit company. What is wrong with people.

If I found out I had my dad have love child, I would not care one bit or reach out. So what. We are all related one way or another anyhow. Love your life work on the relationships you already have in place.

Anonymous wrote:I dont know why people put themselves through this, especially if you already have an established family. Just because you now have a first cousin who is a lovechild of your aunt/uncle doesnt make them family.

Half-siblings are different.

I dont know why people put themselves through this, especially if you already have an established family. Just because you now have a first cousin who is a lovechild of your aunt/uncle doesnt make them family.

DD found out she had a 1st cousin we knew nothing about. Turns out her uncle fathered a kid and abandoned the mother. Led to lots of drama.

My sister and I have wondered if my dads angst about our interest in genealogy and dna testing might relate to wild oats from his youth. He says it’s the govt he worries about.

My sister and I were able to connect with and meet our half sister because she got a DNA test and also because she and my sister were both on Ancestry.com. We knew about her but had long ago given up on finding her. She, however, was very curious at this point in her life about her unmet siblings (she was born from a previous marriage of my dad's) because she knew about us but had not been given any information about us other than we existed.

It has all been very positive so far. She had a lot of questions about our dad, her mother had refused to tell her anything about him. She had vague memories of him from when she was a young child. We were able to explain to her what he was like and why she was actually better off not having a relationship with him. I think it eased her mind, she (like any child might) had always thought there was something wrong with her that he didn't want to be around her, which was not true at all.

I'm not getting any DNA test but I'm glad she did.

You don’t have to put your DNA out there to see if there are matches. I did mine because I’m adopted and wanted to see the regions I come from. Not interested in the matches drama.

I would freak the hell out if I found a half sibling on 23 and me. As it was, I found out I have an increased risk for Alzheimer's, and that was a bad enough surprise!