As these DNA test stories show, you truly never know what you’ll find in your family tree! It could be a surprising lineage—or a dark family secret.
20 of the Most Shocking DNA Test Stories—Exposed
Updated on May 29, 2025
Million-dollar mystery
Writing into MarketWatch’s The Moneyist column, a man told this DNA test story: After years of receiving substantial monetary gifts from a wealthy family friend who was like an uncle to him, he learned through a 23andMe DNA test that he was actually the man’s biological son. The family secret was confirmed by the man’s mother, who had worked as the chief financial officer for the company the “uncle” ran.
Switched at birth
When Alice Collins Plebuch decided to do a DNA test, she did it all in good fun. As originally reported by the Washington Post, the woman, who identified as Irish American, had half of her results show she had a mixed British Isles bloodline (as she expected), but the other half picked up a mix of European Jewish, Middle Eastern and Eastern European genes in her results. After family-wide DNA testing, she learned that her father was not the biological son of her grandparents. After even more digging, Plebuch finally got to the bottom of the story: Her father had been sent home with the wrong family. A mystery of more than 100 years had been solved by a mail-in DNA test.
Oh, brother
ABC News Correspondent Whit Johnson participated in a DNA test on a whim, though he knew his father had been adopted and little was known about his biological family. Johnson discovered that he had an uncle—his father’s previously unknown biological brother. Armed with this man’s contact information, Johnson shared the results with his father, and the two long-lost brothers were reunited. The brothers started looking at other legal records and discovered they had another brother; they were able to reunite with him as well. It turns out the three men all had the same mother, but they had different fathers.
Double trouble
A DNA test revealed that Lydia Fairchild wasn’t the mother of the children she had given birth to. Single mother Fairchild had two children and another on the way when finances got tight, and she decided to apply for government assistance. According to GlobalGenes.org, Fairchild was asked to take a DNA test to confirm the children were hers. The results suggested she was their aunt. Confused, scared and accused of fraud, Fairchild arranged to have a government witness present at the birth of her third child, and a DNA test was performed on the spot. Again, Fairchild was not a match as the mother to the child she had just birthed. Finally, a similar discovery in another case brought to light a different possibility: that Fairchild was a “chimera”—she had absorbed a twin while she was in the womb. It was the twin’s DNA that was showing up in the maternity tests.
Doctor shocker
Kelli Rowlette’s parents had turned to a fertility doctor to conceive her. Since her father had a low sperm count and her mother had a uterine condition, Rowlette’s parents elected to undergo a procedure in which her mother would be artificially inseminated with sperm from her husband and a donor.
However, no one was ready for the results of her DNA test from Ancestry.com. Rowlette not only discovered that her parents had trouble conceiving her and that her dad wasn’t her biological father, but she also learned that the fertility doctor used his own semen to impregnate her mother, according to a BBC report. Rowlette and her family filed a lawsuit against the retired doctor for fraud, medical negligence, battery, emotional distress and breach of contract.
Family friends
At the age of 74, Walter Macfarlane decided to take a DNA Ancestry test to learn more about his biological family. He had been raised by his maternal grandparents, but the details of his mother and her relationship with his biological family were hazy, at best. Macfarlane learned that his longtime friend who grew up down the street was actually his half-brother, Alan Robinson (who had been adopted). They were long-lost siblings! CNN reported that Robinson and Macfarlane shared the news that they were brothers at an extended family party.
Native knowledge
Two British women were shocked to learn that their ancestry revealed a Native American bloodline—especially considering their ancestors hadn’t been to America. Doreen Isherwood and Anne Hall discovered that they are descendants of Native Americans who were brought to the United Kingdom centuries ago, possibly as slaves, translators or tribal representatives, reports BBC News. This kind of discovery is considered very rare, and it’s likely their indigenous American relatives remained in the U.K. and started families in the communities in which they were relocated.
Parents and their pasts
You don’t expect scandal with your parents, but that wasn’t the case for Houston Chronicle reporter Paul McGrath. He learned that his mother had been in an undisclosed relationship while serving in the Marine Corps. The man McGrath had assumed was his biological father was not. An AncestryDNA test led him to his half-siblings, the children of his biological dad, Domingo Malaquias.
Father figures
A stem cell and reproductive biologist, the (anonymous) George Doe explained to Vox how he came to participate in a 23andMe DNA test when teaching a course about the genome. But his results offered an entirely different lesson—one for him. Upon clicking a link that offered to connect him with close relatives, he stumbled upon a man named Thomas with whom he shared 22% of his genome. It became clear that he and this man had the same father, meaning his father had a secret affair. The revelation tore “Doe’s” family apart, leading to the divorce of his parents.
Sibling surprise
Adopted as a child, Matt Heninger took an AncestryDNA test to learn more about his ethnicity. Once he had the results, he forgot about the test … until a few months later, when he received an email from Joyce Burgener, who said her results suggested that they were closely related, possibly first cousins. After some more digging, the two discovered they were actually brother and sister. As a 12-year-old child in an extremely poor family of five children, Burgener had a memory of Heninger being born—and their mother giving him up for adoption, reports the Deseret News.
Close encounters
Tracy Melton never knew anything about her biological father, and at one point, she even believed he was deceased, according to a KXLY news story. She was eager for answers about her ethnic background, partly for health reasons (many people want to learn more about their genetic inheritance). Melton signed up for an AncestryDNA test and discovered that her father—Reynaldo Delgado—was very much alive. Melton, who was raised in Los Angeles but relocated to Spokane, connected with Delgado, and the two learned that they lived only 12 miles away from each other. Delgado and his wife had decided to move to the state just three years earlier.
DNA discoveries
Keeping family secrets under wraps isn’t as easy as it used to be. Case in point: Bob Hutchinson told the New York Times that his mother was always very secretive about her upbringing and family, never disclosing anything about her own parents except to say they were Italian and Swedish. Hutchinson decided to take a mail-order DNA test and learned he is one-eighth sub-Saharan African, which revealed his mother was actually mixed race.
We are family
Neil Schwartzman, who was aware he was adopted, turned to 23andMe in an effort to find his birth parents. He ended up finding his biological sister, who had no idea that her mother had ever given up a child for adoption. According to Forbes, the three finally met after Schwartzman’s newfound sister confronted their mother about the surprising results.
Crime and punishment
Sometimes it isn’t an unassuming at-home DNA test that proves most shocking, but a crime-scene one. The California serial killer known as the Grim Sleeper was finally identified through DNA he had left behind at a crime scene; the link came through the killer’s son, who was already in the system’s database because he was arrested for a felony. To confirm the killer’s DNA link, though, detectives had to get a current DNA sample from the man—which they did by collecting his plate, cup and leftover pizza from a restaurant. This is considered the first familial DNA search successfully used for an arrest in the state of California.
Mistaken identity
WUSA9 reports that Marion Cohen, who identified as African American, used a company called Kin Finder, LLC, to learn more about her background. Cohen discovered that she is 70% White and that the man she thought was her father is actually her stepfather. Her biological father was White, but in her home state of Virginia at the time she was born, it was illegal for a Black woman and White man to marry. Her parents separated, and her mother later married the African American man Cohen came to know as Dad.
Heartbreaking answers
The Denver Post printed a heartbreaking letter in its “Ask Amy” advice column: A DNA test revealed to the writer that the man who the woman thought was her biological father was not. Her actual father turned out to be a family friend—and he was a serious alcoholic. The findings led the letter writer to question who she really is; she also warns others about delving too deeply into their DNA.
Curious connections
The Maneages had three children but wanted a fourth. They chose to adopt a 10-year-old girl named Ellianna from China, who had been diagnosed with a brain disorder. They attended the same church as the Galbierz family, who had also recently adopted a daughter from China; she was named Kinley and had a similar brain disorder. The two girls got along and were soon as close as sisters. The two sets of parents noticed their girls were similar in behavior and looks, and after discussing it, decided to test the girls’ DNA, only to learn that they had a 99.9% match of being sisters!
Sister search
Las Vegas local Rich Bodager’s parents had adopted him in 1968, and he was curious about his biological family. A 23andMe test produced a disturbing result: Someone else in the company’s database was related to him—and she was his granddaughter. Bodager knew there was no way this could be right. The “granddaughter” eventually reached out to him. As it turned out, she was his half-sister, and she had been looking for him for 15 years.
Surrogate scandal
Jessica Allen was a surrogate mother to a couple of Chinese descent. After undergoing IVF, Allen learned she was pregnant with twins six weeks into the pregnancy. The babies, who Allen thought were identical twins, were born perfectly healthy, but according to People, she noticed one looked fully Chinese, while the other had a lighter skin color. A DNA analysis revealed that one twin was the couple’s; the other child was the product of Allen and her husband, Wardell Jasper.
Setting the historical record straight
Here’s an interesting bit of history trivia: Belgian journalist Jean-Paul Mulders and historian Marc Vermeeren collected saliva samples of 39 of Hitler’s relatives and highlighted their findings in Knack, a Belgian news magazine. Their study found Hitler’s relatives have a chromosome that’s rare in Germany and Western Europe. It’s more commonly found in North Africans, as well as some Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. “This is a surprising result,” Ronny Decorte, a genetic specialist at KU Leuven University in Belgium, told Knack. “Hitler would not have been happy.”
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At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. For this piece on DNA test stories, Kelly Bryant tapped her knowledge as a longtime journalist who often covers news, entertainment and interesting facts for Reader’s Digest. We’ve gone the extra step and had Marcy Lovitch, a fact-checker with 20-plus years of experience researching for national publications including Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, Glamour, Seventeen, Real Simple, Forbes and InStyle magazines, verify that all quotes are attributed correctly and have credible sourcing. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- Washington Post: “Who Was She? A DNA Test Only Opened New Mysteries.”
- BBC: “Family sues doctor who ‘used his sperm’ to impregnate patient”
- CNN: “After 60 years of friendship, they learned they’re biological brothers”
- Vox: “With genetic testing, I gave my parents the gift of divorce”
- New York Times: “With a Simple DNA Test, Family Histories Are Rewritten”
- Forbes: “Whoops. How DNA Site 23andMe Outed Parents Who Gave Their Baby Up for Adoption.”
- Rolling Stone: “‘Grim Sleeper’ Serial Killer: Everything You Need to Know”
- Denver Post: “Ask Amy: Home DNA test yields heartbreaking surprise”
- WQAD8: “Families learn adopted Chinese daughters are half-sisters”
- People: “Surrogate Mom Who Gave Birth to Biological Son Says Couple ‘Wanted Me to Buy My Child'”
- History.com: “Study Suggests Adolph Hitler Had Jewish and African Ancestors”
- Jewish Journal: “DNA suggests Hitler likely had Jewish, African Roots”
