One secret in my family was that my mother was married before she married my father. My brother learned this from my father and it truly upset my mother when she found out. My brother never told me.
I didn’t find out about her first marriage until I did some Ancestry research and found her marriage certificate and the death certificate of her first husband and child. I learned this after my mother passed away. I have only one relative on my mother’s side who was alive during my mother’s first marriage. This relative told me that her mother told her to never talk about it. She was pretty young, but remembers going to my mother’s first wedding.
I’d like to learn more about my mother’s ancestors–she immigrated from Croatia when she was very young. Each time I decide to do this, I feel a bit of guilt because I know that my mother wanted to keep this information from us. I still wonder if I should honor her wishes even though she’s passed away. My cousin on my mother’s side (niece of the relative who was alive when my mother first married) wants to hire a geneologist to help us find out about our shared maternal ancestry and she wants us to go to Croatia too.
My friend’s boyfriend found his birth mother. She had him as a young teen and he was given up for adoption. She and his birth father eventually got married and they had a family. She said she tried to find him but couldn’t. She is thrilled that he found her and they are getting to know each other. His father has passed away, but he does have a couple of sisters. He also found out that he’s Irish, not Italian as he had always thought!
My son has two friends who are adopted. They are brothers by adoption. After their adoptive parents died, one went online and found his birth family, with whom he has lived on and off. The other boy said if they didn’t want me then, I don’t want them now, and has never searched.
One of my friends is adopted. She never had any interest in her birth family. Her D became very religious and didn’t trust that she was Jewish enough, so she fooled her elderly grandmother into giving her information about the adoption. She then tracked the people down. It turns out that she is Jewish enough. The birth mother is devastated that her secret is out and my friend is torn because she has several siblings. It’s a sad situation. Apparently, her birth father was married and had children. He then began an affair with the birth mother and later married her. It seems that my friend was conceived during the affair so she was adopted out to prevent scandal. She has half and full siblings.and a birth mother who in the twilight of her life was outed as a homewrecker and a loose woman. My friend has connected with a couple of the kids but the birth mother refuses to acknowledge even though the DNA matches. my friend is okay with it because her adoptive parents ARE her parents. When my friend asked if she should reach out to these people, my H encouraged her and I said I never would. Her D contacted the other family and one of the siblings reached out to her.
I feel badly for people who are exposed to old secrets they didn’t want to share.
@intparent -Yes, first they tried a needling treatment which was unsuccessful. The hand specialist then discussed the available options but felt the next best course should be the surgery. His condition is progressing but still in an early enough state where he will not need a graft, and the surgeon feels very optimistic for a recovery with minimal chance of recurrence.
In our family, my ex-H had been married before we married (no kids, I met him a few years after his divorce). Honestly, neither of us ever thought to mention it to D2. D1 knew somehow, I don’t recall how. When D2 was about 12 it came up in conversation. Her reaction: “What? WHAT? What ELSE don’t I know?!?!” Oops.
I just finished watching the DVD of season 2 of Outlander and these stories remind me very much of the conversation between Claire and Brianna in the season finale re Bree’s father. Surprise! But I won’t put spoilers here.
@jym626
The main difference among the tests is that you are matched with a different set of people. Ancestry gives far fewer details, just says we think you’re 1st or 2nd cousins, but they may have the largest database. But you don’t get automatic access to ancestry.com, you would still have to join. So you can’t see much about any of your matches unless you make contact. There are all these links for family trees and pictures but when you click, you hit a paywall (this is after you’ve paid for your test, mind you). I did learn that if you make contact with someone, they can do something to share their pictures and family tree with you free of charge.
On 23andme you can actually compare chromosomes (if both parties have given permission). I have connected with some of the same relatives on both sites and it was easier to find each other on 23. On ancestry, sometimes I could find them but they couldn’t find me (we are 3rd or 4th cousins). 23 is more user friendly and allows better searching. Ancestry is more “hey we found your relative” why don’t you pay us even more money to find out more?
There are quite a few people who do multiple tests in order to find the most connections. You can upload ancestry or 23andme results on familytreeDNA without doing a test there. Your results are limited unless you pay a small fee to “unlock” your results. GEDmatch.com is a free site that you can upload to and do all kinds of searches.
“” have family genealogies for my direct lines going back to the 1600 in some instances and 1700s in others. I don’t think Ancestry or 23andMe would tell me anything I don’t already suspect. Every time I am in Germany, I am taken as a German - Dad’s heritage. Every trip to England I look like one of the crowd.""
I have records of my family lines going back to the 1500s in Germany and the Netherlands - those Catholics and baptism records. Yet I tested with 7% British and have no idea where that came from. The only possible place could be from one gggreatsgrandparent. I have no information on him other than what ship he came on from Germany and when it landed in the US back in the early 1800s.
Ha, those baptism records. Yes. And when I make a new discovery or prove out some guess, I add, bless those Mormons for driving this to be at our fingertips, so to say. Of course, not much help when they only list a mother’s first name or botch spelling.
About baptism records- just be aware some families had them recorded in multiple parishes, depending on connections. And that some parts of the country have great local narrative histories done during either town centennials or with WPA (Depression era) funds, naming names, filling in some blanks. This is where subscribing to Ancestry can make it worth it.
re #88 - my post, I have no doubts that if I did a test, there would be percentages of many other countries. In my mind, with the paper trail and knowing the history of Northern Europe with its various invasions, migrations, resettlements, etc, I don’t think I would find anything that is not typical of the general population of that area. I would expect a mix.
The two big surnames in my background are Scandanavian and an Irish placename. By appearance, it is clear to me that I don’t actually have strong Irish genetics and my mother’s test confirmed that the ancestry was indeed Norman no matter where the ancestors had made their home. Given the residence of the Scandanavian branch near Prussia and the appearance, coloring, etc of those ancestors, I’m certain that there is more general North European and less specific Scandinavian in the genetic make-up.
After all the surprises written about above, I’m going to stay content with my assumptions and paper trail. I don’t think I’d handle an upset well!
Keep this in mind, from 23andme:
I am female, will I receive paternal information?
Yes, features such as the Ancestry Composition report and the DNA Relatives tool will include your recent paternal ancestry. However, unless a parent is genotyped, we will not be able to differentiate the maternal and paternal contributions to your recent ancestry. Keep in mind that women will not receive a Y-chromosome (paternal) haplogroup since it is determined by the Y chromosome, which women do not inherit. If your father or brother is genotyped, you will be able to connect his paternal haplogroup assignment to your Paternal Haplogroup report.
A TV commercial just flashed by–$49 Thanksgiving special for DNA kits. I had to google it–23andme is offering the kits for $49 when you buy 2 kits. Another company I hadn’t heard of, myheritage.com, has a $59 kit offer.
I may buy 2 as Christmas gifts, one for hubby and one for my brother.
Okay… I’ve discussed this with D2, and made up my mind to test (just Ancestry) with 23andme. However, it is quite difficult to remain anonymous from what I can tell. If you pay cash for the kit at Target, you still have to pay online to 23andme for the actual lab work, and I don’t see how to do that anonymously. Looks like maybe you can buy a kit with the lab included at Sam’s Club (maybe just Ancestry and Medical), but I am not a Sam’s member. 23andMe also has registration rules that insist that the name you ask them to process the results under be your real name (but they allow a fake name to be used for interaction with others about the results).
Just FYI for anyone buying a kit as a gift, in many of the ways you can purchase the 23andme kids, the kit costs something, and then in addition there is a cost for lab processing. A few ways include the cost of the lab work as well (directly from the site, via Amazon.com, and at Sam’s Club). It says on the box you purchase which it is.
One thing that I have wondered about and would be interested in hearing if anyone knows:
Have the Ancestry.com DNA tests gotten any more detailed over the past few years? My brother had this done several years ago and the results were pretty much what we expected but very general, such as a lot of “British Isles” and “Northern Europe” plus a bit of “Southern Europe” and “Southern Asia”. I am not sure if it is possible to get to specific countries but more detail would be interesting if they have improved this at all.
^The 23andme ancestry service includes the raw data, the exact same raw data as for the health service. That data can then be taken to third party sites for interpretation (e.g. genetic genie, healthcoach7). The 23andme health service itself was never very useful.
I got mine done a year ago. They keep sending me updates on the health information. I also put the data through that other third party souce and found it difficult to get any useful information. I’m finding it very reassuring that I do not have genetic markers for predisposition to any of the conditions they test.
Yet I tested with 7% British and have no idea where that came from. The only possible place could be from one gggreatsgrandparent. I have no information on him other than what ship he came on from Germany and when it landed in the US back in the early 1800s.