Earlier this month Joanna Mountain, 23andMe’s senior director of research, spoke during a panel discussion at the annual Genealogy Jamboree hosted by the <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-21119 size-medium" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Joanna_and_Blaine_Bettinger-e1402696162448-300x288.jpg" alt="Joanna_and_Blaine_Bettinger" width="300" height="288" />
Starting in 2013, the four-day conference has included a day devoted to the use of genetic testing to inform the search for family history and ancestry.
This year, Joanna participated in a discussion about what the future might hold.
“People are going to start seeing how they’re related to one another,” Joanna said, and then looking around at the audience she added, “Maybe at one of these conferences, they’ll put up on the screen how all attendees are related.”
<h6>More Commonplace</h6>
Most of the other panelists –  which included Bennett Greenspan, the president and CEO of FamilyTree DNA, Jake Byrnes, of AncestryDNA, and the genetic genealogist, Diahan Southard – agreed. As more and more people are tested, as genetic databases grow, tracing relationships between people will become more commonplace.
Moderator <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-5404 size-medium" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Picture-208-300x225.png" alt="Don't just settle for two branches of your family tree..." width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Picture-208-300x225.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Picture-208.png 408w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“It could be terribly convenient for those of us who are studying genealogy,” said Blaine.
<h6>World Family Tree</h6>
While a world family tree isn’t necessary for the effective use of genetic genealogy, it is a way to merge genetic information with information from <a href="https://www.23andme.org/genetics/ancestry/family-tree/">family trees</a> and research documents to inform people about their family history.
“I see a universal world tree emerging from the combined efforts of everyone in this room and at companies,” Joanna said in Burbank. “It’s already happening to some extent – kind of a crowd-sourcing effort.”
<h6>Sharing</h6>
This is happening because individuals are sharing information, but also because companies like 23andMe are allowing developers to create APIs that will offer consumers more tools to use in their searches.
But Joanna also reminded those in the audience that people test for many reasons. They might want to know about their family’s or their own risk for disease, or see traits they might pass onto their children, but in testing they might learn something they didn’t know about their ancestry. 23andMe is trying to allow consumers to explore their DNA through all those facets, she said. They might also learn that their ancestry makes them more or less prone to certain health conditions.
“We’re looking for ways to integrate both the health side and the ancestry/genealogy side (because those) go hand-in-hand,” she said.

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

The Future of Genetic Genealogy

We got a great response from our Google Hangout earlier this month, which focused on some of 23andMe’s basic ancestry tools. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-21014" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/05152014_hangout_banner_0002_right_Busy-300x75.jpg" alt="05152014_hangout_banner_0002_right_Busy" width="300" height="75" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/05152014_hangout_banner_0002_right_Busy-300x75.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/05152014_hangout_banner_0002_right_Busy-768x192.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/05152014_hangout_banner_0002_right_Busy-1024x256.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/05152014_hangout_banner_0002_right_Busy-880x220.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/05152014_hangout_banner_0002_right_Busy-1180x295.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/05152014_hangout_banner_0002_right_Busy.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />


During the presentation <a href="http://www.yourgeneticgenealogist.com">CeCe Moore</a>, a genetic genealogist and 23andMe Ancestry Ambassador, started with a quick overview of the science behind using DNA for ancestry before diving into the features.
Also joining CeCe were Laurie Kahn, an ancestry Product Manager here at 23andMe and Christine Moschella, our Community Manager.
After the basics the team dove right into some of 23andMe’s features including Ancestry Composition, Ancestral Origins and DNA Relatives.
CeCe covered ways customers can use different settings to get finer detail about their ancestry and how to make the most of your matches. She also covered some of the basics on how to invite DNA Relatives to share information that can help in genealogical searches and how to use information even when those matches don’t choose to share with you.
This is our first Google Hangout to go over 23andMe tools with customers and we hope to do more. It’s a great overview and if you are just starting to explore your ancestry with DNA this is a wonderful way to get oriented with some of ways you can explore using 23andMe. So check it out.
<iframe loading="lazy" width="650" height="366" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/kCJr7t2Sbpg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

23andMe Ancestry Basics

Alice found her biological mom after decades of searching, so did Cody and PJ.
We’ve heard from many customers about how 23andMe helped them find their mothers, learn more about the mothers they never knew or simply see in their own DNA some of the things their mother passed on to them.
Here are a few stories featuring customers who used 23andMe to learn more about their moms. Enjoy reading, and thanks mom for the mito.
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-19163 size-thumbnail" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Alice-T-at-7-w-her-dad-at-7-200x200.jpg" alt="Alice at 7 with a photo of her biological dad at the same age." width="200" height="200" /></td>
<td><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-19680 size-thumbnail" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/AgnesMHolland-e1398988404182-200x200.jpg" alt="AgnesMHolland" width="200" height="200" /></td>
<td><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-19797 size-thumbnail" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Amy_K_Marshall_2012-200x200.jpg" alt="Amy_K_Marshall_2012" width="200" height="200" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/ancestry/connecting-with-the-past/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Connecting With the Past</a></td>
<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/23andme-customer-stories/23andme-helps-man-find-family/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">23andMe Helps Man Find Family</a></td>
<td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/23andme-customer-stories/amys-story/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amy&#8217;s Story</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Some 23andMe Stories About Moms

In her 30 years of searching, Perline Porter had to chase down rumors, uncover lies and overcome false assumptions, but in the end she discovered the truth.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20880" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Perlines-Photo-278x300.jpg" alt="Perline's Photo" width="278" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Perlines-Photo-278x300.jpg 278w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Perlines-Photo-768x828.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Perlines-Photo-950x1024.jpg 950w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Perlines-Photo-817x880.jpg 817w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Perlines-Photo-1095x1180.jpg 1095w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Perlines-Photo.jpg 1493w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 278px) 100vw, 278px" />
“I finally know where I came from,” said Perline, a 58-year-old retired computer tech. “I found my biological father and family.”
The searching – dizzying in its twists and turns– finally ended last year when Perline found her half-brother using 23andMe. Her decade’s long search and ultimate success in finding her lost biological family became the fodder of her book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/My-DNA-Search-my-Roots/dp/098962000X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&#038;qid=1396908948&#038;sr=8-2&#038;keywords=my+dna+roots" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“My DNA Search for My Roots.”</a>
The pages of her story track the years of disappointment Perline endured during her search. Through it all she never lost hope, a hope fueled by a feeling that ever since she was young she knew there was something about her that set her apart from her family.
“When I was around 10 years old I suspected something was different,” she said.
Her older brother and sister used to tease her saying she had a different father. On her own, she also found evidence that all the stories she’d heard about who her father was didn’t add up.
At the same time, Perline felt proud of who she thought was her dad, a man named Harry Holbert. But she looked nothing like her two older siblings who were fathered by Harry.
Perline had a tough childhood. Her mother drank, and she grew up in an alcoholic dysfunctional family. At 16, Perline got pregnant and married her boyfriend. She lived with his family and worked in the kitchen of a rest home.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20884" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/My-DNA-Search-Book-Cover-200x300.jpg" alt="My DNA Search -- Book Cover" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/My-DNA-Search-Book-Cover-200x300.jpg 200w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/My-DNA-Search-Book-Cover.jpg 231w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
When Perline was 17, her mother, in a drunken stupor, finally told her the truth about Harry. He wasn’t her father he had died before she was born. Her mother said Perline’s father was a man named Buck Casper, a close friend of Harry’s but it turned out to be a false lead that took decades to unravel and it wasn’t the only one. Perline learned that her mother had somehow changed the name of her father on her birth certificate.
As she searched through the years, Perline got very good at tracking down names and addresses and using public records. She also went back into her mother’s history. Harry ran a bar in Kelso, in California’s Mojave Desert where they lived. Kelso was a train depot not far from Barstow.  Perline realized that although she was born in Utah, she must have been conceived it Kelso, so she knew that learning more about her mother’s time in Kelso might help her find her biological father.
Over the years she got close to who she thought was her biological family only to learn she was wrong. All that experience taught her something too. Much is said about being able to track public records and people to learn the truth. But Perline asks: “What about when people and paperwork lie?”
Perline eventually turned to 23andMe to get tested because she knew that at least, “DNA doesn’t lie.”
When she tested in 2011, she got a match with a second cousin and his daughter. But she was still fixated on finding “Buck” and she ignored the match. She did find Buck, and although Buck was not well, his son tested. Perline was sure they were related, but it turned out what her mother told her was not true, Buck was not her father.
That’s when she went back to her second cousin match on 23andMe.Using the help of genetic genealogists, Kathryn Johnston and CeCe Moore, Perline zeroed her search for her father to three brothers John Collins, Edward Woodrow (Woody) Collins and Hugh Collins. Because of their ages, Perline thought for sure it was “Woody” or “Hugh.” She didn’t consider John Sr., who would have been 17 at the time of her conception. Her mom had been 25 at the time, was a widow with two small children.
It turned out Perline was wrong. As she was contacting relatives of the brothers, they all seemed to be saying the same thing – the younger brother John Sr. was the lady’s man. They thought he was her father.
Eventually, Perline contacted John’s son, John Jr.
He wanted to know more about who she was and because Perline had already met relatives of his through 23andMe, she recommended he contact them about her. Eventually, he did and decided that Perline wasn’t trying to scam him and he agreed to test with 23andMe. Perline traveled to California and met John Jr. She immediately noticed their similarities in John Jr., and her and saw pictures of John Sr. that resembled her two sons.
“I was totally amazed at how much he looked like my two boys,” she said.
They were able to confirm the connection using 23andMe.
John saw in Perline his father’s mannerisms and even the way she told a story or liked to drop one-liners. It all seemed uncannily similar to his dad.
“It is truly amazing how you can inherit traits from your father without even knowing who he is,” John said in a newspaper article about their reunion.
He also introduced Perline to her half-sister Carey, and they all got together in person in Fallon, Nevada.
For her part, Perline marvels at ultimately finding who her father was. There were many times that she was so discouraged that she wanted to abandon her search. Indeed she’d sometimes stop and focus on her life, but she never gave up entirely, she said. She was driven to find out the truth about herself.
&#8220;When you don&#8217;t know who your other half is, you&#8217;re just missing something,&#8221; she said.
23andMe provides genetic testing services for informational purposes; your results may or may not help you to search for or identify relatives or family members.

Searching For Her Roots

Anyone with a brother or sister doesn’t need a national holiday to remind them how special bonds between siblings can be, but in recognition of<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siblings_Day"> National Sibling Day</a> we bring you another in a long list of stories of siblings who found each other through 23andMe.


Tricia had a few details, but never enough to find her father.
John and Charlene, her brother and sister, never knew Tricia even existed. Apparently neither did their dad. It wasn’t until Tricia tested with 23andMe that they found each other and learned that they were all related.
<div id="attachment_20717" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20717" class="size-medium wp-image-20717" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Siblings-on-dads-bench-selfie-300x232.jpg" alt="Trish, center, and her brother John and sister Charlene." height="232" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Siblings-on-dads-bench-selfie-300x232.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Siblings-on-dads-bench-selfie.jpg 574w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Trish, center, and her brother John and sister Charlene.</div>
Tricia first started searching for information about her biological parents more than a decade ago. With the help of her adopted brother, Tricia had tracked down the name of her biological mother, who’d passed away.
She was also able to find the town where her mother had lived, even the old school she attended. When she visited the old school building she saw for the first time a photo of her biological mother hanging on the wall. It was a striking moment for her to see some of herself reflected in the face of a person she’d never met.
“That was a kick in the pants,” Tricia said. “To see her face and that ‘Oh yeah, I got all things from her.’”
Later she tracked down her biological mother’s sister, who helped her cobble together a few more details around her birth. Her aunt told her that her parents were college students, when she was conceived. Her mom at Oregon State University, and her dad was a basketball star at a nearby college.
“In my head I thought maybe it was one of those spring break flings,” Tricia said.
According to her aunt, once the family learned of the pregnancy they took her mom out of school. The family moved to another town, and Tricia was put up for adoption and given to a new family on Christmas Day in 1957 a few days after her birth.
Those were all details Tricia had never had before. She learned a little about her mother, saw some more photos and learned that she had Irish and Norwegian ancestry.

<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 300px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">
More Stories About Siblings
&#8211; <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-20609 size-medium" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling-300x219.jpg" alt="Mike &#038; Leslie smiling" height="219" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling-300x219.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling.jpg 697w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
&#8211; <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-18559 size-medium" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/RN4_9696-300x199.jpg" alt="Stacy Arena and Greta Creech" height="199" width="300" />
&#8211; <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-20438 size-medium" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen-300x206.jpg" alt="Cy &#038; Kathleen" height="206" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen-300x206.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen.jpg 648w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
<a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-20723 size-medium" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square-300x300.jpg" alt="tile01-neil_Jolie-square" height="300" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square.jpg 460w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />&#8211; </a><a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/23andme-customer-stories/stories-from-23andme-neil-schwartzman/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> 
Hey Bro&#8217;
&nbsp;
</a><a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tile01-neil_Jolie-square.jpg"></a>
</div>

But in all those details there was nothing about her father. And she left it at that, until she tested with 23andMe in late 2013.
Tricia said she signed up for 23andMe to find out a little bit more about where in Europe her ancestors came from.


“I was tickled to find out how much Cro-magnon (Neanderthal) I was,” she said.


But a match with a first cousin named Randy was a total surprise, she said.
“I did not expect that,” Tricia said.


She and Randy began exchanging messages and Tricia’s surprises kept coming. He wanted to figure out how they were related and began asking her about her background. Tricia told him what little she knew. A few of those details stuck out, basketball, a small college town in Oregon and the date of her birth. Randy connected the dots.


“I think my Uncle Ralph was your dad,” he said.


Tricia was stunned. Randy explained that his uncle had died a few years ago, but he added a happy surprise.
Ralph had two children, a son and a daughter. Tricia had a brother and a sister.
She didn’t know what to say.
In Texas, a woman Tricia had never met soon got a surprise of her own. When Charlene’s cousin Randy called, he started the conversation by asking if she was sitting down.
“My first thought naturally was, “Who died?” Charlene said.


Randy quickly explained that he’d tested with 23andMe, gave her a short description of DNA testing for ancestry and said he told Charlene that when he tested he’d connected not just to third and fourth cousins but to a single first cousin, who he didn’t know. He tried to explain how overlapping genetic segments are used to calculate “relatedness.” That the closer a relation the longer the overlapping segments. Charlene wasn’t following all of what he was saying until he got to the punch line.
You’ve got an older sister Charlene, he told her.
She said she was thankful that she was sitting down.
Charlene then talked to her brother. Randy helped connect them to Tricia and after exchanging messages, photos and family details, it was clear that they were indeed siblings.
“I’d always wanted a sister,” Charlene said.


Around Christmas time 2013 Tricia flew to San Diego where her half brother lived and her biological father was buried. She met him and Charlene. They spent the holidays together. They visited their father’s grave. They bonded. They learned of some uncanny shared family traits – an interest in painting, the sea and oddly dragonflies.
For Tricia the connection to family couldn’t have happened at a better time. Over the last few years she’d endured some difficult health problems and a divorce.
Now she feels blessed and finds herself, &#8220;smiling like a Cheshire cat all day long.&#8221;
She recently spent a week in Texas with Charlene and her family.


“Life is good thanks to 23andMe,” she said.
23andMe provides genetic testing services for informational purposes; your results may or may not help you to search for or identify relatives or family members.

A Siblings Story From 23andMe

Leslie grew up with a family secret – somewhere out there she had a big brother named Michael, her father’s illegitimate son from before he married her mother.
<div id="attachment_20604" style="width: 300px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20604" class="size-medium wp-image-20604" alt="John Lesley Scott, Jr." src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/John-Leslie-Scott-copy-290x300.jpg" width="290" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/John-Leslie-Scott-copy-290x300.jpg 290w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/John-Leslie-Scott-copy.jpg 697w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px" />John Lesley Scott, Jr.</div>
As a child, Leslie made this mysterious brother her imaginary friend. And as she grew older, she became determined that one day, she would find Michael.
Meanwhile, in another part of the country, Michael had struggles of his own.
The man he thought was his father left the family when he was still a baby and married a woman he was having an affair with. Michael grew up fatherless and wondering why.
He had his doubts about the man he thought was his biological father. Then in the early 1990s, as the man he thought was his dad lay dying of cancer, Michael asked him if he was really his father. He didn’t know, so Michael asked him to take a DNA test, even though it upset many people in his family. Michael said he had to know whether the man who left him and his mother, was really his father. It turned out he wasn’t.
“I was glad to know,” he said, “but it left unanswered the question of who was.”
<h6>
Searching for Scotty</h6>

It took years of search by both Michael and Leslie and some help from 23andMe to finally answer those questions.
Back when he first learned the man he thought was his father, wasn’t, Michael went to his mother for answers, but she was little help and even tried to stop him from looking. Although Michael had a name on his birth certificate – the surname Scott – his mother had told him that it was just a friend named “Scotty.”
He took what she said at face value, but in retrospect, Michael admits it was obvious she was hiding the truth.
“People don’t casually put their names on birth certificates.”


Michael tried everything to figure out the mystery, but at some point, he said he gave up. He thought he might simply have to accept that he might never find his father.

“I wasn’t at peace with it, but I sort of had to come to terms with it,” he says.

<h6>Houston</h6>

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Michael someone was looking for him.
Leslie was hard at work. She’d found a birth certificate, which gave her a name – Michael Scott – and a birthplace – Houston, Texas.
So tried calling all the Michael Scotts in the phone book. She hired private investigators but got no leads. When she heard about 23andMe, she decided to take a chance.
“I knew it was a long shot, but I was just hoping that he was in the system,” she says.


He wasn’t.
So Leslie finally confronted her father as he lay dying after a car accident.


“I told him what I knew,” she said.
Her father didn’t remember his illegitimate son’s birth date, but he knew Michael’s mother’s last name.
She also learned that her father had only been 23 when he had the affair with Michael’s mother, then a woman of 43. At the time, he said he’d promised her that he would “stay out of their lives,” so he never tried to find his son.
Armed with a name, Leslie then decided to search for Michael’s mother instead. What she found was her obituary. Among the survivors, it listed a Michael Dougan living in Seattle, Washington.
That was her brother she thought.
“I almost threw up,” Leslie said.

<h6>
Like A Freight Train</h6>

It turned out he was an illustrator, and she was able to find a phone number online. She didn’t wait, calling him right then and there.


“I should have tried to calm down a little,” she says, “but I was like a freight train, out of control.”

&nbsp;

There was no answer, so she left a breathless message.<iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="450" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/139432651&#038;auto_play=false&#038;hide_related=false&#038;visual=true" frameborder="no" scrolling="no"></iframe>
Michael had heard the phone ring, and didn’t pick up, but when he listened to the message and heard the words “John Lesly Scott,” the name on his birth certificate, his heart skipped a beat. He rushed to pick up.
“I went to grab the phone, and I’m trying to figure out how to answer it, and then the call gets cut off,” he said.


For an agonizing five minutes, he tried to figure out and then realized he could use automatic redial to call back.
Leslie picked up the line.
“I was shaking,” Leslie said. “We spoke for probably three hours.”

<h6>
Missing Pages</h6>

There was no doubt in her mind that she’d found her long lost brother.
But Michael was more skeptical.
“She said, ‘you’re my brother.’ And I said, well I think I might not be. I don’t want to get your hopes up because there’s really a chance that we might not be related, and I was always told you were not.’”
To confirm their kinship, they agreed that he should take a DNA test through 23andMe, where Leslie already had tested.
“I thought, at least I’m going to get a chance to prove another negative,” said Michael, who agreed to get tested.
While they waited for the results, Michael and Leslie talked a lot on the phone, they swapped photos and arranged live-video chats.


Leslie saw in Michael’s gestures and expressions her own father. She just knew, she said.
Michael wasn’t so sure.
“No matter how many pictures we showed each other, none of them could provide the smoking gun.”

<h6>Bingo</h6>

Then it was Leslie who started to lose faith.


“I freaked out,” she recalls. “I started crying and went to bed. I thought if this is not right, I’ve destroyed this guy’s life. I just dropped a nuclear bomb in the middle of his life.”


Michael finally got his results.


“And bingo, it was right there,” he said. “I realized this was it, that it doesn’t get any clearer than this.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20609" alt="Mike &#038; Leslie smiling" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling-300x219.jpg" width="300" height="219" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling-300x219.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mike-Leslie-smiling.jpg 697w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
It was 2 a.m. He texted Leslie, telling her to get up and go to the computer. They talked until 5 a.m.


“It’s like finding the other half of me,” Leslie says on reflection. “We have so much that makes us connect.”


He likes spicy food; so does she. He’s an illustrator; she’s artistic. She sings the blues; he plays blues guitar. She’s a chef; he loves to cook. She has olive skin; so does he.
Leslie had found her big brother, and Michael found a sister. They both answered questions that had eaten away at them all their lives.
Michael said up until the moment the connection was confirmed by 23andMe, his search for his father had been like an unfinished mystery novel.
“You get all the way to the end and the last five pages are missing,” he said.
Now he has the ending.


“It’s like finally finding the last five pages of that novel, and feeling, ‘So that’s how it turns out!’”

23andMe Helps Brother And Sister Connect

In the best children’s stories, the parents are done away with early on.
Mom or dad – sometimes both of them – are dead and gone even before the opening “once upon a time.”
<div id="attachment_20441" style="width: 204px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20441" class="size-medium wp-image-20441" alt="Cover of 1915 edition of J. M. Barrie's novel, first published in 1911, illustrated by F. D. Bedford." src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Peter_Pan_1915_cover-194x300.jpg" width="194" height="300" />Cover of 1915 edition of J. M. Barrie&#8217;s novel, first published in 1911, illustrated by F. D. Bedford.</div>
It’s a plot device that helps the reader make an emotional connection with the characters. It also starts the arch of the protagonist’s transformation from, say, a cinder-covered floor washer to a princess, or from puny sorcerer’s apprentice to King, or from a group of lost children into adventurers in Neverland.

<h6>Learning a Secret</h6>

As a successful children’s book editor, “Marcia Brady,” knows all about this storyteller’s tool. She’s even used it before. But what Marcia didn’t know was that the plot of her own life story had just such a twist.
In her early 30s, while Marcia was busy juggling her career and tending her young kids, she learned that the man who raised her wasn’t her biological father.
Her parents had used a sperm donor when they were told they couldn’t conceive on their own.
“I never even suspected it,” she said. “I look more like my dad than anyone else in my family.”
<h6>
 Donor Conceived Children</h6>

Marcia is not alone.
In a modern twist to the search for roots, donor kids like Marcia are turning to 23andMe for answers about their ancestry. For some the reasons to test often have less to do with finding a biological father and more to do with simply learning basic information about ancestry, medical history or finding out about whether they have siblings. They want information about themselves they can&#8217;t find any other way.
In Marcia’s case the revelation that her parents had turned to a donor to conceive, drove what turned into a years-long search into her background and family history. Even before coming to 23andMe, Marcia used the same kind of pluck and drive seen in the best characters of fiction to track down two half-sisters through a donor registry.
<h6>Turning to 23andMe</h6>
They confirmed their sisterhood with a DNA test. Then a few years later, when 23andme opened for business, she got tested.
<div id="attachment_20438" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20438" class="size-medium wp-image-20438" alt="Cynthia Lund, left, and Kathleen LaBounty." src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen-300x206.jpg" width="300" height="206" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen-300x206.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cy-Kathleen.jpg 648w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Cynthia Lund, left, and Kathleen LaBounty.</div>
When Marcia’s results arrived, she was shocked to find a match for a half-brother. Because he was six years younger, Marcia assumed he would be the biological child of the donor, which would lead her to the donor’s identity.
“He didn’t log into his inbox on 23andme for three months. Those were the longest three months of my life!” she said. “When he finally saw my letter he replied that same night. It turned out he was another offspring of the donor. He hadn’t known of anyone else in his situation and was really excited to learn more.”
<h6>
 Connecting with Sisters</h6>

They discovered they only lived two hours apart and hit it off from the moment they met. Two years later, a new half-sister joined their 23andme list.
“It’s very exciting!” Marcia says. “I can’t wait to see if anyone else is out there.”
Unlike those great old children’s books, Marcia’s story isn’t fraught with suffering. She loves her father, the man who raised her. In fact, she’s never told him that she now knows that he isn’t her biological father, because she didn’t want to somehow hurt his feelings.
That’s why she wants to remain anonymous.
But still the news that he wasn’t her father changed Marcia’s understanding of who she is and it raised many questions.
Who was her biological father? Would he want to know about his offspring and (ten!) grandchildren? What traits might he have passed onto her that she has in turn passed on to her own children?
She and her newfound half-siblings feel like a family now, although one with a big mystery at the core. A mystery they are determined to solve.
Marcia isn’t alone in trying to fill in the blanks in her family history. Just like adoptees have done before them, the children of parents who used “assisted reproduction” to conceive want to learn more about their biological ancestry.
But this push for more information sometimes pits the desire of the donors to remain anonymous against the rights of their children to know even the most basic facts about their background. 23andMe allows people to contact members with whom they may be related, but keep both parties identities private. It’s up to the individuals whether they want to respond.
This kind of search for ancestry has even woven its way into popular culture.
The plot of 2010’s “The Kids are All Right” and the 2013 comedy “The Delivery Man” revolve around the offspring of donors searching for their biological fathers. Also in 2013 was a documentary on MTV called “Generation Cryo” that followed a teenager’s quest to find her biological father and her half-siblings.
But for many donor kids testing is less about finding a biological father but simply learning basic information about ancestry, medical history or connecting with a biological sister or brother.
<h6>
Finding A Sister</h6>

Cynthia Lund, a 33 year-old massage therapist in Salt Lake City, said that when she signed up for 23andMe in the back of her mind she had the idea of possibly finding her biological father. But for Cynthia, who knew since her 14th birthday that she’d been conceived using a sperm donor, it was also simply a practical decision.
“I had no family health history for one side, and I wanted to know if there was anything I should be concerned about,” Cynthia said.
She subscribed to 23andMe, in part, because she wanted to know about any potential health risks. In the back of her mind she wondered if she’d learn something more about who her father was.
Instead, she found her half-sister.
“I was playing with the site’s Relative Finder when I noticed a link to ‘view your close relatives,’” Cynthia said. “There was a disclaimer that said something like ‘are you sure you want to know’ and my heart started racing, of course I want to know.”
It was overwhelming, she said. She was crying and “freaking out.”
“As soon as I composed myself I started typing a message,” she said. “It probably took me an hour. I checked every five minutes for the next several days until I finally heard back.”
It took a little over two weeks before her half-sister saw the message. Then it was her turn to “freak out,” Cynthia said.

“She and her mom freaked out just like me and my mom did,” she said.
She responded to the email and the two women, who are about two years apart, finally talked on the phone. They spent several hours sharing their life stories with each other, finding that they had more than just DNA in common, but that they had some similar interests and personality traits. A few weeks later, Cynthia took a flight from her home in Utah to see her newly found sister in San Diego.
“It’s ridiculous how much alike we are,” she said. “We definitely pass for full siblings. We look SO much alike!”
Both Cynthia and her sister were raised as a single child, so finding a sister was both exciting and a little surreal for them both.
Since their first meeting, the two have become very close. They went together to Italy for a 10-day vacation, and they now are visiting each other pretty regularly. Cynthia said they’re either exchanging phone calls, texts or emails almost daily.
“It’s so great having a biological sibling, especially when I hadn’t had that experience for my first 30 years,” she said.
“We’re definitely family! “
While Cynthia is still interested in learning about her donor dad if possible, that’s not something that her half-sister is focused on.
“I don’t want anything from him, I just want to see what he looks like and help me understand family medical history,” she said.
“It’s hard to explain but I only have this half picture of myself. 23andMe is perfect service for anyone like me who has this sort of black hole in their history and wants to know more about themselves.”
<h6>
Still Searching</h6>

Kathleen LaBounty, another donor child searching for information about her biological father, has been searching for years. Oprah and National Public Radio featured her six-year search for her biological roots and her advocacy on behalf of the donor children.
In her Herculean search she’s sent more than 600 letters to prospective fathers, all went to the same medical school in Texas from which donors were used at the fertility clinic her mother used to conceive.
A well-grounded and happy child, Kathleen said that when she was 8 years old her mother told her she’d been conceived with the help of a donor.
The first thing Kathleen did was run downstairs and hug her father, saying she felt so much love for him for making her his own.
The revelation also helped her understand some of the most obvious differences between her and members of her family. She’s short and skinny. They’re tall and burly.
“In family photos I don’t blend in well,” she said.
<h6>
 Family History</h6>

Her search for more information about her ancestry has taken on more import in part because she now has children of her own. She wants to know about her family medical history. Recently she joined 23andMe. She learned that she has Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Raised as an agnostic but one who attended a Baptist school, this was news to her.
Many of her closest matches in 23andMe’s Relative Finder are from Russia. She connected with a third cousin, who lived just ten minutes from her home.
“He looks like Ben Stiller,” she said.
She’s been able to communicate with other distant relatives connected through 23andMe’s DNA Relative tool, which she said has helped her get a better picture of the paternal side of her ancestry.
She’s also recommended 23andMe to others who, like her, we&#8217;re looking for family. Two of those who she recommended the service to, turned out to be half-sisters, she said.
“I would love it if close relatives would eventually submit their DNA and I could connect through 23andMe, but if it never happens that’s OK at least now I know my heritage,” Kathleen said.

Lost Girls

Thank your lucky clovers because almost everyone in the 23andMe database is connected to someone who is Irish, and plenty of others have at least a wee bit of Irish ancestry.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-20593 size-medium" title="Irish Ancestry" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Kiss-Me-Im-Irish-300x300.jpeg" alt="Kiss Me I'm Irish" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Kiss-Me-Im-Irish-300x300.jpeg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Kiss-Me-Im-Irish-150x150.jpeg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Kiss-Me-Im-Irish-768x768.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Kiss-Me-Im-Irish-880x880.jpeg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Kiss-Me-Im-Irish-271x271.jpeg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Kiss-Me-Im-Irish-372x372.jpeg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Kiss-Me-Im-Irish-574x574.jpeg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Kiss-Me-Im-Irish.jpeg 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, 23andMe researchers looked at the aggregated and anonymous data of our customers to determine just how many had a connection, even if it was a small one, to the Emerald Isle.
What we found out was that about 87 percent of our more than 600,000 customers have at least a tiny amount of ancestry that is shared with someone of confirmed Irish descent. This doesn’t mean they have Irish ancestry, but that they share ancestry with someone who is Irish. We can do this by looking at DNA segments of a certain length that are shared with people of with confirmed Irish heritage.
For comparison’s sake in the US population about 11 percent of people report that they have Irish ancestry, according to the US Census. Boston has the highest concentration among U.S. cities with more than 20 percent listing themselves as Irish American. The total US population of more than 34 million people who report being Irish American dwarfs the 4.6 million people living in Ireland today. The total population of Ireland makes up only a very small fraction of all the people in the world today with Irish ancestry.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-20611 size-medium" src="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Countries-of-Origin_Ireland-copy-300x203.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="203" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Countries-of-Origin_Ireland-copy-300x203.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Countries-of-Origin_Ireland-copy-768x519.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Countries-of-Origin_Ireland-copy-1024x692.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Countries-of-Origin_Ireland-copy-880x594.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Countries-of-Origin_Ireland-copy-1180x797.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Countries-of-Origin_Ireland-copy.jpg 1704w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Just in case you’re calling “blarney” on 23andMe’s estimates, it’s important to note a few things about how we derived our percentage. Because our researchers are looking at DNA segments that are very small – in this case about 7 centimorgans – that probably equates to a common ancestor with someone who is Irish within the last 10 to 12 generations. That’s way, way back.
Although our <a href="https://www.23andme.org/blog/articles/23andme-makes-more-improvements-to-ancestry-features" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ancestry Composition</a> tool can tell you what percentage of your DNA comes from populations around the world, breaking down the Asian, African or European ancestry. It also can give you finer detail, but the overlapping nature of DNA means that it groups Irish and British ancestry together. To get a better idea of Irish ancestry, customers can look at our Countries of Ancestry tool. This can show a customer DNA they have in common with other people who have confirmed ancestry from various countries, including Ireland. Our researchers used aggregated and anonymous data from all of our customers to determine what the percentage of customers who have shared segments of DNA with people who have confirmed Irish ancestry.
Ultimately we think the numbers mean you don&#8217;t need to to be Irish to be connected to someone who is.

23andEire

In the early 1990s when he was on the cusp of turning 50, Paul Dodds didn’t have a midlife crisis, he had a midlife surprise.
Paul learned that the man he thought was his father wasn’t.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-20446" alt="Paul Dodds - Young Man" src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Paul-Dodds-Young-Man-262x300.jpg" width="262" height="300" />
“It kind of made sense because although he was always there, he never bothered with me or my brother (he wasn’t his father either),” said Paul, about his brother who is two years older.
<h6>Searching with 23andMe</h6>
Although he’d never been very close to his dad, it never occurred to him that there might be a reason for that because as he said, “I never knew anything different.”
But the revelation propelled Paul on a two-decade-long search to find his biological father, a quest that only ended after 23andMe helped him find a half-sister and his father’s name. Now he wants to tell people about it.
“I would like to pass on the good things that have happened to me through 23andMe,” Paul said.
<h6>The War</h6>
His story starts in Wales just after the end of the Second World War. Although he didn’t know it, Paul, it turns out, was one of tens of thousands so-called “War Babies,” the offspring of liaisons between American servicemen stationed overseas during the war.
<div id="attachment_20447" style="width: 213px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20447" class="size-medium wp-image-20447" alt="The photo of the man Paul wrongly thought was his father. " src="https://www.23andme.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Paul-Dodds-4-203x300.jpg" width="203" height="300" />The photo of the man Paul wrongly thought was his father.</div>
After he was born, Paul’s mother married a sailor with the UK Merchant Navy named Len. But unbeknownst to Paul – or Paul’s older brother – Len couldn’t have children. The family lived in Cardiff. In 1968 Paul immigrated to Canada where his father had moved after leaving his mom.
“He met me at the train and spent a day with me then that was about it, said Paul, who worked as a steel fabricator.
<h6>A Surprise</h6>
More than 20 years later, doctors contacted Paul about his dad, who had died from very rare cancer. The doctors wanted to know a little bit more about his father’s life and the family’s health history. As Paul scrambled to find out whether it ran in the family, he got a jolt when talking to one of his uncles in England.
“I called my uncle in Newcastle, and when I started asking questions, he immediately said, ‘Paul, Len is not your father,’” he said. “That is how I found out.”
<h6>The Search Begins</h6>
So Paul started looking for the identity of his biological father. He also learned that he and his brother were really half-siblings so he started searching for his brother’s father as well.
“Part of the reason it became so important to find him is that it was deliberately hidden from me,” he said.
His mother gave him false leads, at one point telling Paul that his father had died when the ship he was on sunk. At other times she was simply evasive. He wasn’t sure why perhaps she didn’t know herself, Paul said.
<h6>An Old Photo</h6>
But there were two bits of information that his mother gave him that turned out to be true. His mom once told Paul he had “Jewish blood.” She’d also told Paul that his biological father had known his stepfather during the war when his stepfather had been in the British merchant navy.
But at the time none of that information helped Paul. Instead, he spent years chasing down false leads, and that went on even after his mother died. Soon after she passed away, one of Paul’s daughter’s found an old photograph of a man in a U.S. Army uniform.
<h6>Searching Records</h6>
Paul believed at the time that the man in the photo might have been his father, so he spent years figuring out the unit the man served with by looking at the insignias and ribbons on the uniform. He then tried to cross-reference that with units stationed in the area at the time of his conception. Then he winnowed down names until he thought he had the right man. There had been writing on the back of the photo, which he had analyzed. But all of that painstaking work, which included searching military records in Britain and the United States, all came to naught.
<h6>Turning to DNA</h6>
It wasn’t until last year that Paul finally got a break when he tested with 23andMe. First, he got a DNA Relative match with a first cousin, who helped him track down a woman, who they believed was his half-sister. She recently tested with 23andMe.
Both Paul and his half-sister were ecstatic about finding the connection.
Paul learned his father, Leon Rossien, had been a merchant marine who served on the USS Cristobal, a troopship. Leon was in port around VE Day in May of 1945. Paul believes he may have been conceived during the celebrations around the end of the war.
His sister filled him in on his father’s life. After the war, his biological father had been a jeweler. His father, who died in 1999 not long after Paul started looking for him, also liked to bet on horses and was married four times. Paul learned he had two other half-sisters, who passed away.
“I’ve seen some photos of him and there are some resemblances,” said Paul. “The same long chin and eyebrows.”
He hasn’t yet met his half-sister in person, but they’ve spoken several times on the phone.
“She’s excited by this,” he said.
As for Paul, he has felt a whole range of emotions.
“All these things have fallen into place at last,” he said. “Good things are happening. Thank you 23 and me.”

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