Awesome - Woman That Takes DNA Test Uncovers Something She Didn't Want To Know About Her Husband
Liane Kupferberg Carter, like anyone sending a saliva sample to 23andMe, was eager to learn more about her heritage, but also fairly certain that she knew what to expect. Maybe her results would indicate a surprise bit of national heritage. But when Liane and her husband paged through their respective results, the two looked at each other in complete disbelief.
An Inspired Author
Liane Kupferberg Carter knows a thing or two about genetic malformations. She's an award-winning author who penned a touching memoir called Ketchup Is My Favorite Vegetable: A Family Grows Up With Autism. She owed that inspiration to her son.
A Hard Truth
As a young parent, she thought it was odd that her son, Mickey, wasn't speaking for the first few years of his life. After taking him for a comprehensive evaluation from a doctor, Liane learned a hard truth. Mickey suffered from autism.
Autism Awareness Advocate
Of course, like any loving parent, Liane refused to let her son's disability define him. Raising a child with autism certainly had its hurdles, but it also led Liane into the world of autism awareness.
Making A Name For Herself
She began attending lectures and soon carved out quite the name for herself, even speaking on panels about her experiences. But, none of her efforts were possible without immense help from her husband Marc.
38 Years Strong
Liane and Marc were married for 38 years, and their love grew stronger with every day that passed. As remarkable as their bond was, it was the story of how they met that truly had people floored.
The Pangs Of LOve
The two were both in their twenties on a Club Med vacation in the Bahamas when the pangs of Cupid's arrow struck. They quickly hit it off, and then soon realized they actually lived one block away from each other in Manhattan!
She Was The One
Once they returned back to the states, the two were inseparable. It only took Marc two weeks of dating to know Liane was the one, and he asked her to marry him underneath a vibrant sky of fireworks.
Starting A Life Together
Their relationship seemed like something straight out of a romance movie. They were two souls meant to meet on that vacation, and once they wed and settled down together, they started a family.
The Complete Smiling Package
They had two boys together, Jonathan and Mickey. Once Mickey was diagnosed with autism, the whole family came together to ensure he lived the most fulfilling life possible. The Carter family was the complete smiling package.
Taking The Genetic Plunge
For years, Liane was always curious about her genetic makeup, especially since she had a son with autism. So, she and Marc took the mysterious plunge into the world of genomic companies.
An Eager Swab
They opted for 23andMe, a reputable brand that helped thousands of people discover more about their ancestry. The couple swabbed their mouths and sent in the samples, eager to see what results they'd receive.
Hoping For More Similarities
Naturally, Liane and Marc couldn't wait to get the tests back. As close as they were, they hoped to find out even more similarities, if possible. However, when the results finally came in, the couple was stunned.
Startling Results
They stared at the documents in disbelief. According to 23andMe, Liane and Marc were third cousins! No one expected this kind of a revelation, especially their son Jonathan, who suggested the test weeks earlier.
Taking It In Stride
Their 30-year-old son was completely unsure of how to react to the startling news. "I don’t know how I feel about this. Do I need to get genetic counseling?" Jonathan asked. However, Liana and her husband took it all in stride.
"You're My Cousin-Husband"
Whereas some couples might not handle the news well, this couple found the humor! Liane would say, "You’re my cousin-husband," to which Marc would always jokingly reply, "Better than being a sister-wife." Liane also shared the news on Facebook.
Facebook Responds
She created the hashtag #OurForbiddenLove, and within just a few hours her friends were liking the post and leaving baffled comments like, "No freakin’ way!" and "How is that possible?" Some even drew interesting parallels.
Drawing Parallels To Royalty
One person reminded them their distant-cousin relationship was just like the those of the Roosevelts, or better yet, Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II! Not long after breaking the news, Liane's friend sent her a fascinating article shedding light on the situation.
Stirring Up More Excitement
Both partners were of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, an ethnic group that came about during the Middle Ages. Members rarely married outside of the culture, which meant descendants shared more DNA than average. The article stirred up even more excited wonderment in the couple.
Basking In The Revelation
Liane and Marc are still unsure whether or not they actually share a set of great-great-grandparents, but they bask in the crazy 23andMe revelation every day. However, not every genetic discovery made through these companies is something to brag about.
Family Problems
Liane and her husband sure didn't envy Denice Juneski. All her life, the 72-year-old never fit in with her family. She was the only blonde in a brood of brunettes and redheads, and found she wasn't in the same ballpark as the rest of them when it came to athleticism.
DNA Testing
Yet, when she took a 23andMe ancestry test, it still surprised her she shared absolutely zero in common with any member of her family. This was a mistake, she knew, so she ordered another DNA kit.
Hair Colors
The results were the same. That left her with only one conclusion: "Either 23andMe made a mistake" she thought to herself, thinking of her blonde hair and her family's red and brunette tops. Or...
A Suggested Relative
"Or I was switched at birth," she concluded. In her suggested list of relatives was a younger woman she'd never heard of; she reached out to the young woman, who then compelled her 72-year-old aunt, Linda Jourdeans, below, to take a test.
A Possible Switch
Like Denice, Linda didn't look like her family — she was the only redhead — and, also like Denice, she'd been born in 1945 at the same hospital in Minnesota... at the same time. When her DNA kit arrived, she was eager for answers.
The Shocking Truth
Sure enough, her test confirmed Denice's suspicions: the two had been switched at birth! For decades, they'd been living with the others' true family. "It's a crazy thing," Denice said. "People just automatically assume they got the right family."
Family Reunions
Bonded by the bizarre mishap, the 72-year-olds cultivated a strong friendship. They threw a family reunion that included both their families! Unbelievably, familial revelations are not so few and far between with 23andMe.
Christmas Presents
Reddit user Snorkels721 gave his mom, dad, brother, and two sisters DNA kits for Christmas. He thought it would be neat for all of them to learn a little more about their heritage.
Mom Loses It
As soon as the family opened their presents, however, mom freaked out. "Don't use those," she warned the kids. "They're packed with dangerous chemicals." Eyebrows raised, the kids explained there were no chemicals involved.
Another Suggestion
Mom accepted this, but soon voiced another objection: why should the whole family take the test? Why not have just one kid spit into the vial — everyone's results would be similar, after all — and they could re-sell the other kits.
Parents Shouting
Why, the kids wondered, was mom so opposed to the DNA tests? They had their answer when mom and dad marched downstairs and started arguing, leaving the kids bewildered upstairs. Had a family secret been uncovered?
Buried Secrets
The DNA kit gifts forced a hard truth out into the open: mom had married a man and had one kid — the eldest sister. That man, however, passed away shortly thereafter. Mom had never said a word — not even to sis.
Their Real Father
The man the kids all called dad was actually a close friend that helped mom through that dark time in her. He fell in love with her, the two married and had the rest of the family.
Out in the Open
For the first time ever, thanks to some prodding from the DNA kits, mom shared her emotional story — and her first husband — with the kids. Oddly, gifted 23andMe kits have made impacts across the world...
Recovering the Past
After her biological parents were killed in a car accident, Jenelle Rodriguez was taken in by an adoptive family in Arizona. Three decades later, at age 36, she bought a DNA kit, hoping to track down some family members after hers were so cruelly taken from her.
A Common Link
Meanwhile, not too far away in Fullerton, California, Rachel Saucedo sent out her own 23andMe kit, hoping, like Jenelle, to find family. Her results suggested she might be related to one Jenelle Rodriguez. She'd never heard the name.
Frank's Story
So she called up her uncle, Frank Granados, and asked some questions about his life story. Once he finished, Rachel, left, uttered six words he never thought he would hear.
Long-Lost Daughter
"I think I found your daughter," she told him! As it turned out, Frank had given up a baby for adoption when he was just a teenager. To soothe any sense of abandonment, Jenelle's adoptive parents told her he'd died.
Angry Questioning
Of course, after finding out her birth father was alive, Jenelle called him, burning with a thousand questions. Would he be interested in talking to her? Why had he never sought her out?
Meeting Up
"Once I asked him questions that I had in my heart and my mind my whole life and wanted to know the truth from his side," Jenelle said, "I could feel deep in my heart that he wasn’t lying to me." So the two agreed to meet.
True Love
"I could feel his true love," Jenelle said of their meeting. It was so natural. It was like he was only gone for a second, like he went on vacation or something."
The two began talking every single day and shared Thanksgiving and a trip to Knott's Berry Farm together later that year. Yep, these DNA test kits have far-reaching effects — good and bad.
Another reddit user bought a DNA test kit for herself and her dad. Mom, who was more or less disinterested in her family heritage, was left in the dark about father and daughter's walk with 23andMe.
When the duo's results returned, something didn't add up. The reddit user possessed Scandinavian, French, and German ancestry; British ancestors, however, comprised most of dad's history.
Strangest of all was that the reddit user didn't show up as a possible relative for dad, and dad didn't show up as a relative for the redditor. Stranger still, the redditor did have a father match with someone she'd never heard of!
That was how this redditor found herself the centerpiece of a messy argument between mom and dad, where mom admitted that she'd had an affair. Mom and dad divorced, and dad wondered if their other children were his. Whoops!
DNA kits have effects outside of families, too. A redditor with the username Zambookster was sick. For over six years, she visited cardiologists, endocrinologists, and GIs, trying to figure out why she suffered endless joint pain and fatigue.
On Black Friday, because they were 50 percent off, she ordered an ancestry kit online. Finding some distant family members, she thought, could at least add an interesting development to her suffering.
Her results, however, didn't reveal a lost dad or a distant cousin. Rather, the kit "flagged [her] as being a homogenous variant for HFE-related Hereditary Hemochromatosis, a hereditary disease where iron builds up in your organs over time."
A quick blood test later revealed the truth: 23andMe had literally saved her life. Had she carried on without the blood test, her organs would've eventually failed. The 23andMe miracles continue to pile up!
Adopted as a baby, another woman, for instance, knew nothing about her real family, only that her biological mom had been young and unable to raise a baby. Wanting to know more about her past, she ordered an ancestry kit.
The results she revealed more than she'd hoped for: just one state away, she had an identical twin sister! The two connected via social media, and despite their distance, worked to form a real kinship.
This 40-year-old married woman's life was shaken in a different sort of way. She took a 23andMe test and was perplexed by the results: under possible DNA relatives was a son she definitely hadn't given birth to.
After wracking her brain, however, she remembered donating her eggs to help pay for her college. So she looked up the name listed as her son on Facebook.
The 20-year-old man she found looked shockingly like her! The theory that he was born from her eggs became even stronger when she learned he lived in the same city she donated them, not far from the college she went to so long ago.
Because she had a common last name, however, it was tough to know for certain that he was truly born from her eggs. Still, knowing she contributed to a life filled her with pride. DNA test kits have revealed egg donors everywhere — and other donors, too...
Two young women — and best friends — were in agreement: they both wanted kids. The first woman, however, didn't want to get married; the second, a gay woman, wasn't interested in men. So they concocted a scheme.
They would use a sperm donor — the same sperm donor — so that their kids would technically be half-sisters. The two followed through with their plan, but years later, the first woman drifted from the initial scheme.
She fell in in love and married a man! For years, she raised her daughter to believe her half-sister was merely a good friend and that the man she called dad was her biological father.
Well, that daughter eventually took a 23andMe test, and, wouldn't you know it, discovered the truth: her best friend was her sister. She was horrified by this news.
"[My] father is not the man who raised me," she wrote on reddit. "My mom told me that they were planning on telling me eventually, but I sincerely doubt that's the case. Such selfish people. I hate my mom and 'dad' for lying to me."
Reddit user _muff1n_ had a lot in common with her boyfriend. "We both come from Mexican-born parents from different states (Durango, Nayarit, Zacatecas, and Guanajuato)," she wrote on the site.
After buying a 23andMe kit, however, she found out they had more in common than they'd thought – they shared .27 percent of their DNA and were fourth cousins! "Now we’re wondering what sides of our families are related," she said.
An Italian family gathered for the annual Thanksgiving meal. Odds are high there was a lot of hand waving, loud talking, a spot at the table for a few dozen people, and a lot of love — it's the Italian way.
But then, Twitter user queenozymandias's uncle walked in with some news. He'd bought a DNA test kit and just found out they were all Swiss! But are DNA test kits identical across family members? For answers, we turn to The Dahm sisters...
The Dahm sisters are indistinguishable from one another. Nicole, Erica, and Jaclyn were born identical triplets in December 1977. As babies, their parents couldn't tell them apart.
In fact, that's why each was branded with a unique tattoo at birth: Nicole, born first, was given one dot on her butt; Erica dons two dots for having been born second; and Jaclyn, out third, went tattoo-less.
As the three grew older, they navigated the world of modeling together, the first ever triplets featured in a Playboy Magazine centerfold. Only 21, the world marveled at their physical similarities.
But just how similar were they? Well, triplets occur when a single fertilized zygote splits into three identical portions in the womb. So, the Dahm sisters should be identical down to their DNA...right?
Well in 2017, an investigative reporter at Inside Edition, Lisa Guerrero, below, devised an experiment to find out. She gave the triplets each two home DNA tests.
The DNA tests, supplied from the popular ancestry site 23andMe, worked like this: the triplets surrendered spit, which was then shipped to the parent company. There, professionals extracted DNA cells from the saliva.
Then, 23andMe compared the extracted DNA to the DNA of over 10,000 people with known ancestries. Experts then found the regional source and ancestry of the triplets' genomes...
Once the samples were analyzed, Lisa discussed the results with Nicole, Erica, and Jaclyn on the set of The Doctors, a daytime talk show hosted by Doctors Travis Stork, Andrew Ordon, Nita Landry, and Sonia Batra.
Before diving into the results, Dr. Stork, left, asked the triplets, "how would you feel if your ancestry was different?" Nicole answered...
"I don't know how that could happen," she said. "We're one egg that split, and we all came out of our mother, so maybe a little different DNA, but we still have the same ancestry, right?"
The first of the two tests, which looked purely at their DNA and not their ancestry, confirmed the obvious: the sisters were indeed triplets. The second test, though, had more surprising results.
Lisa revealed the results of the second test: "Nicole" she said, "you're 18 percent British and Irish. Erica, you're 15 percent British and Irish." But Jaclyn?
Jaclyn, left, was 19 percent British and Irish! Small discrepancies, sure, but discrepancies nonetheless. Still, the test results had further surprises in store for the sisters...
Nicole had about 11 percent French and German ancestry while her sisters had about twice as much; meanwhile, Nicole was 11.4 percent Scandinavian, while her sisters were just 7.4 percent. But how?
The sisters were shocked. After all, they can unlock each others' phones with their identical fingerprints. But 23andMe responded to the DNA revelation.
Their reports change based on a user's "confidence levels," meaning "the lower confidence levels allow you to take a more speculative look at your ancestry breakdown," a spokesperson said. In other words?
If the triplets submitted their tests with "low confidence levels," then, "you are going to throw off the comparisons," the spokesperson said. "Even when [the triplets] did that, there wasn't that great of a difference." Case closed?
Back on the set of The Doctors, Lisa pitched a question to Dr. Travis: "we found a few discrepancies," she said. "What does that say to you? What is your takeaway from these tests?"
Dr. Travis gave the diplomatic answer: "I'm not a geneticist," he said. "But I love the idea of these at-home tests for fun...we're not to a place yet where you can just spit in a cup and have every single answer that you're looking for."
We can't know for sure how accurate the triplets' submitted tests were, but nonetheless, these curious results have left some people thinking hard about genes — and wondering what the sisters' kid's ancestry would look like!
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