DNA Tests

Ancestry and genealogy are fascinating subjects.  Many people want to know their ancestry.  Many undergo DNA tests to confirm what they know.  Sometimes there are surprises with shock and disbelief.

Tests show father is not biological father.  Husband and wife are related as first cousins or some other way.

One man at 73 found out he was conceived by artificial insemination. He had many half-siblings.

Kara Rubinstein Deyerin was raised as biracial.  Her father Kenny was Black. Her mother Joey was White.  They were married for a few months.  At 43 Kara had a test.  It showed she was fully white.  Half of DNA was Ashkenazi Jew. Joey had one night stand with a Jewish businessman. Two weeks later she had sex with Kenny and thought Kara was Kenny’s daughter.

Dani Shapiro thought her parents were Ashkenazi Jew.  Her father Paul Shapiro died when she was 23.  Years later test revealed that her father was not Ashkenazi Jew.  Paul Shapiro was not her biological father.   She found her father was a retired physician and medical ethicist.

In one case, husband and wife found they were first cousins.  They had a 2-year-old son. Husband’s mother had an affair with wife’s uncle.

Liane Kupferbeg Carter found she and her husband are third cousins.

One husband found his pregnant wife was his half-sister.

It is good if people have DNA tests before marriage.  They can avoid marrying close relatives.  Sperm or egg donations can result in a person having many half-siblings.  Many times, doctors have used their sperm to make women pregnant without informing them.  In one town a doctor had impregnated 158 women.

Sometimes there are mix-ups in fertility clinics.  Mike Harvey and Jeanine had intrauterine insemination at a hospital in Ohio in 1991.  Next year their daughter Jessica was born.  Nearly 30 years later DNA test revealed Mike was not Jessica’s father.  When Jeanine was in the hospital another man was undergoing fertility treatment and his sperm was injected into Jeanine’s uterus.