The most JAW-DROPPING family secrets exposed by at-home DNA tests – from an only child who discovered he had 30 siblings to woman whose dad was swapped a birth
- Two in ten Americans have taken mail-order DNA tests, according to YouGov
- Many are taking to social media to reveal their jaw-dropping family secrets such as that they have 30 siblings or even married a cousin
- Here Dailymail.com takes a look at the dark side of the trend as millions of Americans discover they’re not quite who they thought they were
By Helena Kelly For Dailymail.Com
Published: 12:49 EDT, 9 April 2023 | Updated: 12:53 EDT, 9 April 2023
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‘Rare condition meant I wasn’t related to the children I birthed’
Single mother Lydia Fairchild was 26, unemployed and looking for state support in 2002 when she was asked to take a DNA test to prove her family was all related.
But the results suggested Fairchild had no genetic link to the two children she had birthed – prompting alarm from social services.
‘I knew that I carried them, and I knew that I delivered them. There was no doubt in my mind,’ Fairchild, from Washington, said at the time.
She gave birth for a third time and again DNA tests said she was not related to the newborn – despite carrying it for nine months.
It later transpired the mismatch was due to an ultra-rare condition called ‘chimerism.’
It meant she had technically been a twin in the womb but the other embryo died early on meaning she ‘absorbed’ her sibling’s cells.
The condition meant she had two cell lines – with only one matching that of her children.
Her case was relayed in the 2006 documentary ‘The twin inside me.’
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Why would this poor woman have to “prove” that her children were “hers” to the Gooferment?
This sounds like the identical twins dilemma that TV and Movies like to dramatize.
Makes these DNA “quite revealing”; not always for the better.
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