DNA results: lied to about origins by both parents

[Greenwitchart]

I did a DNA test with ancestry because I suspected as an adult that both my parents had not been honest about their family background.

I already knew my mother had hidden the fact that she was an illegitimate child as my grand father was married and had another family when she was born. She always told me with a straight face that the reason she did not have her father surname was a mistake at the registry office...

Then the DNA test confirmed the man who my father claimed was his father was not. It also revealed that alongside my Italian, English, Scottish and German DNA I also have a 23% DNA from a Maghreb country so that confirms as well the fact that he is a product of an affair my grand mother had.

This means I have a random surname and relatives on both sides I have never met and a different heritage/ethnic background I was never made aware of and could not enjoy or learn about.

It confirms my suspicion but I am also angry. My father is dead and I have no contact with my mother so there won't be any big showdown. But it still leaves me with some turmoil.

I wonder if anyone else has gone through similar and how you coped with this.

Maybe your dad didn’t know the true facts.

Maybe your mum was quite happy with the man who was her ‘dad’

It’s neither of your parents’ faults what their parents did

Why do you assume your father knew this?

I think part of learning to cope with this news will be to unpack why you are quite so angry about it. It is fine that you are angry, but not everybody would be. What is your anger telling you about your relationships with your family? I’d start there, maybe be a counsellor.

maybe your dad didn’t know. also your paternal grandmother could have been raped, you don’t know the circumstances. might not be a reason to be angry.

This

your reaction is quite strange tbh - you are putting a lot of store in biology when you talk about having family you’ve never met etc

this suggests you have had an unhappy childhood and this is weighing you down - I think you need to accept your past so you can move on with your future

as a counter, I would not judge my parents for the circumstance of their birth and if they never spoke about it I would accept that they have a good reason for not doing so.

Your parents being the result of affairs at a time when it was far less acceptable will have shaped their lives. Giving you the palatable version wasn’t some great crime.

Each of your parents will have had a complex emotional reaction to their own understanding of their identity, which they will have felt enormous cultural pressure not to explore because of the cultural taboos about sex outside of marriage. Their decision not to explain their own journey to their child is clearly upsetting to you but if they perceived you might (as does seem to be the case) not be able to empathise with the different contexts in which each of your parents and grandparents made these decisions, they might have felt they couldn't cope with the fallout they would get from you. In our current cultural understanding, we elevate being able to understand our genetic identity and heritage, but a few decades ago this was completely different, and it was totally nornal and expected that parents without a genetic link to their child would keep this information secret. (Compare to the context of adoption, where it used to be that breaking the news "you are adopted" was something that might be planned for when a child reaches adulthood whereas nowadays that simply doesn't happen, and even children who don't remember their birth parents grow up knowing an age-appropriate amount of their story).

In my own family, there is an unspoken general suspicion that my dad probably isn't the genetic child of my grandfather. My grandparents got married at startlingky short notice during WW2 and my dad was born 7 months later and has a totally different physique to his father and brothers. However everyone involved loves everyone else so deeply and accepts one another and has no wish to investigate the scientific facts because the bonds of family love are stronger than such facts. All my grandparents are dead now, but the closest I ever got to anyone actually admitting what happened was the one time my grandmother said to me something like "The bombs were falling and it was the end of the world, we didn't know if we'd be alive in a month and we did all sorts of things we wouldn't have done if there hadn't been a war"

I find your reaction to this quite strange.
You’re angry about…? You have no idea of the reasons behind any secrecy (if there was any) as your parents might not even know the truth.
You assume it’s all sordid and affairs but it could have been assault/coerced?
I’d be intrigued sure but… angry?

I’m currently feeding my 6 month-old baby and I’m now wondering if my future grandchild will be randomly angry with me one day.

My Grandad was born illegitimately in the 1920s, the shame that he carried over his parents' actions was awful. He wouldn't talk about it and only allowed any research into family history after his death in his 80s. He lived his whole life curious about his parents but could never ask.

He was raised by a local family who knew his Mum as she couldn't cope with a baby and she was most likely raped. He therefore had a different surname to his parents and his siblings. It was changed to their name when he started school, not legally, just called their name.

I don't think you are taking the social landscape into consideration when you talk so angrily. This is not something you would openly admit. Women could only get a bank account in their own name without needing authorisation from either their husband or Father consenting in 1975.

Parents are not obliged to share their background history. They may not know all of it themselves. The only absolute reason for doing so would be a serious genetic medical condition that would be beneficial for descendants to know about. Otherwise they can share much or little as they wish/are comfortable with.

If this matters greatly to you, then you are the first generation to have DNA results and (for some countries), online access to birth/death/marriage records.

Surely you don’t have a random surname, it’s either your mum or your dad’s surname?

I think you’d have right to be angry if you’d been lied to about your own parents, but I think any further back than that you don’t really have the grounds to be angry. I think you might be displacing feelings you have about your family into this result (eg the fact that your dad is dead and NC with your mum). You should look into getting some counselling to untangle your emotions.

When DH did his DNA it confirmed somthing we suspected - that his Grandfather was a rapist rather than the lovely kind man we all knew and loved
DH said it made no difference, his Grandad was his Grandad and he never told anyone else in the family what we had found out.
Family isn't just DNA OP

This. Things were very different in the past. If you found yourself pregnant and not married to the father you'd stay with/ find a man double quick who would bea father. If that man knew and accepted the child and was kind that was a huge bonus . Don't blame anyone for what went on in the past, particularly if those people were children .

How I loathe the term 'illegitimate child' It loads blame on an innocent head.

Some years ago, the Law Society proposed changing this wording into a far more accurate 'child of illegitimate parents'.

How many of us can put hand on heart and say we never made a mistake, especially in terms of sex, which leads me to think 'there but for the grace of God go I' for many of us.

Maybe your parents were lied to themselves and told you what they believe to be true. Maybe they was too ashamed to to tell anyone, there was alot of stigma around being illegitimate/products of affairs. It wasn't uncommon to lie about these things and cover things up to avoid shame from family, friends and community.

Why are you angry? It's nothing to do with you. It's not like they lied to you about who your parents are. Who their parents are and those relationships are their business, not yours.

You have quite a bizarre and disproportionate response to this

Im surprised you havent got some empathy with the confusion and anxeity and secrecy tht your mother in particular would have carried and perhaps your dad also although its not clear what he knew

I'm not sure why you're so angry. Is it the shock of finding out new information? Give yourself some time to sit with it and you may start to understand or accept your parents' choices. Everyone has secrets. Your parents themselves may have been lied to by their parents and weren't aware of the full truth. Life is complicated.

You said you already knew your mother was illegitimate. If she did know that, of course she hid it! There was significant shame about it, even 40 years ago. But she may not have known - I know someone who grew up thinking his grandparents were his parents, because his mother was young and didn't want to be trapped in marriage (which was her only option, aside from an illegal abortion). Also, FWIW, mistakes at the registry office were common, especially if you had a 'foreign' name.

Similarly, I don't think you can make assumptions about what your father did or didn't know about his own family history, though I understand it's upsetting you now don't have the opportunity to ask him.

Did they do the best they could as parents? Love you? Care for you? Raise you well? That's the important thing to hold onto.

Very few ordinary women had affairs back in those days. I’d have thought it far more likely that your grandma was raped. However, you’ll never know the truth. Regardless, your parents are the people who brought you up, not the sperm donor.

What does it matter if your mums parents weren’t married when she was born? My sister and BIL haven’t told their two sons that they weren’t married when the oldest son was conceived and she always pretends that they married 12 months earlier so if she got married in say 1971, she pretends they married in 1970. She even celebrated their golden wedding anniversary a year early. I only know the truth because my mum told me much later.

Her sons will discover the facts after their parents have died and I really hope they don’t make a silly fuss about it. It’s no big deal and you shouldn’t judge people who lived back then by today’s standards.

How did your DNA test come up with that information? Unless all your relatives have had a DNA test themselves you wouldn’t get matches relating to individuals from Ancestry.

Your DNA is a mix going back eons so I don’t think you can determine relationships unless they themselves have had their DNA analysed.

Agree with many of the posts here - you are assuming affairs when in the time your GM lived that would have been far less likely than rape or assault, especially where a mixed race child may have been the product. GM may have known nothing about the culture to expose you to and teach you about. Shame, fear, social factors could all explain why the Maghreb ancestral line was not disclosed - and, frankly, until commercial DNA testing had become available, it would not have been on 99% of people’s radars.

You seem to be very angry about your childhood. Knowing your DNA doesn’t explain your past familial relationships or experience, it just tells you a bit about your biological origins. As others have suggested, you need to separate your feelings about your family (via counselling) and explore your ethnic heritage yourself but with caution - especially bearing in mind that your Maghreb heritage may be steeped in rape/female oppression and thus any family you try to connect with may in any way fill the void you feel you have as a result of not having this knowledge.

This wouldn't make sense though..? The child being illegitimate meant no inheritance from the biological father and the mother's surname. The mother would often be affected socially but the parents weren't illegitimate.
It's unfortunate that historically it was a status that held shame, but you can't just brush off significant history.

I think there is much more going on here with your family relationships which might be why you feel angry ? My FIL is illegitimate . We have discovered a whole host of distant unknown relatives on ancestry - nobody is angry - it’s in the past .

I would actually flip this around and see it a different way. Your parents didn’t give you the best childhood by the sounds of it, but now you have discovered you actually have other family out there. Family who, treading carefully here, you have the opportunity to connect with.

My dad is dead and I am NC with my mum. I did Ancestry hoping it would tell me I had a different family than I did. Nope, they are in fact my family and there is no chance for building a relationship with a new one.

I think you need to process some of this stuff first, but then see this as an opportunity rather than a loss. Now you know and can do something about it.

Your reaction is quite extreme to situations outwith your parents control.
I think what explanations you have been given is exactly what they wanted to tell you, that is entirely their choice as it had no impact on you. It would be different if either of them weren’t your parents but that’s not the case here.
I would work out why this has bothered you so much and work on that