Think my husband has a lovechild

[Claire14467]

I am in shock and I don’t know what to do. I have just been contacted by a young man who has done an ancestry.com DNA test. He says the site indicates that there is a parental match to my husband. I know we have done these so they have our DNA on the system but I must say my husband was not keen on it at all at the time.
I am absolutely in shock. He is at work right now and I don’t know how I will face him later. Could this be wrong? Could this man be lying to get money?
Has anyone had a similar experience and got to the bottom of this?! I’m literally shaking with worry and anger.

OP, of course he could be lying. People lie all the time for money or just for the "fun" of it. Please don't take it at face value yet.

Oh, OP, of course that is a shock.

But if possible I would try and remain as calm as possible while more questions are asked.
Did the young man give his name? His mother's name? Contact details?

It does seem very strange to do something as obviously difficult as tell you without speaking to your DH first.

It could be a mix up.

A mis-match / not 100% accurate

The son of your DH's unknown identical twin

A scam

A malicious act

Did anything about what he said ring true?

It seems odd to call someone in the middle of the day, too.

Was it on your landline?

I hope this turns out to be a false alarm, OP.

@VickyEadieofThigh

Unless the OP and her husband share a very, very unusual surname and the young man has done an online search for their address, i don't see how he could contact the OP. I'm on ancestry and it only gives me the names of people who share DNA with me (they've all been cousins several times removed or whatever it is and shared les than 1% DNA). It also tells me roughly where they are, e.g. country and in a few cases the town.

Unless their Facebook accounts show their relationship status as married and her husband has been dismissive of his son or has been warned he might be, so he's reached out to her for help instead

Are you sure its not somone trying to scam you

What a horrible shock. Hopefully he has taken the same of his parental match from the Ancestry person he matches with , done some research on social media and got the wrong person.
You’ll know if it is true by the match in your DH’s Ancestry account if it is, it will be within a certain cM range which is the unit of measurement and Ancestry say it is a paternal match. As others said it could be he was a sperm donor.

I am helping someone find their biological father so joined a couple oh Facebook groups. Unfortunately this sort of thing is not that uncommon.

So did he know who his Dad was? Did his mum ever tell him? Or had it come as a shock to him too?

It was a bit much for this man to contact you and not your dh. You kick the hornets nest when you do things like this.

I would check it all out very carefully and not jump to any conclusions.

Some people have a 10 year age range on their Ancestry profile and where they are from and sometimes a photo. It’s sometimes possible to find a fair amount of info from it.

Genuinely interested to why he would contact you and not your husband? And how did he know how to find you, his wife? Surely not much private information is given out on there?! I've never done it so wouldn't know.

I really want to do the dna testing. But I'm scared. I've never known my dad, I know who he is and where to find him so that's not the issue. But he was a bit of a womaniser I've heard and I'm not sure how finding potential siblings or relatives would affect me right now!

@crochetmonkey74

god another tedious deliberately obtuse bully. You know what she means- and she is distressed

Calm down. I apologised way back for the error of judgement. I'm not any of the things you called, I just made a bad call.

‘Lying to get money’?? How would that work? How would he know whether or not your husband has money?

If your DH had something to hide, surely he wouldn't have let you access his Ancestry account? Because surely that's the only way you'd have seen this email?
Did the guy know he was emailing you, or did he think he was emailing your DH?

This sounds like a con. How would he find the address out? There would be data protection issues.

Don't jump to conclusions

@steff13

You can get someone’s name and address off ancestry. After that it’s not hard to find anything else online.

Addresses are not listed on ancestry. And living relatives names are hidden. Marriage certificates, etc., are only available in ancestry if they're uploaded as public.

We’re clearly not on the same one then. I can see all my living relatives and their addresses. And yes, all public records are listed. I found it interesting nosing through my parents marriage certificates etc. I don’t even agree with the amount of info I was able to access as I came across old court records that would be extremely embarrassing for my (living!) dads family if it was common knowledge.

Just tell your husband what has happened and see what he says.

I really want to do the dna testing. But I'm scared. I've never known my dad, I know who he is and where to find him so that's not the issue. But he was a bit of a womaniser I've heard and I'm not sure how finding potential siblings or relatives would affect me right now!

@CA0932017 you are wise to have thought these issues through. It's OK to decide that on balance, you'd rather not know. I'd always advise someone in your situation to have some counselling to talk through the what-ifs.... What if you don't find siblings? What if you find siblings who don't want to know? What if you find a sibling who has done something awful, or who has died? Thinking through all of these eventualities will help you make the decision about whether it's right for you, or whether on balance you'd rather not know.

Well, be prepared for the fact your dh will deny, deny, deny.

I would definitely want to know more from this man but would go in with my wits about me. Obviously you would want definite proof.

I'm not sure I would involve dh at this point either (if you want the truth I mean).

Wow , what a shock . Wonder if he knows ?

@NoMoreFries

How is your DNA in the public domain???

That's very odd? No?

Isnt' that sort of thing private?

Just because your husband was reluctant to do it, doesn't mean to say it's his child. Personally I don't want to do a genetic test nor would I ever share the results online. I can understand your huband's reserve. I have nothing to hide. I just don't want my genetic code on Google. In the future who knows where that information will land and what will be done with it.

I'd calm right down for now and phone the website and talk to someone and ask them if it's legit.

You can't see the DNA. You just get told the results of where it's likely that your ancestors came from in the world (it's quite broadbrush) and get linked to others with a similar DNA. You can do as much or as little with it as you like.

What an awful shock. I must say I'm surprised your DH agreed to a DNA search at all if he thought there was any chance of this happening though. He could have just said no to the test, many people dont want their genetic information floating around online.

I'm thinking possible scam.

I hope this ends well for you OP.

So your possibilities are:

1-Error in processing/posting results
2-He had an affair
3-He did sperm donation and didn't tell you
4-The young man misread the results and it's a 'paternal' relationship (descent along your DH's family line) vs 'parental' relationship (parent/child)

Occam's Razor says that #2 is the most likely. Remember that if your children also did Ancestry, this young man will show up on results for them, too, so it's best you talk to your DH as soon as you can do so calmly.

I don't know how Ancestry works in the UK, but in the US you have to have signed a specific release for DNA matches to be released. My cousin (we're both adopted) did not, her DD did and my cousin's bio family 'found' her via a 'maternal' relationship match to her DD. A grandchild of the bio mom 'matched' with my cousin's DD. It's been a bit 'messy' for my cousin as the family keeps trying to push her into a 'closer' relationship than she wants.

Addresses aren't on Ancestry. Contact is through the website and through the website only. You send a message through Ancestry, you get an email from the site with the message and reply - you can then choose to give your phone number, email etc to other users.

The "hide living" is an option within the site. Some users choose to hide living relatives or just have them show up in their trees as "living", others don't.

Also, public records are NOT all listed. Ancestry has the INDEX to births, marriages and deaths in England/Wales but if you want to see the certificate, you have to order it from the GRO. Some other countries' records are digitised.

I suspect OP that you have a inkling on this either way.

It was the way you worded - he wasn't very keen.. I maybe reading to much into this. I think somewhere in your bones you know which way this will swing. If your partner is flat out this is a scam and shuts it down very fast without consideration or down right hostilely I would be worried.

I suspect maybe this man has reached out to your DH and gotten no response.

If I knew there was no way I had created a child, I would be interested to find out if there was another explanation. If I was hiding something would shut it down and get very defensive.

Proceed with caution. Lots of 💐

Do you have the man's details? Don't jump to conclusions, there are so many other things this could be!