Found my half brother on myheritage - dad won't talk about it

[Namechan542383488]

Hi all, my dad bought me a DNA test kit as a birthday present this year. I did it and found out I have a half brother. Found him online and he looks a lot like my dad and me. I've messaged him a few times, but he hasn't responded.

I've tried to talk to my dad, who won't speak about it and has gone silent on the matter as if it hasn't happened.

I'm 39, brother is 49, lived in London and lives abroad now. No one in the family knows and I think my dad hasn't had contact with him but who knows. I know nothing else.

I'm feeling p*ed off that I've found out via a dna test kit and no one will talk about it.

Also wondering whether I should contact brother again, as I would like to have a relationship with him. If he didn't want that, I'm aware that I would absolutely have to respect that.

Interesting. I do agree with the fact it may blow apart sibling's life and that should be well considered. However, I think sibling's have the right to a relationship independent of their parents. I think she has the right to reach out but she should consider if it's best for the other person. I don't think the dad would ever have the right to forbid her to contact them as she has "no right". She does have a right to attempt to form familial with a known sibling. She does not have the right to expect sibling to accommodate it.

He also has access to the My Heritage site, has done his own DNA and can see that we are half siblings himself, so I wasn't alerting him to anything. I just messaged him saying hi, have you checked myheritage.

He was absolutely not abandoned by my mum.

That just goes to prove that he has no interest in pursuing a relationship.

Presumably, he completed the DNA test before you so wouldn't have been privy to your DNA at that point. Anyway, have you considered a possibility that your dad is not your biological father?

Perhaps your father doesn't want to reopen what may have been a very painful history. Perhaps your half sibling is happy with his life as it is and doesn't want to introduce someone else or potentially a grenade into it.

I think that you should respect their feelings. Just because you share DNA doesn't make you family.

Did you see the part where he also had his DNA tested and could see that he had a half-sibling?! I alerted him to nothing he could not see online for himself. Why would I not message someone on MyHeritage who was said to be my half-brother, to say hey we share some DNA. Would you like to talk?

What devastation could I have caused? He was already looking into his DNA for himself.

I have considered that yes, but if you saw us we are the literal double of each other, as is my 'half-brother'.

You have a right to message, but you should also respect that silence is a response and not keep on with it.

I find it bizarre that your father bought you this dna test given he has another child

Did he even know? Does your mother know? Were they together when the boy was conceived

Not your fault at all for contacting him - you get notified anyway if there’s a match

Remember not everyone is on those databases. It isn't compulsory. It won't even occur to some people to do one and others would pointedly never do one. My partner thinks it's crazy!

I know, I guess he didn't have a clue. My mum and him got together much later, and they're not together now.

To answer people saying to stop messaging him or I shouldn't have contacted him, I contacted him once on myheritage and then once on social in case he didn't see it. With no pressure to reply. I guess I just wanted him to know the door is open, I don't think a problem with that considering he'll get a notification. He may have had questions himself. I also understand how difficult it could be, so I won't push him again.

Ultimately people put their details on those sites for a bit of fun. To see if there are any long lost relatives out there. I presume you didn’t do the DNA test in the belief you had half siblings out there? So why would it be any different for him?

I wouldn’t personally touch those sites with a barge pole, they’re a data breach in the making, but if I did, it wouldn’t be because I think I have half siblings. I absolutely know I don’t. So if someone contacted me to say that.I was their half sibling I would shut them down without comment. But internally it could turn my world upside down.

A family member recently discovered he had half siblings conceived after his father left and married someone else he didn’t know about.

He found out in a different way, and he did contact one of them. Turns out that she had no idea her father had been married before and that he had fathered five other children who he had dumped to move on to a new family. The father she thought she knew turned out to be a lie.

She’s not interested in any further contact. But I don’t doubt that this revelation will have left its mark.

As soon as OP did her DNA test the brother would have been notified that he had a half sibling match so stop criticizing her for contacting him.
I guess there is a remote possibility that he is not using that email any longer or it's going into his junk folder.

Personally I would totally ignore anyone who got in contact claiming to be a half sibling or any other relation to me.
Just not interested.

Finding unknown half siblings is 100% why many people don’t do DNA tests.

As someone who was contacted by an unknown half sibling I would urge you now to just leave it. You have reached out it is now down to them. You do know know anything about them and they may need time to process the info or just not want contact.
good luck

if you have not had a response you have no idea if they got the message or not, you can keep asking periodically until you get an affirmative no, don;t worry about it, I'd be keen to speak.

I have a DNA kit on My Heritage and they email me at least twice a week with a "you have matches!" email. They send the same email out whether it's a large centimorgan match indicating a very close relative, or a very distant match. It's entirely possible that your match has not seen the new match indicating a close relationship, especially if he did his test a while ago and has lost interest.

Unfortunately you cannot force people to talk to you about things they don;t want to talk to you about. I'd be tempted to email your match one more time and say that it's the last time you'll be contacting him, your email is X, mobile is Y, if he'd like to find out more about you with no expectations of some sort of intense friendship/family thing then please contact you.

And leave it at that.

I’m an adoptee and did an AncestryDNA test in order to find birth family. It was very successful and I’m now in touch with both birth parents and 3 half siblings plus other relatives. None of them had DNA tested themselves but I was able to build various trees based on more distant cousins that had tested and built trees.
Can you see when your half sibling last logged on? Can you be sure he has seen your messages?
The one thing I have learnt with all of this is that patience is key.

Same. I wouldn't be opening that can of worms. Life is stressful enough.

Why are you assuming your dad is the shared parent, not your mother?

@Namechan542383488 there is a huge amount of misunderstanding around DNA testing on sites like Ancestry or MyHeritage - people don't understand how it works, how the messaging works, what a centimorgan is. So jump to all sorts of stupid conclusions.

You would have thought it was obvious that it is only possible to have a match witth someone who has tested themselves but clearly not.

Leave it. This will not end well.

You have messaged him, you need to leave it now. Respect if he doesn't want to engage, or needs time to process.

Give your dad time too to come to terms with a massive piece of a past he thought was hidden being unearthed.

It is their stories they have been living for almost 40 years, and while it is new to you and you are interested, it is not as impactful as it is on them.