Ancestry results= family bombshell??

[SqueakyRadish]

Hey!
So... I did an ancestry thing just for fun, thought it would be cool to see my heritage etc.

Had my results back last week and it has "matched" me with another user that I share 27% of my DNA with, who it suggests is a half sibling or niece.

The most likely explanation (due to various factors) is that this is a niece.

But what the actual fuck do I do now? I feel awful because I know this and, as far as I know, nobody else in the family does.

I have one brother who has no children (or so I thought!) but who has been living, happily, with his partner and her 2 children for around 10 years.

He could have no idea? He could know and just want to keep it secret? He could know and other people in the family might know but keep it secret?

I literally just don't know what to do. I feel like I can't ask anyone in my family for advice because then I'm putting it on them as well.

Plus, if this other person does not want to be contacted or have anything to do with us then it feels like it would be better to just keep things as they are and do nothing at all.

I don't really know what I want... I just needed somewhere to talk about this and figure out what, if anything, I do next...

This. There’s a fundamental difference between familial matching which is reasonably accurate and genealogical ethnicity estimates which are based on statistics. These compare individual dna to a reference panel and both the reference panel & algorithms are updated regularly.

I’m not sure I’d trust that it’s saying DNA is from both parents because how do you explain the test saying it could be a niece or half sibling?

Because it’s possible in principle that one parent slept with a family member of the partner. It's just not so likely in this particular context. Doesn’t mean the dna can’t be determined to be from both sides, it just can’t tell who sleep with who.

That actually happened on my mum's side with some cousins, they found out a few years ago that one of the cousins Dads had an affair with his wife's sister (the two sisters being my mum's cousins), so as well as being cousins they were half siblings. I was absolutely shocked!
I'd tell the whole family, be prepared for any fall out, but looking at the bigger picture, the niece or potential half sibling may be looking for their bio parent. I'd also add that if it is a niece, which does sound more likely, your brother may have no idea about her. I wouldn't want to be in your position, but it's often best that these things are out in the open.

A few possible scenarios:

1 Your mum and dad had a baby before they married and had him or her adopted. That child had a daughter and this is your 27% match (niece)

2 Your father had a relationship with one of your mother's female relatives before he had a relationship with your mum; that resulted in a child and they had a daughter - this is your 27% DNA match - in which case she'd be your half sister and half niece, say, (if your mother's sister was the relative)

3 Your main theory - that your brother had a daughter and either doesn't know or kept it secret.

4 Your father had an extra marital relationship later on and your 27% match is your half sister.

The distant cousins who share a surname could just be a coincidence. Is her name so unusual that you could find her birth on the civil registration indexes?

*sorry - there was an error in my message - she'd be your half sister OR niece, silly me!

I would wait a few more days before telling anyone OP.

You’re about to open a massive cab of worms and frankly it’s not your business to share.

The girl isn’t interested right now either and you could cause problems for her and her family as well as your own.

I would wait until after Xmas and see if the girl messages you again.
You can use that time to decide the best course of action.

You can’t drop a bombshell and not expect it to blow up.
I say wait until after Xmas.

You don't need to message him. You don't need to do anything. You might want to message him, but that's a different thing. It's worth considering whether this is really your secret to tell. You also don't know for certain what the relationship to this person is, so whatever you do, please don't go in all guns blazing and tell your brother you found his lost daughter, because you don't know if that's true or not.

Please don't rush into anything, speaking as someone who has seen their family really hurt by the reappearance of a lost sibling.

OP says that the match messaged saying the following

She said that she knows "the story" but it isn't just hers to share and she knows who her dad is but has no relationship with him.

She knows she's illegitimate. Therefore this perhaps makes option 1 perhaps less likely.

Having said that, one scenario is that her mum was given to a relative of your father for adoption though. Perhaps a second cousin or something - which would explain the strange surname coincidence. And then she had an illegitimate child of her own (leading to a comment about a 'mix up' by adding an extra layer of confusion).

Oh absolutely.

Partly an issue with Ancestry and other companies who have pushed testing so heavily, it's become something marketed to people who have never heard the word centimorgan or endogamy and just have no idea about how to sort matches. Or the idea that you just spit in a tube and the DNA test will do all the rest for you, when in fact it's just one of a range of genealogical tools.

Ok so I need to message my brother.

Don't rush to do this, sit with the information for a while and give yourself a bit more processing time (and don't drop this on him and his family in the run up to Christmas when everyone is usually a bit more fraught and stressed than normal). Once it's out there you can't take it back or slow it down so just take a bit of time first.

If you do decide in the new year that you still think this is something you need to tell him then just say you did an ancestry dna test are surprised to have found that you both have a relative that you didn't know about and see what he says.

Good thoughts, there @RedToothBrush re possibility of the shared surnames in the matches.

Very good advice @AltitudeCheck

(I would definitely message my brother this weekend).

I'd have to message, sooner so it can breathe before Christmas.
It's going to eat everyone up otherwise.

Good luck!

Exactly as AltitudeCheck says. I think you should tell your brother, but give yourself time to get the wording right and just before Christmas is surely a mistake. In the new year tell him in a non- judgmental, non-prying way that something has shown up he may want to know. This is likely to be a bigger bomb under his life than anyone else’s.

She said that she knows "the story" but it isn't just hers to share and she knows who her dad is but has no relationship with him.

While there are many different possible scenarios - the most likely to me is that DB either had an ex who got pregnant or an ONS and he didn’t want involvement or was never told.

This woman knows who he is but he either never showed any interest or he doesn’t know. Given the wording “she has no relationship” I think it’s more likely that he does know, otherwise she might just have said he doesn’t know about her. There is a further option where this woman doesn’t know if he knows, or her mother swears she told him but she didn’t for reasons of her own.

Men really don’t care about Christmas the way women do. There’s a strong argument for thinking before you speak but I don’t think Christmas has anything to do with it.

He may already know anyway.

I would leave well alone based on the other person's message. If you go messaging your brother or dad you are just stirring.

I would only speak to your brother about it but face to face would be best. Could you ask him to meet you. If it isn’t his child then you are looking at your parents. I am also dubious how reliable the tests are but it sounds like your possible niece has the answers but doesn’t want to drop a possible bombshell.

You might very well be right, but OP’s brother is in a long term relationship. We don’t know what their situation is. If my partner suddenly discovered he had a child just before Christmas that would be difficult. I think I’d wait for the sake of a fortnight.

This woman is an adult though and his partner’s kids are not his.

It’s not like he’s married with young kids and this is another young child that needs providing for.

He and his partner may know about her anyway.

I don’t think this is your secret to keep.
You have to tell your brother. I’d be furious if my sibling knew something this huge about me but didn’t tell me.

At this point now you need to leave well alone. This isn’t your business.

In the instance of adoption or donation, the right of contact rests with the child and the child only. Said child in this situation has made it clear she’s not interested, therefore it’s not your business to tell anyone anything.

Besides which this isn’t even anything you know for certain, it’s based around some spurious connection off a DNA site whose liability is questionable at best, along with assumptions and nothing more.

It’s not her secret at all.

There’s a family connection. That’s all the OP knows. And the product of that connection isn’t interested in pursuing anything. She is the only one with the right to make that connection if she chooses.

Added to which the OP has no idea whether it’s her brother’s child or not, she’s just making assumptions.

By giving your DNA to these sites you’re opening yourself up to this stuff, and people need to carefully consider whether this is the kind of thing you want to find out when you do, because if you find out then it’s not your business to go spreading it around, because like it or not, it’s not about you. And if the other person isn’t interested then you have no right to drag them into it.

You shouldnt tell your aunt. This is between your brother and his daughter. It is a discussion you ought to have in person even if you hand him a note. But if you must text then I suggest "you know I did a DNA test. A close match has come up that looks like you may have a child with someone before you met your current partner. I dont intend to tell anyone else about this, especially not your partner, but I wondered if this means anything to you. It may come up if anyone else in the family takes a DNA test. "