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...

Buy him an ancestry kit for Christmas. He can choose to do it or he can choose not to, and then you have your answer without having to let on you know anything.

But also consider his kids might do one in future, and is that how you want him/them to find out?

Buy your brother an ancestry test as a Christmas present, pretending that you haven't done one and see what he does. 🙈😆👀

He hasn't got kids, they are his partners kids. I would tell him OP. This person was born way before he got together with his partner. After the initial shock he may welcome finding out he had a child.

When I was a nurse in Wales 40 years ago, I was told one third of children were estimated to be born to males outside of the family, without the family knowing. Best not to know.

Do nothing. It's other people's business and not yours. You could cause a lot of upset in someone else's life.
If they contact you, that's another matter.

So if you can see this woman has dna from your mother and fathers side they must also have done ancestry tests. So they will also receive notification of this match. So it's likely to become a family point of discussion soon

Pls let us know what you decide and how it goes. It can be helpful to others in your situation…

If you're suggesting the OP's parents must also have done Ancestry tests - that's incorrect.

If the other person has done an ancestry test and likely doesn’t know who their father is - they want to know.
This is how my colleague tried to find her birth dad. She found him - but through an aunt and sadly learned too late he had died.
Talk to your brother first of all. If it isn’t him - he’ll be able to laugh it off and might be able to help.

I think you have to tell your brother. If it comes out that you knew and didn't tell him he could be really upset. For all you know he might be delighted to find this out. She could well be searching for her dad in which case she may well contact you.

That's complete nonsense

When I was a nurse in Wales 40 years ago, I was told one third of children were estimated to be born to males outside of the family, without the family knowing. Best not to know.

Absolute nonsense. It;s about 1.5%

Have you worked out how old your brother would have been when this young woman was born? If he's been with his partner for 10 years, then it's not like he had an affair behind her back and got another woman pregnant. If this young woman has submitted a DNA sample, then in my opinion she's trying to trace her Dad and his side of the family. She would have been notified of the DNA match with you. I suspect that your brother probably doesn't know of her existence, but of course it's always possible he knows. The Mother could have been a relationship but equally a ONS. Personally, I'd wait to see what happens. If this person contacts you (which is highly likely if she's trying to trace her Dad), then you will have to tell your brother.

Tell your brother. What he does and who he tells is up to him.

Also can I just say - the amount of people saying stay quiet and do nothing - do you realise how toxic that is? And it’s one of the reasons we are living through a mental health crisis right now? People stayed quiet, didn’t talk, didn’t deal with big things that came up.
I can only imagine the “stay quiet” brigade are of the boomer generation. It’s your party line “don’t get involved”.

OP you’re involved - they’re family. Do the difficult but right thing xx

It could be that this potential niece has matches on both sides of the family to more distant relatives such as 4th cousins, etc. So it may well not be a point of family discussion soon.

OP- apart from you has this niece got any close matches to your family or are they smaller amounts of CMs for her? I am trying to clarify who my grandad is and 99% of my matches are so distant it's not even worth me contacting them as they wouldn't have a clue. But if a potential aunt popped up I'd be onto them asap.

If I had a child out there somewhere, personally I would want to know. If you just tell your brother about the DNA match, it might be obvious from his response whether he wants to investigate the implications of it, or if he just wants to keep that particular lid shut.

Pandoras box is open. You can't do nothing unfortunately.

You should contact her and ask for the circumstances - this gives you more information about what's going on to decide what to do next. But firmly temper her expectations in doing so. A DNA match doesn't make a family relationship - she may have expectations but you can't magically make a relationship with her father happen. You can only make a decision about how much of a relationship you might want with her. No relationship is a reasonable choice - though I ould give some information as a courtesy.

The problem is she now knows about you. She now knows who you are and what your relationship to her is. It isn't difficult to work out her family tree and parentage from that and from that to track down and contact her father if she wants. This is why you can't do nothing.

Having said that it's highly possible this woman could have worked out who her father is from other close matches without you doing a test too (I have done this with my friends DNA test). So you doing the test isn't to blame for her finding out. It just makes it easier to make the connection. This needs stressing. All you have done is possibly speed up the inevitable and be in a position to forewarn your brother.

You do need to quietly approach your brother about this so he can decide how to handle it further. It's something he's not going to be able to avoid if he is the father and this woman wants to try and contact him. That ship has sailed. He's not going to thank you for it, but at least he has fair warning, he'll thank you less for not telling you when she goes "I saw your sister matched with me on ancestry so I knew you were my father" much, much more.

The time for wondering about ethical dilemmas is BEFORE you take an ancestry test. You have no idea what you are going to uncover. You should only take one, fully aware that finding unexpected relatives is very very common. My parents, DH and his parents and a friend of mine have all done tests, six in total - I manage them. My Dad has an unexpected cousin (we are unsure which of his mum's siblings), my mil has an unexpected cousin and an expected second cousin and my friend IS the unexpected cousin. That's a fifty percent strike rate of illegitimate children in the woodwork. Tbh my mum and dad and fil half expected something to pop up elsewhere in their trees and it's a surprise that nothing has (to date at least).

You have to speak to your family because the secret is out now and you can't stop it.

You are not to blame. Whoever her father (assuming it's your brother) is, set the wheels in motion for this when he had sex with her mother. That's ultimately something he's going to have to deal with. She exists, you can't pretend she doesn't.

It isnt really your information to share, is it?

Ancestry can predict this fairly accurately. I found out I had a sister I didn’t know about.

The information is already out there.

An absurd point of view

The one thing I can say for sure is that you aren’t over thinking it (yet). You’ve found out you may have a new family member that’s worth thinking about!

if you start getting out a cork board, pins and red string maybe it’s gone too far.

My uncle was adopted at birth and found us as an adult; my granny didn’t want to give him up and cherished the time she had with him.

Your brother might know about his child but, if he doesn’t, you’re denying him the opportunity of building that relationship. If she finds him independently further down the line and he wishes he’d known sooner, it’ll be difficult to explain why you chose not to say anything.

You could just explain what you’ve found in a very non-committal way, give him the website and girl’s details and leave it there. Then it’s up to him if he pursues a relationship or not.

Talk to your brother. If he doesn’t want to know then be open to talking to your match if she contacts you, as others have said she is likely to be looking for her father.

As someone said, look at her profile and see when she was last active on Ancestry. If not for ages then you are fairly likely to have a bit of time before she sees your match.