She was horrified at the thought of what might happen if her children discovered the truth. She looked at them in terror as they opened their gifts one by one.
Would they forgive her for lying to them all these years?
DIY DNA Kits
The story began when one man called James decided to gift his entire family DIY DNA kits for Christmas.
"Earlier this year, AncestryDNA had a sale on their kit. I thought it would be a great gift idea, so I bought 6 of them for Christmas presents," he recalls. Little did he know what awaited him...
The Reaction
"Today, my family got together to exchange presents for our Christmas Eve tradition, and I gave my mom, dad, brother, and two sisters each a kit," he continued.
When his mother saw the gifts, she looked at James with pure terror in her eyes. “You shouldn’t take this test!” she shouted. “The chemicals in them are extremely dangerous!”
Stressed
Everyone could see how stressed she looked. The family explained that there were actually no chemicals in the tests at all, but she wasn't convinced.
She tried to convince them again not to use the DNA kits. "Only one of you kids need to take it since we will all have the same results. You should resell the extra kits to save money," she insisted.
Sharing The Story Online
James shared what had happened to him on Christmas Eve on his social media, saying, “Fast forward: Our parents have been fighting upstairs for the past hour, and we are downstairs trying to figure out who has a different dad.”
What had happened?
An Update
A few days later, James posted an update. "Update: Thank you so much for all the love and support. My sisters, brother, and I have not yet decided yet if we are going to take the test."
"No matter what the results are, we will still love each other and our parents no matter what."
The Secret
James and his siblings waited around the table in silence until their parents finally came downstairs. His mom sat everyone down and said that she had something to confess.
She held her husband's hand as she revealed what had happened to their family all those years ago.
Update 2
James shared another update the same evening, "Update 2: CHRISTMAS ISN'T RUINED! My mistake actually turned into a Christmas miracle. Turns out my sister's father passed away shortly after she was born."
"A good friend of my mom's was able to help her through the darkest time in her life, and they went on to fall in love and create the rest of our family." But why didn't they tell their children the truth?
The Truth
'They never told us because of how hard it was for my mom. Last night she was strong enough to share stories and photos with us for the first time, and it truly brought us even closer together as a family," James continued.
"This is a Christmas we will never forget. And yes, we are all excited to get our test results. Merry Christmas, everyone!"
No Affairs
It turns out that his mother hasn't been involved in any affairs or secrets. The history was just too painful to talk about.
A man named George Doe commented about how he gifted his parents a 23andMe DNA kit and what he found was bizarre.
Strange Discovery
A line on the bottom of the page read: “check this box if you want to see close family members in this search program.” George checked the box and discovered that he shared 22% of his genome with a man he had never heard of before.
Who was he?
Thomas
His name was Thomas. George asked his father if he knew anyone by the name 'Thomas,' but he said no.
But George decided to investigate it anyway and found out that in his father's "close family" box, a man named Thomas popped up with a 50% genome match. But what did this mean for his family?
Another Child
It turned out that George's father had another son named Thomas. He didn't want his family to know about him.
Another woman named Chassity didn't know who her father was. So, she decided to take a DNA test to hopefully learn more about her family. Her results demonstrated a lot of European heritage coming from her x chromosomes.
Lies
Chassity's African American mother always used to say that her father was "deeply dark-skinned."
But the DNA test results had proved the opposite. She kept asking her mother about it until she gave in and told Chassity who her father really was.
Finally Found
She gave her a name, and Chassity used it to track her father down on Facebook. “I didn’t know if he even knew about me or would even accept I could possibly be his child,” she recalls.
Chassity's father said that he had been looking for her for a long time and was happy that she reached out to him. She still isn't sure why her mother had lied about her father's identity all those years, but she is happy she managed to find him.