'I was stunned': DNA tests reveal hidden family secret for B.C. woman

Improvements in DNA testing and the growing interest in learning about your family tree have created a new industry in the 21st century: do-it-yourself genealogy.

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What started as a niche hobby for those who were curious about their heritage has turned into a US$5.4-billion enterprise. Now millions of North Americans send their DNA through the mail, eager to learn more about their ancestral heritage.

While some may see it as harmless fun, the topic has raised ethical questions about the potential for genealogical DNA test results to disrupt family relations, uncovering skeletons in family closets and creating more questions than answers.

CTV News asked readers to share their experiences with 23andMe, Ancestry, MyHeritage and other genealogy websites. Were they surprised with the results? Did they uncover anything they didn't expect? What impact did it have on their family?

Nearly 100 people responded to our callout, providing CTV News with a diverse volume of unique stories: secret affairs, faulty adoptions, newborns switched accidentally in the hospital, or unwed mothers giving up their child to the church.

One of those readers was Jody Paterson, a Vancouver Island resident whose experience led her down a path that she could never have imagined. She spoke with CTV News to discuss how she came across a life-changing discovery in her family, and what pushed her to want to learn more.

'Mild curiosity'

Paterson has always been interested in genetics. The 67-year-old took a test through MyHeritage DNA in 2018 "for fun," saying mild curiosity made her buy one for herself and her three children. The results didn't find anything out of the norm, but her interest in genealogy continued to grow.

She decided to pay for the "premium package" through Ancestry, which provides advanced features beyond DNA testing, such as birth and death certificates, as well as newspaper articles, that can help provide context for who your family members were and what they might have accomplished.

A genealogy testing kit for Ancestry/DNA is displayed at the Center for Jewish History on Nov. 29, 2022 in New York. (Bebeto Matthews / AP Photo)

"I can start to build a small family tree and the information comes to you," Paterson said. "You get more information about your matches. You find other people who are working on the same ancestors as you."

Paterson worked as a journalist for the Victoria Times Colonist, a daily newspaper based out of Victoria, B.C., for 23 years. No longer working in media, Paterson says she needed an outlet for her journalistic curiosity, and genealogy became the perfect match.

"The hunt for information is just plain cool," Paterson said. "I have all the hunting instincts of a journalist. I really love finding the stories of people who were your family, the circumstances of their life."

'I was stunned'

After receiving her DNA test results through Ancestry in November 2023, a few of the revelations surprised her, the first being that she was Irish on her father's side — not Scottish. This was particularly odd, considering it wasn't revealed through the first DNA test with MyHeritage, and that her father's Scottish roots traced back as far as they could find.

But it was the next bit of information that opened the door to a shocking discovery.

"I had a first cousin whose name I'd never heard before," Paterson said. "I know all my cousins, we're very family-oriented people, I know them on all sides. A first cousin is a 12-per-cent match. That's significant, right? That tells you that this person is very close in my family tree, and yet, I've never heard of them."

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The combination of the Irish reveal, an unknown first cousin and later discovering that she wasn't a genetic match with any of her cousins on her father's side led to one conclusion: the man who raised her wasn't her biological father.

"I was stunned for a little while. You're baffled at what you're seeing," she said.

After the initial shock, Paterson tried to understand at what point in her family tree this anomaly occurred. She would learn through research that the unknown first cousin had the same last name as a doctor who worked at the hospital her mother worked at in the 1950s.

"I reached out to the lone surviving sibling of my late mother, and she confirmed that she had an affair with the doctor."

Paterson says the news blew her away, having spent 67 years being certain of where she came from, then learning she was only half right. Her father died in 2002, her mother in 2017, the latter being a year before her first DNA test.

"I always thought I looked like him, I had his quirks. We were both introverted," she said. "And suddenly you go, 'Holy moly, that's not my biological father.'

"But my dad and I were really close," she continued. "He loved me unconditionally and we had a really solid foundation."

'A new adventure'

But any consternation was quickly replaced with excitement, as Paterson saw the news as an opportunity to learn more about where she came from and the people who were in her biological father's life.

"The first person I reached out to was the first cousin. I sent an email saying, 'This is going to sound kind of kooky, but I'm wondering if you could be my first cousin,'" she said.

Jody Paterson and her dog, Dulce, taken in 2022. (Photo provided by Jody Paterson)

The new cousin was instantly welcoming and felt the same about this being a unique story. The two communicated through email, then they introduced Paterson to some of her birth father's cousins, all whom were in their seventies and eighties. They shared family stories and their own origins, where they came from, the wealth of information she was seeking upon learning the news.

One of the biggest discoveries for Paterson was that she had four half-siblings, a revelation that held extra weight since she spent the first 67 years of her life thinking she had two adopted brothers, but no biological siblings. But when she reached out, she said they weren't receptive.

"They haven't been too happy to meet me or get to know me. There's one that I've had a few conversations with, but I don't think it's going to work out," she said. "It's a bit sad. I was excited about having gone all these years without having biological siblings, and now I discover I've got these ones. I don't know, maybe give it a couple years."

'You might learn things that make you unhappy'

Paterson says if you want to dip your toes in genealogy, be sure to think it through and really be sure what your motives are, because you could discover some information that's more than just learning you're Irish and not Scottish.

"For anyone from over 100 years ago, there really is no privacy anymore. You might live with a mental illness and find out that a distant relative was locked away in an institution 75 years ago," she said.

"There's this little thing on the DNA boxes that says, 'Be careful as you might learn things that make you unhappy,' and I think people need to reflect on that. Are they ready for whatever they're going to find out? The secrets of all the generations before this one, they used to be able to be kept. Now all the secrets are capable of being revealed."