DNA for family history?

[Southernmiss]

So what if the info is out there? It's not like the kid had any say in the past, and people who judge that way should look closely at themselves, IMO. My family has embraced all new-found relatives. It's not a difficult thing to do if you don't judge people. I actually wish I had known about the two from the affair sooner - one has passed away, and the ones involved in the affair (and subsequent "accident" that killed my uncle when he was 20 years old) are long gone. One of them should have been charged with the murder of my uncle.

It's not the family info I was referring to.

It's the kid's DNA. It should be up to the person with full understanding of how DNA can be used in legal matters to determine if they want their DNA info out.

 

[robinb]

If you were an adult as recently as 2000 and had health insurance, it is likely your Social Security was your health ID number. If you had Medicare, your Social Security number was your Medicare number until 2 years ago. So your social security number may very well be out there.
I was on the Little League Board of directors and I had a laptop with all the player registration information including all their health insurance information, in most cases it was the parents social security number. When I recycled the laptop, I had the hard drive removed and professionally destroyed so those numbers would not get into the wrong hands.

Illinois drivers licences had your social security number on them back in the 70’s. My mom drilled into me the need to keep that number private so I requested a licence with the number removed. I had a difficult time writing checks because store clerks were trained to write your SSN on the back when they checked your ID. I was relieved when they removed the SSN from all drivers licences. But, to this day I won’t let people like store clerks scan my drivers licence (like at Target for alcohol sales). There’s way too much information on there and they are only need a little bit of it.

Back to the original topic. As for DNA tests, I won’t do them. I’d be trading way too much of my personal information to satisfy my curiosity.

 

[Deb]

oddly enough I had a tougher time putting my fingerprints on file for an aspect of employment than my dna. I guess once I had made that smaller step the bigger one came easier a few years later.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I did it out of curiosity... It has been well worth the $59 or whatever it was at Ancestry.com. It has great entertainment value and I have made some pretty cool discoveries as far as relatives I didn't know I had. I literally have NO PLANS to commit any crimes, so I don't care if my DNA is stored somewhere.

We DO have friends with an adopted daughter. She used it along with a lot of research and stuff to find out more about her biological family. The end results were not really a happy story (I don't know the whole story), but it did not lead to anything good.

 

[emily nicole]

My son was interested in genealogy and when he was 16, we bought him the Ancestry kit for Christmas. Long story short, that is how I found out my father is not my biological father; my parents used a donor and never intended to tell me. It's been a wild ride. I was able to meet my biological father just before he passed, and I've met some of my half-siblings. If my son had not been interested in genealogy, I don't think I would ever have found out the truth.

 

[abdmom]

My husband and father of my children died when the youngest was an infant. When the youngest was 12, he asked for a DNA test. He just wanted to make sure that the stories of his racial identity we told him were true. The results were exactly as expected. He looked at the results for about 2 seconds and was satisfied. Now that he is older, he is looking closer into his genetic history.

Barack Obama's book "Dreams from My Father", deals with a lot of the issues experienced by children who grow up not knowing where they come from and the longing to know.

I know 2 people who did the tests and discovered that their fathers had fathered other children, one when he was married to their mother.

 

[robinb]

I know 2 people who did the tests and discovered that their fathers had fathered other children, one when he was married to their mother.

Call me "old fashioned" but finding out about my father's infidelity via a DNA test is one of those things I would rather avoid.

 

[leebee]

I have a friend who answered a knock on the door to discover a man standing there who said, "I think you're my father." Sure enough, it was true. My friend had had a relationship that broke up and and he had no idea that his girlfriend was pregnant, and she never told him. It was a great joy to my friend to discover that he had a son, daughter-in-law, and a granddaughter. I know not all these stories end happily, but in this instance, it worked out nicely.