A Bronx tale: one sperm donor, 19 siblings, and six decades of secrets

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
David Corn
@DavidCornDC
“I always felt like an experiment”: Read my wild tale of what happened when more than a dozen people, raised in the Bronx, took home DNA tests and realized they were not who they thought they were. I spent years on this piece. Please RT and share.

A Bronx tale: one sperm donor, 19 siblings, and six decades of secrets
How DNA home test kits can lead to family joy—and anguish.
motherjones.com
12:13 PM · Jun 30, 2021

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/06/a-bronx-tale-one-sperm-donor-19-siblings-and-six-decades-of-secrets/

When Bob Eliot rushed to his parents’ apartment in Co-op City in the Bronx in the autumn of 2011, he was not expecting to discover a secret that would change how he and dozens of other people view their lives, their families, and their pasts. Eliot, a retired IBM engineer and sales executive in his mid-50s who lived on Long Island, was simply fulfilling the obligation of a son. His 86-year-old father had smashed his head, needed to go to the hospital, and had called to ask Eliot to stay with his mother.

Adele Eliot had severe dementia, and Eliot was accustomed to sitting with her as she asked the same question over and over. On this day, she repeatedly said to him, “Bobby, how are your eyes?” He told her that he had the beginning of cataracts. “It makes sense. My grandmother had them,” he added, referring to his paternal grandmother.

His mother stared at him and replied, “He’s not your father. You should be happy. That whole family is crazy.”

Eliot was shocked. Was his mother saying his dad was not truly his father? Maybe this was the dementia talking, he thought. He asked her to explain. But she slipped into a fog and would say no more. Later that day, when Eliot picked up his father, he did not mention his mother’s startling comment.

*snip*

[Solly Mack]

1. Wow

[CanonRay]

2. I keep waiting for that shoe to drop

I'm pretty sure my old man left a few extras around.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Absolutely fascinating! I read the whole Mother Jones article and was riveted by it.

Thanks so much for bringing this to light!

[Scrivener7]

4. Fascinating.

[dhol82]

5. Fascinating story.

[crickets]

6. Wow. Sometimes there are more questions than answers. nt

[Stuart G]

7. Thank You for posting...K and R

[ms liberty]

8. Wow. Really interesting piece. K&R. n/t

[Doremus]

9. Blackstone owns Ancestry fyi

For that reason I'll never give them my DNA. My imagination runs to the dark side, lol.

[shrike3]

10. I would actually welcome something like this.

I've always felt incredibly out of place in my family. But this kind of surprise is not going to happen to me, because I look just like my father. I have other indications that I am definitely with my birth family. But I have always felt like a stranger in a strange land. My husband says I must be a genetic throwback: maybe. But as I've gone through life, genetic ties have come to mean less and less to me. The people closest to me now have no genetic ties to me whatsoever.

That aside, this is quite a story. And I'm glad these folks have created a new tribe. Though it would be easier if you didn't grow up together and don't have memories of the bullshit that can happen within families.

[Ms. Toad]

11. My daughter found her bio-dad via 23 and me.

A very happy find in our case, since we had tried earlier to find our donor - or donor-siblings and had given up on finding him.

We've all met. My daughter has 3 half-siblings (including a sister who bears a striking resemblance), has met extended family on that side of the family, and now knows that half of her medical history (the source of her rare disease).

[csziggy]

12. Apparently a relative of mine was a sperm donor

And has a son in California who is now about twenty. A cousin who we had test his DNA in hopes of finding our ancestor's ancestors came up as a close match to the young man but my cousin has never spent time in California.

I shared the family tree with the young man's mother so they can try to track down who in my family might be the father.

[Demovictory9]

13. crazy story!!! wow

[Hekate]

14. Fascinating. Just today an old friend told me about a grown niece who popped up on a DNA site...

Her BIL never knew his one-night-stand 40 years ago produced a child, and the woman’s mother raised her with no info beyond, “I don’t know. I was doing a lot of one-nighters in those days.” The niece turns out to be an apparently well-grounded person, and will be meeting up with everybody sometime this summer. They’re already sharing photos, and spotting family resemblances among her children.

I think I’ll send my friend the link to this Mother Jones article.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

15. It finally happened to me, a few weeks ago.

I received an e-mail, from one of the DNA testing companies, that I have new relatives to explore. I clicked on the link, expecting to see more of the usual 4th+ cousins again. Instead, one of them was estimated to be my great-niece! My sister used the same testing company, and she was estimated to be the grandmother!

My sister explained it. A daughter of one of her sons was adopted within days of being born, since his girlfriend didn't want to keep it.