Part one: Thirty-nine dollars
In October of 2024 Anne saw a deal on Amazon for Ancestry DNA kits. $39. We both had an interest in learning more about our roots. Just how German, English, Scottish, Irish might we be?
"Maybe I am related to Angela Lansbury, given my Grams on my Dad's side is a Magill!", I exclaimed with giggles.
Two DNA kits sat on top of our piano for months.
Thought of an occasion when I needed to move them to dust.
End of May, or maybe start of June 2025, we decided one random night that we should probably just get them sent away. Lots of spit packed away into little boxes and the next day dropped in the mail.
Anne's results arrived first. Confirmation of her deep WASP-y roots.
Work-life for me at that time was one of the more intense I have had in 20 years. Many of us who had been working on a project for several years were pushing to release a very large and very important part of that project to our users. Per the usual, there were issues right as we were trying to release.
I think many of us were not sleeping. I, for sure, was not sleeping.
The email came at 11:21pm June 11, 2025. I read it around 3am.
"Oh, this is a nice distraction from the next fresh-hell I might be facing later", I thought. Clicking "Explore your DNA results" opened to the Origins tab of the results.
"ITALY? Ha! I am not from Italy! Something seems off here", I exclaimed in my brain as Anne was peacefully and quietly snoring. A little smirk on my face as I navigated to the Matches tab, still wondering if maybe my Dad had other children I didn't know about (seemed quite possible). Or if my dream had come true and Angela Lansbury was maybe somehow my grandmother. Not at all living in reality at 3am.
"What? Who is gbenjamin1956?"
"My Dad's name is Dave."
"My Dad wouldn't have given his DNA to Ancestry."
"Did they do Ancestry DNA before he died in 2014?!"
"Wait. Someone must have messed up here."
<scrolling through matches>
"Maternal match, but don't know that person."
"Maternal match, but don't know that person."
"Oh, I do know that person..."
Even at 3am my intellect understood that it was very unlikely that the dad DNA part would be wrong but the mom DNA part would be right.
3 hours of reading so many webpages about the validity and certainty of Ancestry DNA tests.
6:30 am. "Anne, I can't sleep. I am just gonna get up and go to work. I got my Ancestry DNA results. My Dad is not my Dad."