How families are made
It’s a common problem posed to anyone who works with DNA.
A test result arrives and the results are a surprise.
It turns out that the surname we treasure and are so proud of was very different back just a few generations.
Or a man we knew as a beloved grandfather turns out not to share any DNA with us.
Or even that the man who raised us and who we called Dad isn’t biologically related at all.
And the questions flow.
“Does that mean I’m not really a Smith?”
“Does that mean he’s not my grandfather any more?”
“Then he’s not my Dad?”
The sense of loss is palpable.
Waitaminnit.
Back up here.
The Legal Genealogist suggests that we put this whole DNA thing into perspective.
In genealogical research, DNA has one purpose and one purpose only: it helps give us evidence we can use to establish biological relationships.
It doesn’t — can’t — won’t ever — tell us one single thing about something that’s a whole lot more important.
It doesn’t tell us about families. Or about how families are and have been made for generations.
Consider for example that surname. Maybe YDNA tells us that even though we call ourselves Smith, some generations back the surname was Jones.
That’s the biology, sure. But how did we become Smith? Was it because, some generations back, a child’s parents died and the child was taken in by the Smiths, raised as a Smith and never knew anything else but being a Smith? Or perhaps because the child’s father died, the mother remarried to a Smith, and the child took the surname of the stepfather who raised the child and gave the child the Smith family traditions to carry on as his own?
Are we really any less Smiths than those who carry the bloodline, but moved away, forgot the family traditions, maybe even fell out with their kin and rejected everything and anything to do with being Smiths?
In the more recent generations, I submit that how a man came to be known as a grandfather or a father matters even less than how our surname was changed. What matters much more than what genes we do or don’t share is whether that grandfather took our hands and walked with us, taught us to fish, shared his sense of humor, told us he was proud of us, told us he loved us. Whether the man we called Dad really was a Dad: who changed our diapers, taught us to walk and ride a bicycle, sat with us when we were fevered, attended school plays and graduations, walked us down the aisle.
Are those men really any less treasured members of our family? If they truly acted as father and grandfather, does a DNA test force us to give them up?
No.
When DNA tells us there’s someone else to whom we have a genetic relationship, it only gives us a new set of biological relatives. It doesn’t take away the families we have now.
Because DNA can’t ever tell us how families are made.
Families are so much more than inherited blood.
Families are constructs of the heart.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “What DNA can’t tell us,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 16 Feb 2020).
Thank you, Judy! This is what I tell people regularly, but you, as usual, have said it much more eloquently than I can.
Simply beautiful. And completely true.
Thank you for the perspective. It’s greatly needed these days. A funny story in my husband’s family that helps put this into perspective. Hubby’s brother married sweetheart. Later his mother married her father. Now not only are they the parents of their 2 boys, they are also step Aunt and step Uncle to them. With a smile in their voice, this was often used to avoid parenting their boys, with the line “Don’t look at me, I’m only their Uncle or Aunt!”
Great story!! 🙂
hear, hear!
Important article, Judy!
I research my father’s stepfather’s ancestry because he was important family to my father and raised him. My father also took his stepfather’s surname.
But I also research my father’s biological father, who died when my father was six months old. My father had older brothers who were not raised by their stepfather and kept their biological father’s surname.
This was all known way before DNA.
DNA does not disprove family connections. All it might do is give you a new biological connection you can add to your research if you choose to.
Yep, it adds… it doesn’t subtract.
The opposite is true too. Contributing 50% of a person’s DNA doesn’t make you a parent. Biologically, maybe, but not in the way that matters most.
Absolutely true. Biology is just one factor… and not at all the most important. Were you there? Did you care? Those are so much more important in the grand scheme of things.
Thanks for a much needed article, Judy. My wife’s sister was adopted. Her adopted parents were & always will be Mom & Dad
I was adopted as a small child and have a lovely family. I found my birth family as an adult and now I have a more brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and a great big beautiful family. It is exciting to know where I came from but, it’s not really as important, it just enriches my life!
I call them “blood lines” and “love lines.”
I thank Chew Colwell (1780-1848) everyday for being the lifeguard at my Brower gene pool. He married my 3rd Great gran after something happened to Brower.
Thank you. The NPE/MPE came as a shock to all of us, but the man who was always up to take us out for ice cream will always be my grandfather.
Always. He was there. He cared.
Such an important concept to keep in mind. You explained it well! Families are about the connections, the caring.
As an adoptive mother I thank you. I’ve researched the genealogy of my children’s birth mother, but I also consider them my husband’s and my true children. They have two family trees with Revolutionary War patriots, Civil War soldiers North and South, pioneers, farmers, etc on both sides.
You raised them. You were there. You cared. They ARE your children.
Judy, you are very talented and I loved reading your blog. I am actually sorry I did my DNA since it has caused me more stress and confusion. However, you have shown a new perspective that is most important when it comes to family. Thank you!
“When DNA tells us there’s someone else to whom we have a genetic relationship, it only gives us a new set of biological relatives. It doesn’t take away the families we have now.”
Thank you, Judy. This is a lovely article.
Intellectually, you are right. Emotionally, it takes a great deal of time to catch up. After 67 years of one truth being proven to be not quite true, there is a lot of anger and questions. Yelling at graves only calms some of the anger. Then, there are the obvious questions that now can never be answered. Intellectually, all the dead are family, true. But there is still the pain of the lies.
That pain is very real, and I try to understand it as much as I can intellectually (my family is intact albeit weird — our motto is “we put the fun in dysfunctional”). And there will surely be situations where the anger and frustration at not being able to learn the truth will be overwhelming. My point only is that discovering that our genetics aren’t what we believed them to be doesn’t have to mean severing all ties to those who were in fact family in every way except biologically. Once the grief is worked through, the end result can be more family, not less.
Thanks for writing so eloquently about this topic, Judy. I will be sharing your article with people attending the round table “DNA and Parental Puzzles” discussion that I will be facilitating at my genealogy library.
I want to share an alternative perspective with your readers. Two of my male DNA cousins were adopted into families that were not kind and loving – quite the opposite! Both men’s stories are long and complicated, so I will share this one for now. If people want to hear the other story, I will be happy to share it in another post.
One adoptive father had two daughters, but wanted a SON to take over his family’s business. But emotional abuse throughout this adoptee’s childhood made him unsuitable for self-employment. The abuse carries on to this day – the adoptee’s parents and siblings continue to treat him as a second-class citizen.
The adoptee has had only one telephone conversation with his biological mother. She told him she was in grade 11 when she gave birth to him, and that his older 1/2 sister was born when she was in grade 10. She says she can’t remember his half sister’s name or where she lives. This may or may not be true – such traumatic events can cause this type of extreme memory loss.
The bio mom has provided the name of the bio father, but no other information. She asked him not to contact her again – she does not want her youngest daughter (still living at home) to find out about the two babies she relinquished at birth.
Fear? Guilt? Shame? I suspect all three. This bio mother is not able to put herself in the shoes of a young father who is seeking family members who will offer him the love and respect he so desperately needs.
As a distant DNA cousin, I have welcomed this young man (with his wife and young son) into my extended family. We do not live anywhere near each other, but we exchange emails, Facebook messages and phone calls. I have helped him to identify our shared DNA cousins and contacted some of them on his behalf, hoping that some of them will be kind to him and his young family.
In my belief system, there is no such thing as an “illegitimate child”. A baby born out of wedlock was the only person involved who had NO choice in the consequences of an unplanned birth. ALL human beings have a right to know about their roots, and where their physical and personality traits originated.
When you are contacted by DNA cousins who are seeking information about their biological families, please remember this story, and be as generous as your hearts will allow you to be. Thank you in advance…
I have two trees, which I refer to as nature and nurture. My “nature” tree is attached to my DNA test results and began with only my direct biological ancestors (parents, grandparents, etc.). To this, I add DNA matches whose relationships I can confirm through traditional genealogical research. My “nurture” tree includes all relatives of any category (adoptive, step-, half-, in-law, etc.) in addition to biological. I do not attach it to my DNA results, but it is the one that shows my true family.
At age 56, my husband found out his Jones father was not his father at all. His dying mother did not give all the details, suffice to say, bio father Smith was never in the picture. Mother married father Jones before the birth so everything denotes Jones, who raised him. Bless him for that. My husband always considered him father. What a shock though. Now, although Jones is still Dad, my quandary is this: all the genealogical stuff has been about the Jones family, i.e. medical conditions, cause of death, inherited traits. It’s all wrong. Heart problems abound in the Jones family, but genetically, not a trait my children would have. Do I drop Jones and try to track unknown Smith? Or just let it go? So far I’ve done nothing and followed only Jones.
If Dad Jones is not going to be upset, there’s no reason not to do both and every reason at least to investigate the Smith medical history.