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I was adopted at birth and have never known my biological family. It's been something that I always said I would look into but never quite got the courage to do as I had a loving home and considered them to my true family. Fast forward to the present and I decided to take a DNA test with ancestry.com I got the results back and multiple matches to people I have never met including two half siblings and multiple 1st cousins. Well one of.the half siblings reached out to me asking who I was and generally was confused as to why I match dna with them. I am unsure.of.how to proceed and frankly nervous, because if this is all true I am speaking to my younger brother
Ant advice would be generally needed
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I encountereda similarsituation. I was confusedand unsure of what to say. I finally just told them what I knew. They were very receptive even thoughthey had no idea. I am waitingto hear back from my half brotherbut, the reliefI felt was worth the effort.
I was adopted at birth and have never known my biological family. It's been something that I always said I would look into but never quite got the courage to do as I had a loving home and considered them to my true family. Fast forward to the present and I decided to take a DNA test with ancestry.com I got the results back and multiple matches to people I have never met including two half siblings and multiple 1st cousins. Well one of.the half siblings reached out to me asking who I was and generally was confused as to why I match dna with them. I am unsure.of.how to proceed and frankly nervous, because if this is all true I am speaking to my younger brother Ant advice would be generally needed
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Hi- I had some similar circumstance, although my journey didn’t start through a genealogical test. I was told at 30yrs old that the man who raised me wasn’t my biological father. After almost a year I received enough information to start really looking. I didn’t have anything specific I was looking for or expectations on what I would find. I found a lot, I actually knew the entire family tree of my bio-dad before I ever made contact. It took me a long time to determine whether to reach out to the half siblings. I wasn’t sure how to go forward. They might not know anything about me and I might just wreck their family. Long story short I found out the family was already fractured so it was easy to make that choice without disrupting relationships. But I definitely shook the lives of the siblings I reached out to. It turned out to be a toxic relationship with the sibling and I had to stop contact. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, I had to reach out to the bio-dad and make contact. His wife of 28 years had no idea about me and they were together at the time of my conception. I share all of this hoping that you can see that many things are out of your control and most have never been in your control. It’s hard to admit out loud, but every move I made was a selfish one. Truthfully, almost all decisions we make are selfish ones. We’re either avoiding conflict or seeking happiness. You looking for your truth is selfish- as it should be. I have spent the last 4 years trying to pick up crumbs of my truth while wholly avoiding my perceived wrecking/uprooting of other people’s lives. But it landed me in a much worse position than I started. Today I’m more depressed, lost, and confused than the day I found out about my paternity. My avoidance of conflict has been my detriment. Your decision is a very difficult one and only you can answer it. The only thing you can ever do is be ready to face any potential outcome. Sometimes it’s when you know you can handle whatever comes next that you can choose your path. Hope my words help bring you whatever you need.