Discovering Long-Lost Relatives Through Commercial DNA Tests
Digging around in your DNA is getting cheaper and easier all the time. For only $207, you can now subscribe to 23andMe’s genotyping service, for instance, which gives you information about your genetic background, potential disease susceptibilities, and other traits. And as the numbers of people in such companies’ databases climb into the hundreds of thousands, it has become possible for software to connect customers who share so much DNA, they may well be relatives. For adoptees who don’t have access to their adoption records and are curious about biological family, there’s never been a better time to go searching. The New York Times follows the story of one 42-year-old woman who, after learning she was adopted, finds her third cousin through a DNA service, and details the relationship that they form as she deals with the revelation that she is not, after all, the daughter of her adoptive parents.