I have seen a number of ads and promotions leading up to this Fathers' Day weekend for the 23andme and AncestryDNA kits as gifts. Take it from me that they can work and have unpredictable results. This time last year my half-sister found me on 23andme.com, a service that I had signed up for about 3-4 years earlier because I was adopted and did not know my medical history or ethnic background although it was suspected that I was Irish and 23andme did confirm that along with some Neanderthal DNA as well. I thought it would be a long shot to find any relatives. Most connections were 3rd, 4th, or 5th cousins that only shared a fraction of 1% of DNA. My half-sister and I shared the same father whom she had met when she was 13. We shared about 25% DNA. She gave me his contact information and I got in touch and eventually met face to face. He lived about 6 hours away from me in Delaware where he had lived his whole life.

Turns out that he was quite the womanizer in the '60s, the era of free love. While he was married to his first wife of three, he had an affair with his then boss's 20-year-old secretary. He believed I was conceived in her apartment over a Thanksgiving weekend when he told his wife that he was working in the next city over. (He was working in IT, a field that I also work in). A few months later while trying to call my biological mother he accidentally reaches my half-sister's mother who had dated his best friend. They hooked up and conceived my half-sister. We are only four months apart. I am the eldest. My biological father and his best friend rented an apartment together downtown where they could hook up with college girls. He drove me by the place and pointed it out to me.

My birth mother must have gotten upset with him and told his wife about their affair and to prove it arranged for the wife to walk in on them while they were in bed. My birth mother later moved away and then put me up for adoption without my biological father's knowledge. I was adopted when I was only a few months old and had a pretty happy and fairly normal or average childhood. My adoptive mother was adopted herself and had let me know I was adopted from an early age. She was told she could not have children of her own and thus adopted me, but four years later she was surprised had my oldest sister who was followed by another sister and eventually a little brother that is 13 years younger than me.

I've included a photo of my biological father and me on the day we met. We both happened to wear blue Hawaiian shirts. We also shared some other similarities and it was easy to see the physical resemblance. I was 51 and he was 76. It was odd to sit across from someone that looked like myself. It is something that most people take for granted, but not when you are adopted. Unfortunately, he died this past spring. I drove down and helped my half-sister to make the funeral arrangements (yes, he was a man that had his two bastard children plan his cremation) and meet an aunt, uncle and some cousins for the first time. While I was sad that he had died so soon after meeting him I was grateful that I at least had a chance to meet him in person. While most people that knew him agreed that he could be inappropriate at times they also described him as being generous and being good hearted. He was also somewhat of a hoarder. He had lived in the same house for nearly 50 years. One of the lessons I learned was to get my affairs in order before I die and to get rid of your crap so that my children and relatives do not have to. My half-sister found a helpful book on the subject: [familyhandyman.com]

As for my birth mother, I was able to track her down. My biological father had an excellent memory and remembered her first and last name and the town in Maryland where she was from. I was able to confirm by looking up her high school graduation photo on Classmates.com. Then with the help of Google and social media sites such as Pinterest, Facebook, and Blogger, I found her in California and emailed her, but she asked me not to contact her again. While I was disappointed I could understand her situation. I had probably opened long dormant memories that were 51 years old.

My half-sister and I keep in touch although she lives 3,000 miles away. There is a unique bond between us although we have only known each other for a year.

So, the lesson here is that you may be in for a surprise as a result of buying one of those DNA kits for your dad this Fathers' Day.