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Comment by russellbeattie | Hacker News Reader

The sociological effects of DNA matching sites are going to be interesting to watch. I personally found out a year or so ago that my dad wasn't my biological father. At the age of 45, that's an, um, interesting secret to suddenly discover.

Now, imagine what happens in a society with strict laws/rules/mores about this sort of thing? Well, we won't have to imagine for long. I'm quite sure my experience is a lot more common than most people realize, and I think much of the world isn't ready for it.

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> I'm quite sure my experience is a lot more common than most people realize, and I think much of the world isn't ready for it.

Nonpaternity is quite rare overall, and still unusual even when the putative father has so little paternity confidence that he demands a paternity test.

https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2018/12/04/how-paternity-test...

I wonder if there how those low numbers have changed over time. I ask from personal history.

My grandfather was away in WWII when one of my aunts was conceived. As my grandmother put it, she was lonely.

All of the adults at that time knew, but kept it a secret. None of the kids knew until that aunt was about 45 and diagnosed with a cancer ... with a genetic susceptibility passed down though the male line. My grandparents figured it was time to reveal that secret.

I therefore conjecture that the numbers in the US were higher during WWII.

On the other side of the coin, I know someone who recently found his biological parents at age 50 through one of these places. Turns out both he and his biological parents had tried to find each other in the past but were stymied legally.

This kind of thing exposes secrets. Some of those secrets could be uncomfortable (I'm truly sorry you have to deal with what you discovered!), but some can be good. It'll be interesting to see how society going forward reacts to biological ancestry secrets not being able to be swept under the rug so easily.

And 23andMe may know who you real father is from the lineage network they can build out of their database.

Yep, already found him. He passed away 20 years ago, but I discovered I have a couple half-siblings still alive, and lots of half-nieces and nephews.

Did you have to specifically sequence your and your father's DNA at 23andme for that?

No, my older brother joined and it turned out we we're half brothers, which lead to the truth.

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