IN THE SUMMER OF 2019, Donna Johnson spotted a special offer: 23andMe kits were half price. She and her husband, Vanner, had been thinking of getting their DNA tested to learn about their heritage and any health issues that might be related to their genes. Given the deal, Vanner thought they should buy four kits and test their sons as well as themselves. “A fun family activity. That’s how we coined it to our boys,” Vanner says.
Vanner Jr and Tim – then 14 and nearly 11 – were happy to indulge their parents. They had an idea what DNA was, Vanner says, but didn’t ask many questions. The logistics proved unexpectedly challenging: you’re not supposed to consume anything for half an hour before you produce your saliva sample, and finding a time when neither boy had eaten or drunk wasn’t easy. But within a week of receiving the kits the four of them were standing around the kitchen table together at their home north of Salt Lake City, Utah, spitting into little plastic tubes. They registered their kits online, sent off their samples, then they got on with their summer.
It’s no longer remarkable to hand over your DNA to a multimillion-dollar corporation and trust it to use it to decode who you really are. The Johnsons are one family among tens of millions worldwide who have used a direct-to-consumer genetic testing company such as AncestryDNA, MyHeritage or 23andMe. Their tests promise to unlock the truth of our heredity and how we’re connected to the world – even a medical future foretold in our genes, if we tick the appropriate box. DNA kits have become popular gifts, the go-to Christmas present for the person who has everything. At least one in 20 British people have been intrigued enough to take a test. As AncestryDNA has said, “There’s no limit to what you might discover.”
The results arrived on Donna and Vanner’s 16th wedding anniversary. Vanner got his email notification first. He saw connections with some familiar names, but Tim wasn’t there. “I thought, huh, that’s interesting.” He texted Donna, who was at the local school where she teaches second grade. He tried to rationalise it – perhaps, because Tim was a minor, the connection wasn’t immediately displayed online? But it niggled at him all day.
‘I FELT LI KE I WANTED TO S CREAM. HOW COULD HIS FATHER BE UNKNOWN? I’M HIS FATHER. I’VE BEEN HIS FATHER SINCE HE WAS BORN’
Donna’s results came in when they were together that evening. They showed she had two sons: Vanner Jr and Tim. She looked at Vanner Jr’s results. “It showed he had a half-brother through me,” she says. “ Then we looked at Tim’s results; it showed me as his mother and his father ‘unknown’.” There was no connection between Tim and Vanner. They were not
