There are numerous stories both on the internet and television shows about siblings who were separated at birth but found each other through DNA ancestry searches and were reunited.
Although ancestry DNA testing cannot specifically confirm relationships it can point out possible relationships that can further be confirmed by a more accurate type of DNA testing specifically for confirming relationships.
Often the tale is of adopted siblings who didn’t even know they had any other siblings and did ancestry testing out of general curiosity about their family heritage and found out more than they ever hoped to know.
Sometimes the discovery is even more random such as seeing a video of someone who looks like you or taking a class and finding someone who’s life story sounds a lot like yours. Of course having a sibling DNA test would offer conclusive proof and would be advised over just matching life information.
Finding out you have a sibling can to some people be the missing puzzle to the vague feeling of incompleteness in their life. To others it can be unwanted information that could feel threatening. There are numerous story lines and plots on tv shows and movies about murders of siblings recently discovered because they didn’t want to share inheritances with them. How often that happens in real life is unknown. Hopefully not much.
Whether the news of finding a sibling you never knew you had is good news to you or bad news it is certainly life changing information that can be a lot to process and building a relationship after discovering you are siblings isn’t always an instant and easy process for some siblings.
Just because you have genetic ties with a sibling doesn’t mean you immediately know how to connect with them emotionally or that you have anything other than genetics in common with each other. The environment you were raised in, the teachers you had, the religion you were taught, the television and media influences you were exposed to and the thoughts and beliefs of parental figures could be vastly different from each other.
In the end it comes down to what is important to each sibling in terms of exploring and deepening a relationship with their newly found sibling. Does genetics mean anything deeper than biology? Does finding out you have a sibling mean you need to have a relationship with them? Regardless of how easy or difficult creating a relationship with a newly found sibling is the truth will forever change your life.
