Creating the Standard

For years, Tim and I had considered the idea of creating a “genetic standard” by which each of us nine children could compare our DNA against the DNA of our parents. This would be the only way we could know for sure who was and who was not biologically related to our parents. By 2007, I knew that the only way we could really prove or disprove the facts of what we were learning and make certain the information was accurate was to make use of DNA testing services.

Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family history resource, was leading the field in providing the public with affordable AncestryDNA testing services. In addition, they had the biggest database of genealogies linked to their DNA test results in the industry. A friend who worked for AncestryDNA.com explained that AncestryDNA had just recently started to make DNA testing available to the public at a very reasonable price. Their original purpose was to make it possible for people to see a breakdown of where their ancestors came from. As they refined this test and built up their database of users, they were also able to provide consumers with a good idea if a person listed on their online family tree was related to another person in a different tree.

Two other companies, 23andMe and MyHeritage, were also developing their DNA testing products and creating their own DNA-linked genealogy databases to grab their share of the consumer market, as well. Genealogists around the world were seeing that DNA tools were taking genealogy and family history to a whole new level of sophistication. I’ve witnessed this personally after more than forty years as a genealogist, oral historian, and family history blogger, working twenty-six of those years for FamilySearch International. Tim and I knew that with the help of these companies, and a few other options open to us, we were ready to consider taking the next step toward finding some of the answers to our questions. We were ready to begin moving toward creating a reliable standard against which any of our siblings could be tested; all we had to do was gather a sample of DNA from both of our parents.

Various media outlets were just beginning to air stories about people who had taken DNA tests only to discover they were not the children of the fathers (or parents) who had raised them. The public was fascinated. Over time, more and more of these stories started to pop up on the Internet, television, and several other media outlets. Books on this topic were not common in 2010 when Tim and I gathered our first DNA samples, but by 2016, several had been published. It was becoming more common to hear of someone who had tested their DNA with one of the popular testing companies only to discover a surprise that changed their life.

Richard Resnick, CEO of Genome Quest, presented an interesting TED Talk in September of 2011, when the genomic revolution was still in its relative infancy. He stated that “in any given audience, an average of 1 percent to 3 percent of the men in that group are not actually the father of their child.”^[1] That comment got a definite response from his audience. Resnick’s TED Talk was all about how genetic testing was changing our world, faster and more dramatically than any of us dreamed possible. For many, it would be the discovery of a new parent–child relationship.

Tim and I both knew that DNA testing was the only way we were going to find the answers we were looking for—the only way to sift truth from the misinformation that was being passed from one family member to another. After Neil’s accident, we felt very confident that at least one out of the nine of us was not Mark Anderson’s child. In addition to Neil, there was also a high probability that Holly and Carlee were not Mark’s daughters, because Mom had admitted as much. However, we knew that Mom was not always honest with us. In fact, when it came to matters of family history, she probably made things up more often than she told the truth.

Of course, not everything she did was in an effort to deceive. You have to remember that the actual events took place many years—in some cases, decades—before any of us started asking questions. It is easy to forget things or mix up the facts; details often evolve and change with time, sometimes intentionally. And there was a very real possibility that some of my siblings were simply telling us what they had heard from others, who were sharing information based on rumors and suppositions. So even though it had not yet been 100 percent confirmed that Holly and Carlee were not our full sisters, both of them felt fairly confident we could prove this, one way or another, by testing their DNA. With one-third of the family most likely not biologically related to Mark Anderson, I had to wonder if there weren’t more surprises associated with my other siblings hidden away in our family’s story.

The cost of DNA testing had previously been a barrier for us when it came to moving forward with our plan. But now, we knew it was time to do something.

Before we could come to any positive conclusions about who belonged to whom, we had to resolve a few key issues. Probably the most important was deciding how we were going to get DNA samples from our parents. In families where no one is hiding any incriminating secrets, this probably wouldn’t be a big problem. You would simply get a cheek swab from each parent and you’d be ready to go. But in our case, we were pretty sure that Mom and Dad both had some very big secrets to hide. How could we get DNA samples without raising suspicions that we were asking serious and intrusive questions about whether or not Mark was really our biological father? We couldn’t come right out and ask them for samples. We also had to look at this from a moral point of view. Would it be ethical to try and get samples without telling our parents what we were planning to do with them?

Judith Russell is a world-renowned genealogist and legal expert who has spoken at genealogical and family history conferences around the world. In an article she posted on her blog on November 12, 2012 (about the time we were trying to gather DNA samples from our parents), she provides some excellent information about the legality and ethics of acquiring DNA samples without consent:

Given this information, depending on the state one lives in, it may or may not be legal to acquire a DNA sample without consent. Regardless, it would not be considered ethical to obtain a DNA sample from a family member without informing them of what we were doing. Yet, in this case, finding out if we were Mark’s biological children had very big medical implications for us and for our future posterity, not to mention emotional implications, as well. Gastrointestinal cancer and diabetes were both high-profile diseases on Mark’s side of the family. By this point, two of our siblings had already died, both from cancer.

We had to ask ourselves: What was more important—ethically crossing the line by obtaining DNA samples without telling our parents, or our right to know the truth about the medical history associated with our biological bloodlines? The decision was not going to be an easy one, but we had to make it, and soon. Both of our parents were in their eighties, and we knew they wouldn’t be with us much longer. Still, we decided to hold off for a while and see how things went. Maybe something would come up that would help us in our quest to get DNA samples.

When Tim and I first seriously considered how we would start gathering DNA samples, we weren’t sure we wanted our brothers and sisters to know what we were doing—at least, not right away. We knew that our oldest sister, Holly, if she had been alive, would have put an immediate stop to our efforts. She had known a lot more than any of us, so we didn’t know how far we could, or should, go with this.

At this point, I told Tim that we needed to get started with our efforts to create a baseline standard against which we could all be tested. Once we had this, we could wait until Mom and Dad were both gone before any of us started any serious efforts to be tested. This way they would be spared any possible humiliation from knowing that their children suspected there were secrets in the family. We had no interest in doing anything to embarrass them.

The second challenge was deciding which company we were going to use to test our DNA samples. AncestryDNA, 23andMe, and MyHeritage were not yet offering DNA tests to the general public on a large scale. Our goal at the time was simply to prove whether or not we were the biological children of Mark Anderson. I already knew my ethnic background, so companies who said they would soon be offering DNA tests to establish ethnicity didn’t interest me. Most of the “at-home consumer DNA testing companies” were still building up their databases to make their products more marketable, so I wasn’t confident it would do much to connect me to other relatives. Besides, I knew all my cousins. Given our goal of confirming that Mark was our biological father, connecting with third or fourth cousins just didn’t interest me.

Even though we had no reliable proof of any kind, Tim and I had no doubts that we were Mark’s biological children. We look like our dad in so many ways, and we both have many of the same mannerisms. I also felt reasonably sure that some of our other sisters were biologically tied to Mark Anderson. But I felt strongly that we needed to allow anyone who had doubts to have a way to get the answers they needed. For that reason, we decided to bypass the three popular consumer DNA testing companies and go with a private lab.

I knew that going with a private DNA testing lab would be more expensive, but given what we were looking for, we couldn’t afford any mistakes. Plus, I wanted to have our family’s DNA information on file so we could run additional tests—many of which are not offered by the other consumer testing companies—if we ever decided we wanted, or needed, to learn more. Tim and I both felt like we needed to have a genetic testing company that had experience, a good track record of success, and was willing to talk us through the process, helping us understand the results and implications of what we were learning with each test.

Once again, life got in the way, and we laid our plans aside. We decided to tackle it at a later date. Things didn’t progress past this planning stage for a couple more years. Then one day I got a call telling me that our dad had passed away. He was eighty-eight years old and struggling with advanced diabetes when he died, so it didn’t come as a big surprise. But as is so often the case, even when it’s expected, hearing that a loved one has died still comes as a shock.

Dad had mentioned to me recently that he was ready to go—that he wasn’t worried about dying. During the last few years of his life, I had called him every Sunday night to talk with him. In his old age, he had become more open to things; I was hoping he might say something about what we had learned up to this point, or indicate that it would be okay to approach him. Every time I called, I would pepper Dad with a few questions about our family’s history. I’d ask him about dates that he was away from home when he was in the army, and what he remembered about the birth of each of his children. I was always on the lookout for something I could use to broach the subject of our births, but nothing ever came up. He never gave me even the slightest hope that he would be okay with me asking him these kinds of very personal questions I needed answers to.

After about a year of this, I began to wonder if Dad had the slightest inkling that any of his kids (except for Neil, of course) might not have been fathered by him. It had never dawned on me that Dad might not have known that any of his children were not his. This insight added a new dimension to our investigation. How much did Dad really know about all of this? Did he have any clue that Mom had been involved with so many of his close friends?

There were times when I asked myself whether I was being entirely inappropriate by pursuing the issue of our paternity. After all, kids don’t do this kind of stuff to their parents, do they? Was I being completely and utterly disrespectful toward my parents by butting into such incredibly private matters? But each time I wondered about these things, the thought would come to me that these matters were extremely important to each of us children, and to future generations. As genetic research opens new windows into nearly every aspect of our lives, we honestly need to know which family tree we are a part of when it comes to pursuing medical information. Barking up the wrong tree could have life-threatening consequences.

These were very difficult times for me. Although I had mixed feelings about all of this, something kept pushing me on, letting me know that we had to learn the truth about our identities, and what role each of us played in this family of ours. I must admit that I had many sleepless nights as I struggled to come to terms with what needed to be done.

We were in the funeral home for Dad’s viewing when Tim pulled me aside to remind me that if we were going to get a DNA sample from Dad, this would be our last chance. It was now or never. In four more hours, he would be buried six feet under, as good as a million miles out of our reach. My first thought was, How in the world are we going to get a cheek swab from a dead man? After all, Dad had already been embalmed. I wasn’t familiar with how they prepare people for burial, but I was sure they did something to ensure that the person’s mouth didn’t suddenly open during the viewing—an adhesive or wire device of some kind. I didn’t know if that was true or not, but if that was the case, getting a cheek swab was pretty much out of the question.

Tim reminded me that if we couldn’t get a cheek swab, some hair samples with the hair follicle still attached would do. He thought about the problem for a minute and then left the room. I didn’t know it until after the viewing, but apparently Tim spoke with the funeral director and explained our situation. He didn’t go into detail, but asked if the mortician would be willing to pull out some of Dad’s hair for us, after the viewing was over. I think he told the director that we were gathering DNA information about all of our family members so we could compile a family medical history, or something like that.

I’m sure the poor funeral director must have thought we were very disturbed, asking him to pull a handful of hair from our father’s corpse. As I think about it now, it does sound very creepy. But as Tim and I were leaving the funeral home, the funeral director passed Tim an envelope. Tim quietly tucked it into his suit-coat pocket. When I asked him about it later, Tim confirmed that it was Dad’s hair.

Now that we had some DNA from Dad, we needed to get some from Mom, too. She was about eighty-five years old at the time and in good health. We knew she could be around for several more years. Waiting until her funeral was simply not a good option.

Several months after Dad’s funeral, I got a phone call from Tim. He told me that he had a top-quality sample of Mom’s DNA. I was surprised to hear it, and asked how he’d gotten the sample. He said that after trying to figure out a way to get a good cheek swab from Mom, he decided he would just ask for one. Tim used basically the same tactic he’d used with the funeral director, telling Mom we were gathering DNA samples from family members to compile a health history, which was true. We wanted to include her DNA when creating the genetic standard for our family so that in the future, we could use that standard to test for medical issues, in addition to answering our paternity questions. Mom never batted an eye; she was happy to help. It was just that simple! I had to laugh. I can always count on Tim to do what it takes to get something done. The guy is a genius!

We put the samples in the freezer, and there they stayed for nearly two years. We kept putting off the testing of our own DNA samples, thinking we’d get it done when we had the money to pay for the tests. This wasn’t a pressing issue for Tim or me; we were both confident that we were Mark Anderson’s sons. We were doing this so we could provide a comparison base against which our brothers and sisters could be tested, if they so chose.

Now that we had the DNA we needed, we still needed to find a place to get the testing done. Our number one question was which of our brothers and sisters were fathered by Mark Anderson, the man who raised us. Our mother had admitted that Mark was not Neil’s father. (We still needed to do DNA testing on Neil to be 100 percent sure, but that would have to come at some future date, if Neil would agree to being tested.) None of us were 100 percent certain that Mark was Holly and Carlee’s father, but we thought the chances were very high that he was not. Our second question was, if Mark Anderson was not the father, then who was?

Actually, at that time, we didn’t expect that we would be the ones to find these answers; we would simply provide the standard and then let each sibling choose whether they wanted to pay for testing to find out for sure. Those who discovered that Mark was not their father would have to decide if and how they would take the next step to find out who their biological fathers were, and how much they would be willing to pay to learn that information. As far as I was concerned, that was a bridge we’d cross once we got there. For now, Tim and I needed to focus on creating the standard and then letting our brothers and sisters decide if they wanted to go any further.

We didn’t want a cheap company with little experience or with a shoddy reputation to do this job. But with two parents and nine children, we couldn’t afford to pay several hundred dollars for each person to be tested. We wanted to make sure that whoever we hired was AABB (American Association of Blood Banks) and CAP (College of American Pathologists) certified. These certifications generally ensure that the companies will provide the best possible results. We wanted to know the truth, but we didn’t have a lot of money to work with, nor did we have a lot of Dad’s DNA material to spare. We also weren’t sure that we could get more DNA from our mom, so we needed to be very careful about who we selected to do our testing.

Once again, the answer came from Tim. His good friend Jack Anderson (no relation) owned a genetic testing firm called Andergene Labs in Oceanside, California. The lab had a very good reputation for its work with paternity and other genetic testing services for people around the world. Tim had talked with Jack about what we hoped to do with our parents’ DNA, explaining that we wanted to learn whether our siblings were biologically linked to Mark Anderson. Jack was intrigued by our case and gave Tim some advice about how to move forward. He said that if we were interested in testing the samples we had, he would make it affordable for us. This was the man who could help us create the standard we were hoping to establish.

I told Tim that we had to move ahead on this and take Jack up on his offer. I decided that I would pay to have Mom and Dad’s DNA samples tested, and while I was at it, I would have mine tested as well. Things were starting to fall into place; I was excited to finally have our standard in place. I wasn’t concerned about my own DNA showing anything unusual. I knew I was Dad’s son. Just look at any picture of me with my dad and my uncles, and you will see that there is no doubt I am an Anderson all the way. Nor was there any doubt that Tim and I were full brothers. For years, if anyone called our home, they could never tell whether they were speaking with me or with Tim. I can’t even begin to count the times that people told us we sounded exactly alike. Not only did we sound alike, but we looked alike; Tim looked even more like Dad than I did.

So for us, the issue of finding out whether we were related to Mark Anderson wasn’t even up for consideration. However, I did want to have my DNA tested to see if there was anything interesting that Jack could tell me. Although this wasn’t one of our main research goals, I thought it would be informative. Besides, it would be good to have my genetic information readily available if I ever needed to determine if there were any diseases I might be susceptible to, or anything serious that I should be aware of. I thought it would be a good investment.

Tim gave Jack the samples he had gathered from our parents, and I provided Jack with some of my own DNA. I was surprised by how simple and painless it was to provide my material for testing. All he needed was a couple of cheek swabs. This was a matter of taking two long cotton swabs and rubbing them along the inside of my mouth. Each cheek was rubbed with a different cotton swab; it was that simple. No blood was needed, and there was nothing that had to be poked or inserted into my body. With the cheek swabs ready, we were good to go. The adventure was moving to the next level. It was getting exciting now!

Jack told us that it would be a month or two before he could provide us with the results of our tests. I wasn’t concerned; after all, these samples had been sitting in Tim’s freezer for nearly two years. I could wait a couple more months.

We now had a way to get the answers to our first question, about who is, or is not, biologically related to our dad, Mark Anderson. Jack was going to provide this information for us. The answers to our second question—if any of our siblings discovered that Mark Anderson was not their biological father, how would we find out the identity of their fathers—would have to come from online genealogy database companies like AncestryDNA, 23andMe, and others. For now, we were focused on answering our first question.

I was at work when I got a call from Jack. He had the results of our DNA tests and was ready to explain what they revealed. I was excited to hear what he had learned about Mom and Dad, and to see whether he had found any unusual health issues from my own DNA sample. While the main purpose of this test was to establish the standard against which we all could be tested, regarding our biological link to our parents, my interest was to see if I had inherited any physical traits or genetic tendencies that I needed to be concerned about. With this test, the standard would be in place and I could leave the rest up to each individual sibling to decide how far they would take this journey. It would be the scientific, unquestionable proof of parentage. For me, I was done. My story was set in stone, assuming Jack did not find any genetic markers for worrisome health problems.

Jack assured me that the samples Tim had stored in the freezer were still viable, and that he had everything we needed to create a good baseline against which to compare other DNA samples from our siblings. I asked Jack if he had found anything interesting in my DNA sample. Since Dad had struggled with diabetes starting in his early forties, and many of my Anderson relatives had died of both diabetes and stomach cancer, I was interested to learn whether I had inherited any of those traits that would make me a high-risk candidate for either of these two medical conditions.

I knew it; it was time. I was ready to hear the bad news about which of those two diseases I was genetically prone to—but I was not ready to hear what Jack was about to tell me.

The good news was that I didn’t have any markers for early-onset diabetes or any unusually high markers for stomach cancer.

Resnick, Richard. “Welcome to the Genomic Revolution.” TED Talk, July 2011. Boston, Massachusetts. https://www.ted.com/talks/richard_resnick_welcome_to_the_genomic_revolution

Russell, Judy G. “The Ethics of DNA Testing,” The Legal Genealogist, 2012. https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2012/11/18/the-ethics-of-dna-testing/#respond