I Finally Took an Ancestry Test. The Results Are Even More Shocking Than I Expected.

Dear Prudence

Prudie chats with Lizzie O’Leary, host of What Next: TBD, about a family in freefall.

June 18, 2026 12:00 PM

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Each week, exclusively for Slate Plus members , Prudie discusses a new letter with a fellow Slate colleague. Have a question for Prudie? Submit it here .

Dear Prudence,

I always felt disconnected from my family because I looked and acted so differently from everyone else. My parents and siblings are all tall, light hair, blue eyes, and great athletes. I hit 5’4” in heels and fall over on my face half the time. I am the only one with very dark eyes and hair. My brother used to tease me that I was adopted, and my mother always insisted that I just took after her Italian grandmother. So in college, I did an ancestry test, and the results were I wasn’t Italian, but Hispanic. It was like gravity turned off.

My entire world was up ended and rearranged. I couldn’t face my mom so I went to my paternal grandmother. Her response was my mom had an affair, but my dad chose to forgive her. I was born very fair so he figured that I was his and didn’t want to battle out custody of my brothers. It wasn’t until I got older that it became obvious that I wasn’t his daughter. My dad insists that it doesn’t matter and I will always be his little girl, but he completely shuts down on the topic of finding my biological father. My mom claims she doesn’t remember the guy’s name and it just a “mistake.”

Well, it was a mistake that made me. My emotions swing between grief and rage and confusion and vindication. I been lied and mislead about my origins my entire life and now everyone, including my brothers, act like I am crazy for keep bringing up the topic and not sweeping it under the rug. If I bring it up, my mom will walk out of the room or start crying, and my dad looks at me like I am the devil. I know I could search on my own, but my biological father could be a serial killer or a Senator for all I know. I feel even more alone in my family than ever before.

—Hard Truth

Jenée Desmond-Harris : People just cannot get away with lying to children about this stuff the way they used to. It’s overwhelming to think of how many families have been thrown into chaos after someone gets the results of an ancestry test. In my fantasy life as a therapist, this is something I’d consider making my practice’s specialty.

Anyway, I really feel for the letter writer because it’s as if they’re being blamed for a situation that is not their fault, and the total lack of support for the emotional toll of this news only adds to the sense of the alienation they’ve always felt

Lizzie O’Leary : Absolutely, and it’s also very clear that her parents are not (and may never be) capable of engaging with these questions. Of course she feels disconnected! That makes complete and total sense.

But I am also curious what exactly our LW’s goals are. Is she looking to find her biological father? Or process these emotions? Or have some recognition for how massive a reveal this is? It seems like there is, understandably, a lot going on here that needs to be unpacked.

And right now, it seems, her family does not want to help her do that. Which I think gets at another question—is there a way for the LW to do some of this processing on her own, or with a different support system? As you can imagine, there are a lot of groups springing up to deal with these kinds of situations, as more and more people are making use of commercial DNA testing.

Jenée : Yeah, I think that’s exactly the thought that I was kind of hovering around, which for me is thinking about all the layers of pain here: What does she want? I have an idea, of course. She wants to feel a sense of belonging and wants the reality she’s facing to be affirmed. And I guess I’m a little worried that since she’s not getting what she needs from her family, she may go looking for it from her biological father and that’s a very vulnerable position to be in. Because who knows who he is or what he has to offer. I think maybe she is worried about that too and that’s why she doesn’t want to search without her family being on board. So I definitely like your idea of a different support system.

I think I would suggest waiting to start the search process until she’s feeling a little more solid and more confident that she’ll be able to handle whatever happens and however her family continues to disappoint her around this issue. The group will help with that!

Lizzie : I very much agree that right now is not the time to go on a search for her biological dad. That need is there, yes, but I think it’s really important to do that when she is feeling less alone. Look, it is not the same thing at all, but I always come back to when I was diagnosed with cancer, and how much it helped to talk to other people with cancer—ei…