A woman accidentally discovered her 88-year-old father had a child he didn’t know about after she used a DNA testing app to learn about her Irish heritage. 

Jeannette, 53, from Yorkshire, was shocked when a man living in Scotland messaged her saying ‘it seems you’re my sister – and your dad is my dad’- even though her parents have been together for over 50 years. 

‘No broken marriage, broken family,’ she said on the Real Women’s Stories with Lisa Quait podcast. ‘There’s none of that. So we’ve just been like that for 50 odd years. Just one little group, one little family. So it wasn’t the sort of thing I was expecting.’

The confession left Jeannette reeling as she worried about breaking the news to her ‘very anxious’ father because ‘I didn’t want to give my dad a heart attack’ but ultimately decided that honesty was the best approach. 

While her 87-year-old mother ‘didn’t give a hoot about it’ considering Jeannette’s new brother was born before she married her father, he was ‘dumbfounded’ by the revelation and stayed up all night trying to remember who he had dated in the Sixties. 

‘We gave the name of my new brother’s mum and he said: “I just don’t remember the name, that’s awful,” Jeannette admitted, revealing her father was embarrassed. 

She explained that the man – who had requested no more than a photo of his father – was not a scammer as Jeannette reflected on the ‘life-changing’ impact of what was supposed to be a light-hearted experiment. 

Ultimately, however, their story has a happy ending, with Jeannette’s older half-brother not only connecting with her father virtually – but also spending their first Father’s Day together after 60 years. 

When Jeanette came across a social media ad for DNA kits, she decided to gift them to a friend and her mother, before buying one for herself. 

After sending off her sample, Jeannette discovered she was 55 per cent Irish and enthusiastically shared the results with her friends online – before forgetting about the whole thing entirely.  

However, four years later, Jeannette was scrolling through the app when she received a lengthy message that would change everything she knew about her family. 

Speaking on the podcast, she explained: ‘At first, I thought it was one of those generic messages people send asking about the family tree. But this one… it was long. Really long. And it ended with: “It seems you are my sister – and your dad is my dad.”

Jeannette revealed the message left her dumbstruck as she tried to make sense of it after initially convincing herself she’d misunderstood it. 

‘I read it all again, which took ages with it being such a long message.  I just kept staring at it, so I just couldn’t think of a single thing to say,’ she continued. ‘It was such a shock because I’ve been brought up with one brother, one sister.’ 

Still shaken by the reveal, Jeanette decided to share the surprising DNA results with her siblings – who were equally shocked. 

Though they initially suspected the message was part of a scam, they softened when they realised its sender only had one heartfelt request: a photo of Jeannette’s father. 

Their potential relative, who lived in the north of Scotland, explained he had been unaware of his biological father until the DNA testing app found a connection – and only wanted to put a face to the name. 

Jeannette’s sister also pointed out that their parents could have had prior relationships before they met and got married in October 1970, when their mother was 32 and their father, 33.  

‘It was at that point I realised that I was going to have to go and speak to my, 87, and 88-year-old parents, and within two hours I had gone to the house.

‘I think I panicked them a bit because they looked a bit ashen when I walked in. 

‘I explained it was urgent and I needed to speak to them, so what I did was, I ended up saying: “Look, nobody’s pregnant, nobody is in trouble, nobody’s sick, nobody’s dying.”

She explained to her father that a match had come through on the DNA site, and the man who had contacted her appeared to be his son. 

Jeanette added: ‘I was very nervous to see how they were going to be because I didn’t want to give my dad a heart attack. I have no anger or anything, but it helped that my new brother predates my parents’ marriage.

‘My dad’s a very anxious person. My mother is very laid back. I knew she wouldn’t give a hoot about it. She’d be fine, which was true. 

‘But I thought my dad might have a little bit of a meltdown, so I was really worried about bursting into the room at their age and giving my dad this information.

‘He was just dumbfounded. He accepted what I said, throughout, you know, I mean, he didn’t disbelieve anybody, but it was questioned. Could that have been a mistake? So it was a shock.’

‘Apparently my dad stayed up till three in the morning trying to remember girlfriends from the ’60s,’ Jeannette said, adding he became ’embarrassed’ when he confessed he had no recollection of ‘my new brother’s mum’. 

However, Jeanette said she never considered keeping the discovery from her father because honesty is the best approach – no matter the consequences. 

‘I definitely have always had a strong feeling you can’t go wrong with the truth,’ she affirmed. 

After connecting with her new brother, Jeannette and her siblings set up a family WhatsApp group to formally introduce everyone – as he went from having a very small family to gaining about 150 cousins and 20 uncles and aunts. 

When they finally met in person, Jeanette said it felt strangely natural – like she had been with her brother all along. 

Her father is also ‘so happy’ and has been ‘to stay with him’, Jeannette revealed, adding: ‘My mum and dad flew up there to go stay with them for a couple of weeks, and he says “Thank goodness I got a chance to meet my son whilst I was still alive.” 

‘They spent their first Father’s Day together and my brother got a chance to give him a Father’s Day card for the first time. 

‘They’ve got some lovely photos together and it’s just really, really special, really special and we’ve got a good relationship as well. So none of this would have been possible without that test. 

‘As much as it started as something quite light-hearted, it’s been life-changing.’

Now, Jeannette is encouraging others to do similar DNA tests because she believes it’s a fascinating journey. 

However, she acknowledged there might be a risk of uncovering secrets that could cause tensions and even rifts within families. 

She said: ‘I think most people should say to themselves: “What is the worst that could happen here? And what’s the best that could happen? And how might that impact you and those around you?”

‘I mean, I suppose in my case somebody might have come up as the result of an affair. That would have been absolutely terrible.

‘I know in my mum’s case, her reaction was, in fact, she said: “I don’t care, it was before we were married. I don’t care at all.”

‘I feel like he was missing, and I look at photos now and they just don’t look right. It’s kind of changed how I see my childhood and I feel upset for me that my big brother wasn’t around when I was younger because I always thought I was the oldest.

‘And she was sat there saying that to my dad on the night she heard about it, so I knew that was always going to be her reaction.

‘I’m in a situation where I’m getting to know my brother in the 50s and it’s clear we we’ve got a good bond already.

‘I’ve been to stay with it him, and I’m going to stay with him again next week and chances are we’re probably going to go and live up near him.’

For Jeanette, seeing old family photos now feels different, almost incomplete, as she grapples with the realisation that she’s no longer the eldest sibling in her family. 

She said: ‘I’ve got a photograph of me and my dad when we were very, very young in a photo booth. It’s black and white, that’s how old it is. 

‘I was five in it and he’d be in his late 30s at the time. And I just keep looking at this photo and thinking: “My brother should have been there.”

‘And that’s been a really strange thing to get my head around, because I’m actually not the oldest as it turns out. I feel like I’ve missed out.

‘We all feel like we’ve missed out, and we’re just glad we found out at least, even if it was late.’

Jeanette shared that one of the hardest parts of the experience was the deep ‘sense of loss’ that she and her siblings felt after discovering their brother later in life. 

They also carried around a sense of guilt because they had the opportunity to grow up with their father, while their brother hadn’t.  

She added: ‘The worst part about it has been the sense of loss. Like you lost my brother for a long time and never got a chance to have that relationship. 

‘That that’s been by far the biggest low, I could cry thinking about it, I feel like I miss him from before. If that’s not a strange way of putting it. 

‘And it’s kind of opened an area of your heart that you don’t know is there, I found that quite hurtful that he’s not been with us. The loss of not having had him.’

By the time she met him, her brother’s mother had already passed away, and he bore no responsibility – leaving no one to hold accountable for the years missed. 

She said: ‘I wish we’d found out ten, 20, 30 years before. I wish we’d never had to do this, but we were all wishing we’d known earlier, particularly the dad, because he feels like he’s missed out on his son. 

‘And we’re also annoyed that he’s not been there. He says his upbringing wasn’t the best start but it wasn’t too bad. 

‘I don’t know if he’s saying that in part to make us feel better, but he also says he didn’t feel like he missed out as a child. 

‘However, now we’ve all visited and come back home to Yorkshire, he said he misses having us around a lot.

‘So it’s kind of all these emotions going that we didn’t even know, so yeah, it hurts me that he wasn’t there.’.