Direct-to-consumer (DTC) DNA testing and social media are helping people find family, including sperm donor parents, biological parents who gave children up for adoption, and parents and/or siblings that were unknown to them for other reasons. Finding family and/or undergoing genetic testing can help fill in the gaps in a family medical history that might have otherwise been mostly blank. This feature tells the story of Sonny Varela, who never knew who his father was. He found his father when a DTC genetic test happened to lead him to a first cousin. When the first cousin was uncooperative and only provided Varela with his initials, Varela tracked down the full name through LinkedIn, then pluggged that name into Ancestry.com, which led him to his half-siblings, who led him to his father. Besides leading Varela to an entire paternal family that he never knew, the information that he gathered during his search has taught him about his genetic predisposition for certain diseases and his ethnic heritage. The possibilities that DTC genetic testing and social media allow could bring health benefits for people who don’t know both their parents and also has major implications for sperm banks and adoption agencies that “guarantee” anonymity.
