Monica Roberts, a 63-year-old grandmother who lives in St Helens, near
Liverpool, has advice for anyone thinking of confirming their family roots
with a DNA test. “Consider what you've got,” she says, “what might be
snatched away, and the situation you may find yourself in when you've got
the result.”
In 2002, Monica was elated when, after decades of research on websites and
databases, through phone calls and writing letters, she finally thought she
had found her father and his family. “It brought me so much peace and
comfort; I felt all the ghosts had been laid to rest,” she said.
However, her optimism was to be short-lived, because a DNA test carried out
earlier this year with a presumed half-sister proved negative. “If I'd not
known about the possibility of a DNA test, I'd never have had a niggling
doubt about any of it,” she says.
Now she wishes that she had never got involved. “My daughter has two little
girls and for the first time she had a grandad and a history to attach to
him and we were all just feeling quite comfortable and settled. The test
shook everything.”
When it comes to healing fractured families, DNA is often seen as a panacea;
modern science's way of reconnecting branches of a long-lost family tree -
the test being the final act of confirmation at the end of a long and
painstaking search for relations. The hope, of course, is that it will put
to rest any doubts, not open a new line of inquiry.
The demand for DNA tests has soared in recent years. Dr Mandy Hartley,
technical manager of Anglia DNA Services Ltd in Norwich, says that her
company has experienced a tenfold increase in its client base since it
opened in 2004 and the company has dealt with more than 10,000 cases in the
past year alone.
Peak times for inquiries - especially about paternity tests - tend to be when
families come together at school holidays and the Christmas break and after
life-defining events such as childbirth, retirement or the death of a
parent. “Someone may always have felt something was wrong or another family
member has said your dad is not actually your dad. Often people wait until
their parents are dead before trying to find out, so as not to upset
anyone,” Hartley says.
These tests are now quicker and easier than ever before. A paternity test can
cost as little as £99 and often requires no more than a swab from the inside
of the person's cheek. The first over-the-counter DNA paternity testing kit
was launched this year in the United States - more than 60,000 have been
sold. Last week, Walgreens, the American high street pharmacy chain,
announced that it too now stocks the Identigene DNA Paternity Test Kit. Just
send your swabs to a lab in the pre-paid enclosed envelope and an answer is
guaranteed within three to five working days.
None of which prepares you, of course, for the possible outcome of these
tests, for the joy or dejection they may bring. Alison Phillips, 66, was
adopted at birth and grew up believing that her natural parents were dead.
She was told that her biological mother had died shortly after childbirth
and that her natural father was killed during the Second World War. Alison
had what she describes as an “advantageous” adoption. She was much loved and
hers was a childhood of privilege: ballet and music lessons, holidays abroad
and schooling at the Cheltenham Ladies' College.
But Alison never stopped wondering about her parentage. “You go through life
and think, 'Somebody, somewhere, didn't want me',” she says. “That's why
adopted people need to be able to trace their parents, to find that out.”
In 1998, after her adoptive mother had died and her adoptive father had been
taken into a care home, she decided that the time had come to trace her
biological family. She discovered that her birth mother was still alive and,
according to her adoption file, her father was Douglas W. Scott, a private
in the Canadian Armed Forces, who was posted to England during the Second
World War.
Initial inquiries in Canada came to nothing. “I wrote to the Canadian
archives, who wrote to him and he said he didn't want to know. He was
obviously a married man with a family and I didn't want to upset people.”
But earlier this year, a decade after beginning her search, she received a
letter from Terril Scott, the son of Douglas Scott. Although his father had
recently died, he was curious to explore the possibility that he may have a
half-sister. Alison and Terril describe their initial contact via e-mail and
phone as exhilarating; they were both surprised and delighted at how quickly
they built up a rapport. Terril, a retired Canadian public servant, says:
“It was joyful to pick up that receiver and hear Alison's voice and think
we've at last connected. I felt a sense of warmth imagining I have a big
sister.”
But not everyone in Terril's family was convinced that a long-lost relative
had been found, and a DNA test was suggested. In September this year Terril
flew to the UK to meet the woman who he felt was his father's daughter. A
“sibling” test was carried out. The result was disappointing for both of
them; it proved inconclusive. Alison and Terril did not have enough shared
DNA for the scientists to make a decision - an outcome that can occur in up
to 20 per cent of sibling cases.
A paternity test, which is 99.9 per cent accurate, was sought to determine
whether Alison was the biological daughter of Douglas Scott. DNA was
extracted from skin cells on his garters. The result, though, was hard to
accept: she was not his daughter. “It was very disappointing and it hit me
much harder than I thought but I steeled myself not to cry,” she says. One
month later, Alison is still in turmoil but the search for her biological
father continues.
Ivy Chappell, 64, an NHS counsellor living in Lincolnshire, had been told by
her mother that the father she never knew was John Eke, a petty officer in
the Navy. Ivy spent decades trying to find him and finally, three years ago,
she received a phone call from a member of his family. “A man said, ‘Can I
speak to Ivy Chappell?' And I said, ‘Who are you?' There was silence and
then he said, ‘I think I'm your brother'. I was in total shock,” she says.
He was Jimmy Eke, John's son, and he told her that his father had died in
1982, but they arranged to meet and after comparing stories became convinced
that they were related.
Again the results were a bitter blow. Ivy and Jimmy were not brother and
sister and, therefore, John Eke was not Ivy's father. “I still find it
difficult to believe,” Ivy says. “I was convinced there had to be a mistake
because we shared so much.”
Dr Angharad Rudkin, an NHS clinical psychologist whose area of specialist
interest is adoption, points out that it is common to try to reinforce
emotion with science. “They had managed to convince themselves they were
related and they were expecting science to back up that decision. Who do you
trust? Do you trust your own instinct and think, 'I have found the family I
belong to'? Or do you say, 'I trust a machine and it's done an analysis'?
It's very hard; first science lets you down and then you realise your
parents have let you down also.”
If they believe the science, both Alison and Ivy are left with the
uncomfortable truth that their mothers appear to have lied on their adoption
papers. As Rudkin points out, DNA tests can be a brutal way of facing up to
some hard facts. “All of us at some point in our lives embark on these
emotional journeys and searches - be it falling in love, grieving, or an
adopted person trying to find their birth family. And during these journeys
there's a part of us that will not accept it might not work or come to
nothing, the rational part of us doesn't kick in.”
Ivy and Jimmy, and Alison and Terril, have become good friends in the process
of their search. In fact, such is the bond between Alison and Terril that he
recently spent a week with Alison and her husband at their home in
Buckinghamshire. The irony is that, had Alison not put her trust in science
to eradicate all doubt, she would still be content in the knowledge that she
had found her half-brother.
Lorraine Kelly's DNA Stories, Sky Real Lives HD Channel 278, is on Mondays
at 9pm.
Testing procedure
The NHS does not offer paternity tests. Your GP, the Citizen's Advice Bureau
or NHS Direct can provide details of testers.
In the UK, a paternity test for “peace of mind” costs from £99 to £300. For
legal issues, such as changing a birth certificate or child maintenance, it
costs £250 to £400. Sibling tests start from £350. Maternity tests are also
available.
Nine laboratories are recognised by the Ministry of Justice to carry out
paternity tests for the courts, see www.justice.gov.uk/whatwedo/paternitytesting.htm.
