I have just finished reading a book entitled The Lost Family: How DNA Testing Is Upending Who We Are, by Libby Copeland (Abrams Press, New York, 2020). I had found this book in the Daedalus Books catalogue, which often has discontinued or unusual books. The title intrigued me, and I thought perhaps I had heard it reviewed on National Public Radio. I read it right away, letting it take precedence over some other books I’d also received. I enjoyed it and found it to be well-written and timely. It prompted a mix of reactions as I read it and thought about it, which follow here. This is both a book review and my own thoughts while and after I read the book.

The author does seem to assume that many people consider being adopted somewhat shameful, and assumes the adoption may not have ever been disclosed to the adoptee, until they had a DNA test and found out they were not related to their parents. I did find this outdated. The author also assumes that only adoptees search and that birth parents are still traumatized (this would be birth mothers) and hiding, and don’t want to be found, and that the pregnancy was the result of rape or that the birth mother was somehow wild or irresponsible and is extremely ashamed of that. Being conceived by donor sperm also seems to be not only largely undisclosed, but parents consider it a deep secret and both donors and recipients perhaps less than honorable. This assumption and viewpoint also seem somewhat outdated. She does seem to think that birth mothers, in particular, should never forget, (although they were told they would and should), and they should want to search but should feel they have no right to do so, only should respond gladly and openly if they are sought. They shouldn’t “disrupt” the happy adoptee and perfect adoptive parents. This used to be the assumed viewpoint, but no longer is for many people, although we continue to hear it from people who know nothing about adoption or only know some adoptive parents that are terrified by the concept they have of birth parents who they imagine might “steal” their child, even if the adopted person is now forty years old. The author does not say this, but seems to believe it at some level. Attendance at an adoption support group might change that. She does refer to “adoptee community” rather than “adoption community,” which includes all those with an adoption connection—adopted persons, birth parents, adoptive parents, donor parents, siblings, et al. She also uses the term “abandoned” rather than “relinquished,” which she may not realize is painful to birth parents as well as adoptees and most adoptive families, and, in most cases, is not accurate. Not having a choice about relinquishing, as many did not in the past, does not constitute abandonment.

Aside from these visceral reactions to some of the author’s choice of words, the book is well worth reading and can be an excellent ongoing guide for anyone who decides to have a DNA test. Advertising has greatly increased the number of persons who have tested, some of them numerous times with different companies, or “upgrades” with a particular company. Sometimes the ads on television, particularly, promise more detailed information than is usually delivered. DNA will not tell a person that their great grandfather had blond hair and was a fisherman, nor that the person who tested has brown hair, a cleft chin, and doesn’t sleep well, or “is more apt than others to sweat during a workout.” Some of this is far more speculative than actual reliable information. Some of the “health risk” information may be misleading, either in a positive direction or negative. Two of my sons and their half-sister tested through 23 and Me for Parkinson’s Disease, which they knew they had, but were told it was unlikely it was genetic. It took detailed medical testing with blood samples to find their particular genetic mutation, not an at-home DNA kit.

The subtitle of the book is “How DNA Testing Is Upending Who We Are.” No, it may upend who one thinks one is, or how one views oneself. It does not change one’s genetics.

Although different DNA tests may report different ethnic backgrounds, or different amounts, due to which ever genetic markers particular companies have chosen to test for, or their testing methods, the actual person’s DNA has not changed, only the reported results. Ethnicity itself is partly a construct, a way of perceiving oneself in relationship to family and culture. In the case of one of the main subjects in this book, she grew up in an Irish Catholic family, saw her father as the epitome of Irishness and had never questioned why he did not seem to resemble his brother nor photos of his deceased sister and parents, who had all died when he was a young child. When her first DNA test results came back stating she was “48 percent British Isles, including Irish,” but more than half “European Jewish, Persian/Turkish, Caucasus, Eastern European” and “uncertain.” Those printed words did, indeed, upend her sense of who she was and where she came from. It took her a number of years, a lot of research, as well as further testing, to finally solve this mystery, and it revealed something very different from what she had expected. For anyone searching for family through DNA testing, this book is a good prerequisite, in that it gives numerous examples of people getting unexpected results and consequently finding out they have a different genetic background than they had thought, or even different parents. In this particular case, she wrote to Ancestry DNA that their testing must be flawed and their science “not up to the task yet.” As the author states, the ethnicity estimates are flawed and were even more so then, in 2012, before 30 million people (yes!) tested through them, but also because “ethnicity” is a concept and cannot really be found in genes themselves, which do not have little labels saying “Irish” or “Jewish” or “African,” but only show that a particular marker is more prevalent in people who identify as that ethnicity, or whose ancestors might have lived in those regions.

One of the current temptations is that some DNA testing companies now offer very low-cost tests. However, those results may be rather vague or general, such as “Western European,” and then offer to test further for an additional fee, so that people begin to get sucked into thinking that if they pay more money (maybe a lot more) and have more markers tested or whatever, they’ll find out precisely what each of their genes is about, not just possible ethnicity, but every possible defective gene, and therefore every possible disease or disability they can worry about getting in the future, or pass on to offspring, or they can rest assured that they won’t have something in particular. This is very misleading. A commercial at-home saliva test does not test one’s whole genome nor anywhere near that, and cannot be done from hairs, fingernail clippings or a stamp one licked. Those are entirely different, expensive tests done for forensic purposes. Not every health risk or behavioral trait is identifiable or predictable by a DNA test, even a very detailed one, and certainly not a $49 test that came in one’s Christmas stocking, although it might connect one with various cousins.

Just as we have gradually learned that adoptees are not just like their adoptive parents, no matter how hard they may try, whether the adoptee has full knowledge of their background or even doesn’t know they are adopted, we must admit that one’s genetic offspring are also not necessarily like their parents in every physical or behavioral aspect, either. DNA test results may lead to new ways of seeing oneself, to new connections or relatives, but ultimately do not determine all of who we are.

This book is very well-written, has a large amount of information presented in understandable language, and details resources one might use for their own research. It follows several intriguing stories and discusses such issues as eugenics, both past and present, and is hard to put down. The author has interviewed and quoted people we know in the adoption world, including Brianne Kirkpatrick, Amy Winn, and Richard Hill, as well as CeCe Moore, a genealogist who is often mentioned as a consultant on Finding Your Roots. The book gives a lot of information about how DNA testing has evolved and how same of the major companies started and developed, and what their philosophies are. At this point, the largest ones seem very commercial and profit-oriented, while others have gone out of business, not having had the large advertising budgets or other publicity. The author provides a good bibliography, listing several books one might want to obtain. The reader may also wish for a sequel, to learn how the featured individuals and families are faring now with their information and investigative skills. Have they formed new and lasting relationships? Have they dropped some contacts, and if so, why? Are they happier than before they tested, or less so?

If one decides to do DNA testing, for whatever reason, this is a good book to read first, and maybe to consult along the way, since testing often leads to more testing and to searching in written records. Testing can give ethnicity estimates, and possibly lead to finding relatives, close and/or distant, but cannot give stories, documents, or real identity, which is a large part of what makes us human. Other animals have their particular varieties and individuals within a species, but humans are the only ones who keep records about themselves and others, or worry about who they are. Dogs don’t mind being mutts. The connections made from DNA testing and research might lead to ways of finding those stories and documents and even to developing real relationships, but can also result in lack of response or acceptance from those biological relatives, or to finding that someone with whom one hoped to connect is already deceased. Other resources, such as Find-a-Grave (not mentioned in this book), can lead to far more than just photos of tombstones. Quite often, there will be photos, letters, and other documents of the person about whom one inquired. I was able to find out what happened to my great grandmother’s sister, of whom the family had lost track around 1890. The site had photos of her and her children and grandchildren, documents, death certificates, and even a letter from my great grandmother describing my grandfather as a toddler, in 1887! What a treasure! Testing or searching needs to be done with an open mind and a sense of adventure. The results will not change who one is, but can lead to an expanded sense of self, a realization that past and present connections can help guide us in the future.