[uptempo string music] - [Southard] Within each of us is a key to who we are... Each strand of your DNA holds secrets...
Secrets... that can be revealed.
- [Narramore] I always felt that there was something missing.
And it wasn't until DNA testing emerged, that it provided some answer.
- [Dasgupta] It's just incredible to think about the power — the transformative power — of understanding our genetic code, and what that holds in store for us.
- [Platt] The idea to know myself on a genetic level, was just way too tempting to pass up.
- [Southard] This DNA revolution is creating connections that were once unimaginable.
- [Carroll] It's revealed everything that I was, everything that I am, and everything that I could be.
- [Sewell-Smith] It's the most personal scavenger hunt that you're ever going to go on.
- [Tran] It gives you scientific evidence of who you are.
- [Cornwell] It just almost feels... miraculous.
- [Southard] Learn more about the future of your health, create greater connections in your life, and take an incredible journey of discovery... in Your DNA Secrets Revealed!
- [Southard] Hello, I'm Diahan Southard.
I've been involved with DNA testing for over 25 years as a genetic genealogist.
And I, too, had DNA secrets!
Growing up, we knew that my mom was adopted.
And as I became a genetic genealogist and started helping other people find their families, I couldn't help but be curious about my own.
My mom is my ultimate support — in whatever I'm doing.
So, she was happy to take DNA tests as I explored this aspect of my own family story.
Thanks to DNA, we did identify my mom's biological mother, and her extended birth family!
Now, she's got two families!
She found a part of her she didn't even know was missing.
And I know that meant everything to her.
And because it means everything to her, it means everything to me, too.
That's why I'm so passionate about the power and possibility of DNA testing.
But DNA testing can be more than just family history.
It can influence the decisions you make about your own health.
DNA testing is ushering in the potential of a field called "personalized" or "precision" medicine, which promises targeted treatment plans, specific dietary choices and even medications specially geared toward our unique genetic code.
- [Dasgupta] We're really poised to have a revolution in the practice of medicine, with the influence of our understanding of our genes.
There's a lot of examples, actually, of where this is coming to bear.
One that's already actually in the clinic — but is becoming more and more commonplace — is the correlation between when a person has a particular genetic risk profile, and then matching that to the just right treatment.
- [Southard] And we don't have to wait for the future for these possibilities.
There are advances in DNA testing that we are able to use right now.
- [Dasgupta] We've already seen a lot of positive effects in the treatment of cancer.
So, by doing cancer genetic testing, you can start to understand those causative mutations and be able to create the right treatment, or combination of treatments, for that individual.
In cancer, it's incredibly important, because you have a ticking clock, and you really want to get the treatment right, as quickly as possible, to try to put out that fire.
- [Southard] That's what happened for Jill Steinberg.
- [Steinberg] My sister Sarah is three years older than me.
She did gymnastics, so I did gymnastics to follow in her footsteps.
And then we were always very close, we would fight a lot too, but... sisters do that.
When my sister told me that she had breast cancer, I just remember being totally shocked.
There was no other breast cancer in our family.
And she was tested for BRCA gene mutations.
And my mother was also tested, and both of them were negative.
When I asked my doctor, "Should I be tested?"
she didn't think it was necessary, because it was highly unlikely the BRCA gene mutation was in our family.
- [Steinberg] We found out that I had a BRCA1 gene mutation... And I was shocked.
Having been retested by the doctor, I found out that it was more than like 80% chance that I would have breast cancer in my life.
So I consulted with genetic counselors and with doctors and they all confirmed that I should have a double mastectomy.
Now, I have ultrasounds on my ovaries every six months and I'm now really involved in helping to find a cure.
This whole experience is very empowering.
I was able to take information about my genetic code and keep myself healthy.
Why wouldn't you want to know?
Why wouldn't you want to do something?
It changed everything.
- [Southard] Beyond the health potential, DNA testing is an incredible way to explore yourself and your own unique history.
In fact, you have a different DNA signature from anyone who has ever lived on the Earth, and from anyone who will ever live on the Earth, which means that you get to tell your own DNA story.
The power of the discoveries that you make when you start to unlock your own DNA secrets is... transformative.
Tony Tran found out just how pivotal DNA testing can be when he tried to answer questions about his family.
- [Tran] One Father's Day when I was six years old, I walked in on my mom in the living room of the apartment where we were living at the time, and she was just crying.
I remember asking her, like, “Mom, like, what's wrong?
Like, is everything okay?
” And she was just like, “Oh, I just get blue around Father's Day.
” I asked her why.
And she explained to me, “I don't know my dad.
” I remember kind of making a silent promise to myself, then and there, that one day, I will be able to give her that gift, of giving her her father's identity.
- [Dasgupta] DNA testing is based on comparing an individual's DNA with reference sequences.
When genetic testing companies give us information about our ancestry, they're looking to make a correlation between what your DNA sequences indicate about who your ancestors were, and where they were from in the planet.
So, it may provide opportunities to explore one's family history.
- [Southard] Tony wanted to help his mother answer the important lifelong question of who her father was...
But he also had questions about his own identity that he thought DNA could reveal.
- [Tran] One of the most common questions I got when I was little was, “What are you?
” And I didn't just get it from Americans.
I also got it from other Vietnamese people, and not having the answer to that, it, it sucked.
It was awful.
- [Southard] Tony forged ahead to get the answers he was seeking.
He started with an at-home DNA test.
- [Dasgupta] When I think about genetics on a day-to-day basis I'm often thinking about the medical and clinical applications.
But there's certainly the family histories woven into our DNA as well.
And we look at the global data available from geneticists what we really start to understand is we're much more alike than we are different.
- [Tran] I remember the day that I got my results, I was actually sitting in a meeting at work when the email came in on my phone.
I wanted nothing else than to just run to my computer and just pull up the results there.
But I had to wait.
- [Southard] When Tony finally checked his results... he was stunned.
- [Tran] That was the moment that I learned that, actually, in fact, I wasn't just Vietnamese.
And my mom wasn't just Vietnamese, we were also African American, because my grandfather, as it turns out, was an African American man.
All I know is that some, 50-some years ago, he went to Vietnam to serve his country.
And he left with a daughter there.
My mom.
Being able to look my mother in the eyes and tell her exactly who her father was, to be able to hand her a picture of him...
It was huge for her.
But it was also big for me to know that I was able to provide that huge answer for my mother in such a big way.
- [Southard] Tony's DNA revelation even impacted his grandmother.
- [Tran] I got a phone call from my grandma.
She had just gotten off the phone with my mom, who had told her about what happened.
And I remember the first thing I could hear was my grandma on the other end, her — bless her heart — but she was just crying, just sobbing on the other end.
And she was just telling me about how, honestly, how proud she was of me.
I feel our relationship is so strong now, in a way that it wasn't quite, was, um, before I underwent my DNA journey.
- [Southard] Tony's results also revealed secrets about his health.
- [Tran] I learned that I yes, indeed, I am predisposed to be lactose intolerant, which would make a lot of sense, because after I would eat ice creams or drink milkshakes, my stomach would feel awful.
And I was like, "Okay, that makes a lot of sense now, I'm probably just lactose intolerant."
- [Southard] Maybe that wasn't too much of a surprise for Tony, but his experience shows that DNA testing can uncover information that was previously inaccessible.
It can help create new connections to family members - and even connections to new family members.
- [Copeland] My dad's grandmother came over from Sweden in, in the 1890s as a teenager, and she left behind family members we didn't know about.
We found a second cousin to my dad, when we matched to her daughter.
All these years later, we're going into the database, we're finding this close cousin, and we're like, “Who is this person?
” We arranged with her to go to Sweden, and to meet her and her mother.
This is a woman who does not speak English.
My dad doesn't speak Swedish.
We sat with her, we had coffee and pastries together, and you know, tried to communicate in our limited way.
We saw the place where my dad's grandmother had grown up, the school that she attended, and the church that she worshiped at and this was completely mind-blowing, because here we are, separated from these people — these, effectively, complete strangers — who we could see on the street and not recognize, right?
We are separated from these people by both geography and an enormous number of years, and yet, we're bridging the gap through DNA testing, in a way that just would not have been possible even a decade ago.
- [Southard] When you combine clues from your DNA test results with what you can learn from other sources- like family lore and old documents — that's when the pieces start to come together and make sense.
This combination of biology and “research elbow grease ” is what we call genetic genealogy.
- [Sewell-Smith] Genetic genealogy is really where the best of both worlds, in terms of research, in terms of family history, come together.
It is combining traditional paper genealogy, where you are getting the oral history from family members, getting documents from your relatives, doing searches online, and building your tree out that way, and then really confirming or rejecting some of that information that you have on paper, or that people have spoken orally, with what the genome or what genetic information is being provided.
- [Copeland] You often need genealogical records to understand the context of DNA testing.
But there are things you can discover through DNA testing that you just will never be able to find through paper records alone.
The astonishing thing about DNA testing is that if somebody is in a database, they will match to you as a relative.
And if they're not in a database, but somebody closely related to them is, you can often find your way to them through that match.
So it's about making the world both bigger and smaller.
You're suddenly discovering these links, these close links, to people across the world.
- [Southard] DNA is all about curiosity.
“Why am I the way I am?
” And that question turns us to the past, it makes us wonder about the health history of our family.
And it can encourage us to then dive into family history.
You don't need any special tools.
You don't need a fancy degree.
All you need is your DNA test and a desire to learn more.
And then you can explore your identity, your family, and connections that you may have never known existed.
That's what happened for Hannah Summerhill when she got her DNA test results.
- [Summerhill] So, I got this email, and it says, “You have new DNA relatives.
” And the first relative at the top is my grandmother.
And I was floored.
I knew my mom was adopted, but we didn't know much about her biological mother because it was a closed adoption.
- [Higgins] Hannah called up and said, “Mom, I love you, ” in a tone of voice, that let me know instantly, she wasn't pregnant or getting married.
Then she said, “I think I found your biological mother.
” - [Southard] Hannah researched the new DNA connections and found contact information for her aunt, Judith Gass.
- [Judith Gass] My dad told me about my mom having a baby and giving her up for adoption.
- [Rosemary Gass] I had given up a daughter at age 19, because I was unmarried.
And I had looked for her my whole life, on the bus, on the street, whatever.
Wondering when I saw a woman with a child, if that was my child.
Never was... - [Judith Gass] So, throughout all of these years, I have been putting our information out there to try to find her.
In 2018, I was actually at my stepson's college graduation.
And I was checking the Facebook, like you do.
And there was this message that came through It said, “Hi, You're my aunt, and your mom is my grandma.
” And I was like, “What?
” - [Southard] After texting with Judith, Hannah arranged for her mother to call Rosemary.
- [Higgins] And the first thing she said to me was, “I was afraid I was going to die before I found you.
” And then she said, “How was your life?
” (laughing) And I said, “Oh, my gosh, I've had the most amazing life.
Thanks to you.
” So that was the beginning.
- [Southard] The two families clicked immediately and decided to meet.
Lisa and her daughters flew to Southern California to meet their “new ” family.
- [Rosemary Gass] Down the stairs came this woman, Lisa, and she had her arms open.
- [Judith Gass] And it really was so incredible for me to see, like my mom — a younger version of my mom- standing there.
- [Higgins] Judy saw me coming.
And she said, “Hug Mom first.
” And I just, like, went up and hugged her, and she cried, and I think I was crying too, and laughing.
It was an amazing experience to hold her in my arms.
An unbelievable experience of joy, unbridled.
Knowing that after 60 years, the universe delivered me back to her, so that I could hold her.
It was an amazing, amazing gift.
- [Judith Gass] I really wanted to have that sister that you could rely on.
‘Cause, I mean, I have a lot of really — I have a lot of really good girlfriends too, that I consider sisters.
But then, finding her, it beat all my expectations — ‘cause she's amazing.
[music crescendo] - [Southard] Taking this DNA journey has given them all more than just new, extended family connections - it's provided critical information about their medical history.
- [Higgins] Doctors always asked, “What's your family history?
” and it's always, you know, “Adopted.
” But it was a good thing for me to find out, and also be able to share that with my kids.
So, just to be very conscious about what their food choices are, and what their medical history is.
That was really helpful to know.
- [Southard] Finding her grandmother completely changed Hannah's own life, in unexpected ways.
- [Summerhill] When I met my grandmother, I felt such deep connection to her and it's not that I wanted to make up for lost time, per se, but I just wanted to be around her more.
So we actually moved from New York to California so that we could spend more time with my grandmother, my aunt and my family out here.
Because we do have a lot of catching up to do.
And it feels really, really special to be able to spend this time together.
And I'm so grateful for it.
- [Southard] Wow, so incredible.
Hannah's story blew me away.
But it's the kind of story I witness all the time in my work.
And, if you are open to possibilities, it can be your story, too.
When we come back, we'll learn more about the future of DNA testing and we'll see how revealing DNA secrets can change - and potentially save — your life.
Stay with us.
- [Southard] Welcome back to Your DNA Secrets Revealed!
I'm Diahan Southard.
So far, we've seen some incredible revelations, like Hannah finding her grandmother through DNA testing.
That's one of my favorite things about being a genetic genealogist.
That moment of discovery.
But DNA can discover more than family connections.
It can reveal unseen truths about yourself and your health.
That's why Sarah Steele tested her DNA.
- [Steele] Your health is such a moving target, the more things that I can do to help me see what might be coming down the path allows me to really feel prepared and to plan.
- [Southard] For Sarah, the power of DNA testing manifested itself by providing insights into her health risks — risks she's been worried about because of her family connections.
- [Steele] When I was young, that's when we first found out about my grandfather having Parkinson's disease.
He passed away right before I graduated, and then my grandmother, we found out that she had Alzheimer's disease.
There's so much of it that makes you feel so, just, caught off guard — things that you just didn't think you're going to have to deal with.
If I can, in any way, get more information so that I can start to prepare myself, then I'm going to do that.
- [Southard] Sarah took a DNA test so she could have greater peace of mind.
And when her results came back, she checked them immediately.
- [Steele] The first one I opened was the Parkinson's disease report.
And the two variants they test for that, I was very thankful did not show up for me.
The second that I opened was the late-onset Alzheimer's disease report.
And the one variant that they test for that, did show up for me.
Knowledge is power and it gives me a great sense of confidence going forward.
- [Southard] Beyond potentially life-saving health information, your DNA results can also push you down a path toward greater understanding of your entire family.
“Doing the genealogy, ” helps you put the DNA information together with your family stories to paint a complete picture of your history.
But you need the most complete data from your DNA tests that you can get.
So, the first place to start is by testing within your own family.
- [Sewell-Smith] Test the oldest people in your family, I even suggest testing them first because they're older, age-wise, but they're older and closer to the ancestors genetically.
So there are aspects of their, you know, DNA, that they preserved that may not have gotten passed down to you.
- [Southard] Diving into the genealogy can lead you down some surprising paths.
That's what happened once Jerome Narramore started looking into his own family's history.
- [Narramore] My mother would tell me her father was Sicilian, and her mother was French Canadian.
And, you know, you're raised in that narrative, and you accept it, because your parents are telling you quote, unquote, the truth.
- [Southard] But Jerome wasn't satisfied with family lore.
He did the genealogy!
And on a trip to Vermont he discovered three different birth certificates for his mother.
- [Narramore] One, her father's surname was redacted, as was his race.
The other one, my mother's legitimacy was redacted, but not his race.
And it said that he was Black.
- [Southard] Those documents were only part of the equation, though.
To get to the bottom of his family mystery, Jerome needed DNA testing.
-[Narramore] I came back with a real surprise.
(Laughs) I was 18% African.
And it wasn't coming from my father's side.
It's time for mom to test.
And she came back as 35% African, 7% Southeast Asian, and like 4%, Native American.
And adding those figures up, it came to almost about 50%.
Now we have to understand that we inherit 50% of our DNA from each parent.
In looking at those numbers, I was thinking, “Oh, my gosh, so, her father was Black, there's no doubt about it.
” - [Southard] This revelation upended everything Jerome thought he knew about his history.
But it was only the beginning of his DNA journey.
- [Narramore] Now, it's my job to roll up my sleeves and do the dirty work with the records and the genealogy.
Those two work hand in hand.
- [Southard] Working with experts, Jerome uncovered the truth about his mother's family.
- [Narramore] Their father was sent to prison for having children with a white woman in the state of Vermont.
And it became a really sad story, the more that I peeled that layer from the onion.
- [Southard] Through his tireless research, Jerome found the only picture of his grandfather, his mother's father, whom she had never known.
- [Narramore] So I had this picture in my hand, and I'm like, it's time to show my mother.
We drove up to Vermont, and we took her into a church.
And then I said, it's time for you to meet your father.
And she said, “Is he here?
” and I'm like, “No, your father passed away, mom, "but you know, he is here.
"He's here in every sense of the word.
"He's here.
” And I pulled it out.
And she just looked at him.
And she held the picture in her hand like this.
And then she brought him into her breast, and just started hugging him and started crying.
- [Narramore] So he went to prison because of love.
[music] - [Narramore] It was the most powerful moment.
At that moment, she was a child who had figured it out.
- [Narramore's Mother] This is so wonderful; I can't even begin to tell you how great it is.
It is, even like-- I could just sit here and cry, and I might.
(laughing) -[Narramore] I can sit next to you and we could do it together.
How about that?
-[Narramore's Mother] Let's do that.
[music] - [Southard] Jerome also connected to new family.
- [Narramore] And they're grateful for my presence and the presence of my daughters and my wife.
I feel like I am a part of their family, although I did not grow up with them and I don't have those roots.
We're building new roots.
- [Sewell-Smith] Those of us who descend from the formerly enslaved, we are constantly on the hunt, to just flesh out the lives of our ancestors.
There is a generation of individuals who survived you know, the system of enslavement and lived to see freedom, but there were millions of others who did not.
And so what DNA does, is it gives us the promise of excavating those names that, that we would never know.
DNA is really helping us get back to the places, and the spaces, and the people that have been long forgotten, or that were, were ripped from us.
- [Southard] Revealing your DNA secrets is like being the detective in your own true crime show.
That's what happened for Alice Plebuch.
- [Copeland] She took a DNA test, all the way back in 2012.
And she didn't believe the results when they first came in, because they didn't make any sense.
She believed herself to be entirely Irish, and British Isles.
So she's looking at her results when they come in, they're telling her she's half Ashkenazi Jewish, which is Jews from Central and Eastern Europe.
And she's thinking, "Oh, the company made a mistake."
So she takes a test at another company and the test results come back the same she's half Ashkenazi Jewish.
And that's when she realized that she has a mystery on her hands.
(suspenseful music) - [Plebuch] My sister goes, “Well, you know, we don't look at all like our grandfather.
” And I had to agree with her, I knew we didn't look like him.
My dad was raised in an orphanage from the time he was a year old.
So it was very possible that his family could have been Irish Jews and we just didn't know it.
- [Southard] Alice reached out to cousins and nephews and had them test their DNA.
- [Plebuch] And we didn't match it one bit.
Because we didn't match them at all, we knew that my father was not related to either his mother or his father.
Or the people we assumed were his mother or father.
- [Southard] Alice continued her research for nearly two and a half years- and then one night she received an email through one of the DNA testing websites.
The message was from a woman who was confused as to why she was seeing Alice's Irish nephews and cousins in her DNA matches.
These Irish cousins were the same ones who had no DNA connection to Alice.
- [Plebuch] And so I wrote to her.
And she wrote back, “No, it's really rather strange.
I was looking for, um, my Jewish relatives.
And I'm seeing Irish.
” And the hairs on the back of my neck went up.
I knew this-- this, this was an important person.
- [Southard] She, in fact, was a close relative to Alice's Irish cousins.
And this woman's family tree was full of DNA matches for Alice.
- [Plebuch] And I started looking for her grandfather.
She knew he was born in the same hospital as my dad was.
So they were born the same day in the same hospital.
And she's finding she's Irish.
And I found I was Jewish.
- [Copeland] She's able to uncover the truth.
Her father, when he was born, was born in an early maternity hospital where the controls were not very good.
And he was switched with another baby.
And it was down to Alice taking this DNA test and doing all this research that she uncovered it.
- [Plebuch] It was so exciting.
And I, I, I felt like all this searching — it had been two and a half years — had been... worth it.
It was worth it, that I was going to find my family.
Seeing my first cousin was one of the most joyous days of my life.
We're the same height.
Our arms are the same.
Our legs are the same.
The real difference is that she has white curly hair.
And at the time, I had mousy brown straight hair.
But we look so much alike.
I'm so grateful that I found his family.
I've found his relations.
I've seen how many of them have done extremely well in life.
It's like they're family.
- [Southard] Beyond just the joy of finding her people, Alice's DNA testing journey also revealed important health implications.
- [Plebuch] Before I found my Ashkenazi family — we had absolutely no history of cancer in the family.
It wasn't something that we were attuned to.
We now know that there was a lot of cancer in the family.
And we know-- we know to be aware of it.
Our doctors are, are aware of it.
My doctor was really good.
As soon as she heard, she went and did a search.
Because there were special things that you should be checking for Ashkenazi.
And we had never checked for them.
And now they're in our record.
And we can be assured that they're being taken care of if they should arise.
- [Southard] Not everyone will have the level of discovery that Alice had - but everyone who looks through their DNA and genealogy can connect to history.
Their history.
It's so exciting to look on the computer screen and see your family tree blossom and expand.
But it's another thing to reach out and become part of that family tree in person.
That's what Jordan Carroll did.
- [Carroll] We've been told that we had an ancestor — a white plantation owner, decades after emancipation.
That he was my third great-grandfather.
So I really wanted to get down to the bottom of some family legends that I had heard growing up.
- [Southard] Jordan tested his DNA in an effort to track down this relative.
He found a distant match who wanted to help Jordan complete the family tree.
- [Lawton] I get an email from a cousin I had not met, and he asked me if I would be interested in doing a DNA test to help trace relatives and work on the family tree.
When you meet somebody who is a relative, who wants to find out more about his or her family, and that family is also your family, I feel like an obligation is to... to share that, and to learn and, um, try to figure out who people were so we can figure out who we are.
- [Southard] When Tom's results arrived, Jordan finally had the answers he had been searching for.
Tom's grandfather was closely related to Jordan's great-great-grandfather.
- [Carroll] I wanted to tell my grandmother that I, you know, I found him, I finally found who your great-grandfather was, and I'm reconnecting both of our families.
I'm part of, you know, this colonial South Carolina, uh-- prolific family.
It was amazing.
I mean, one of my fourth great-grandfathers was a state Senator.
It forced me to reexamine myself and my family.
- [Lawton] There were parts of the family story that I was told that were incomplete, at least, and maybe untrue.
And so that made me think differently about my place in the world and my family's place in that world.
- [Southard] Jordan sent Tom a picture of Winnie Joe Brown, his great-great grandfather.
Tom was shocked by the image.
- [Lawton] I saw my grandfather in these photographs.
- [Carroll] That resemblance was absolutely uncanny.
Winnie Joe and Tom's grandfather, were, at the very least, first cousins.
That is the amazing thing about biology and genetics, seeing those two men, they look like they could be twins.
- [Southard] Through the process of this search, Jordan and Tom forged a deep connection.
- [Carroll] Once I was able to correspond with Tom, we just hit it off right off the bat.
I could act goofy around him.
He understood, he was able to banter back.
- [Lawton] I felt an immediate connection with Jordan.
I was flattered that he would want to be a cousin of mine.
And that was deeply moving.
And it has been deeply moving ever since.
- [Carroll] The fact that it's a white man, an older white man, old enough to be my father; he grew up in Jim Crow South.
I have this very strong relationship with him now.
That's the amazing thing about it.
- [Southard] Jordan wanted to learn more about the family by visiting the Harlem neighborhood where his great-great-grandfather lived.
And Tom was right beside him.
- [Carroll] I've never even been to New York City.
So, hearing about all these things that happened in Harlem, it's just cinematic.
- [Lawton] You walk differently, in places that you know your ancestors have been.
And you have a different feeling about a place when you know that some of your family have been there.
- [Southard] Their DNA journey took them to the building where their family lived.
- [Carroll] You know, right when I got here, all I was imagining was the fact that my great-great-grandparents and my great-grandparents, and their siblings, they ascended these stairs countless times.
I, I never had the pleasure of meeting any of them, obviously.
But, I feel more connected to them now that I'm standing on the very ground that they stood on once upon a time, one hundred years ago.
It's an amazing feeling.
- [Southard] Jordan felt the past come to life, when they discovered the church where his great-great-grandmother was once an associate minister, and where his grandmother had her debutante ball.
It looked the same as the photos he had of his family from the 1950s.
- [Carroll] In the picture, my grandmother, she was standing right here.
- [Carroll] I've never felt more connected to my family than I do right now, at this moment.
It makes me miss my grandmother.
Being able to walk, you know, on the same floor as my ancestors did.
Being physically here is making everything tangible.
I feel like I can still feel their presence here, right now.
I think my story is very American.
Everything that my ancestors have gone through on both sides of my family is the American experience.
I am Jordan Carroll.
I am an accumulation of the relationships between my ancestors, but I am my own person.
- [Lawton] I think everybody has some chapter like this, or some connection like this to different places.
It's only a matter of finding it and celebrating it and getting to it.
- [Carroll] Well, I'm glad you're on the journey with me.
And I'm glad you're here to witness, uh, you know, all of these, um, unexpected emotions coming from me.
And being, just, here on this journey.
- [Lawton] I wouldn't have known about all of this stuff if you and I had not made the connection, and that connection had not revealed through DNA, because I wouldn't have known any of this.
So I thank you, my man.
- [Carroll] Happy to.
Thank you.
- [Lawton] Thank you.
(laughing) - [Southard] As Jordan found out, DNA testing is like a key that unlocks so much that is hidden within us, letting us live deeper, richer and more authentic lives.
And when we come back, we'll hear about the incredible future of DNA testing.
We'll also learn how you can navigate your own journey, when Your DNA Secrets Revealed!
continues.
Stay with me!
- [Southard] We're back with Your DNA Secrets Revealed!
I'm Diahan Southard.
Revealing DNA secrets opens our eyes every time.
It can show us things we didn't know about ourselves.
It can give us better information when dealing with health issues.
That's what it did for my family.
My mother was adopted, so she didn't have a known health history, so there were always questions about our health.
Was there something more that we should be doing?
- [Dasgupta] Certainly for individuals who are adopted, there's not a complete family history available to those individuals.
And even for folks who do know who their ancestors were, sometimes the family records are not completely accurate.
So these kinds of errors are part and parcel with our family histories and our family stories.
Disentangling the family myth, from the actual biological risk that's present, is something that genetic testing can actually help us sort out.
- [Southard] Clarifying what we know right now is valuable.
But the future of DNA testing could change how we approach our lives even more.
- [Dasgupta] So there's some new technologies around editing genomes, or gene therapies to provide proper functioning genes back to patients who have genes that aren't functioning normally.
This is almost like "Star Trek," to me.
It's-- it's really incredible science fiction almost.
But it's happening in real life.
- [Southard] Researchers are asking more questions, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible.
- [Dasgupta] If we had our genome sequences early, what could we do with that information?
Are we able to promote health earlier?
Can we take preventative measures?
Can we save healthcare dollars?
And those groundbreaking studies are underway right now.
- [Southard] What is most exciting to me is that, as more and more people take DNA tests, the information will get more precise.
It will become easier to make connections, which is why I work as a genetic genealogist.
Making that connection is what makes us human.
We all yearn for that.
I've seen DNA testing deepen relationships.
I've seen it renew family connections - even the ones you thought were lost forever.
Pam Cornwell wanted to know what happened to her grandmother's family.
That's why she turned to DNA testing.
- [Cornwell] My dad was five, and my uncle was only two when their mother died-- she died at an early age, at age 27.
And those little boys lost touch with their mother's family.
- [Southard] Pam researched - but the paper records could only tell her so much.
She never found an obituary or a grave.
Pam's father and uncle spent their entire lives wondering what had happened to their mother.
And, then her father passed away without ever learning the truth.
Not knowing wasn't an option for Pam.
- [Cornwell] So I proposed to my uncle, "Hey, would you be willing to take a DNA test, "and I will, too?"
And he was intrigued.
- [Southard] By getting her uncle to test, Pam would have a better chance of making connections to earlier generations.
And then, she got the results.
- [Cornwell] The day that the results came through...
It was like every holiday where you get presents, all rolled into one.
We found several pretty close matches.
And as it turned out, these were descendants of two of my grandmother's siblings.
One was her older brother, and one was a younger sister.
And they agreed to meet with us.
- [Southard] To Pam's shock, her grandmother's “lost ” family was only living an hour-and-a-half away, in Du Quoin, Illinois.
- [Cornwell] The day that we met our relatives...
It was a dream come true.
(sighing) They didn't know we existed.
We didn't know they existed.
And it was just such a precious moment.
To see them hug one another.
My uncle, he was floating.
My grandmother is buried in Du Quoin.
They took us to the gravesite, and we went there, and I left pictures and a stone that I had written, “Grandma Edna, I've missed you ” It was really moving.
To have these new tools that make it possible to reconnect family that has been broken... it just almost feels miraculous.
- [Southard] The miracle of DNA testing also impacted Pam's health, as she discovered hidden concerns to be aware of.
- [Cornwell] I actually have coding in my DNA for glaucoma.
Now, I'm more likely to make sure I make my eye doctor appointments and get them.
Just because that I do have those two markers in my DNA doesn't mean it will happen.
There's still environmental factors.
So, you know, I'm not as scared.
But I do know to look out for it.
- [Southard] Finding those secrets in your DNA can help you chart a path toward a better health outcome.
And in the future, we may be able to use DNA testing as a way toward crafting personalized medicine.
That does sound a little like "Star Trek," doesn't it?
But it's happening right now.
Kristin Platt experienced the potential life-changing impact of DNA testing.
- [Platt] Originally, I wanted to test because I'm very interested in family history and ancestry.
My grandfather had dementia.
And, um, the test that I took, uh, offered testing for the Alzheimer — one of the Alzheimer's genes.
And so that was specifically what I was looking for.
- [Southard] At-home DNA tests can't provide the breadth and depth of information that a clinical DNA test can, but they can give you insights that help guide you.
- [Dasgupta] With the at-home testing approaches, normally, they're much more focused on a very small number of disease-causing variants.
Also, these variants are usually associated with a particular population.
So if a person is a member of a different population, um, they have a much higher chance of having a completely different variant.
That's where the clinical genetic testing comes in and is especially important.
- [Platt] I logged in to the health reports and immediately went to the report that talked about Alzheimer's, and was incredibly relieved to see that I don't carry the gene that was tested for, that was associated with Alzheimer's disease.
- [Southard] As Kristin kept reading, she discovered her results showed she had a variant in her genetic code for Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, something she had never heard of.
- [Platt] And at first it didn't sound all that alarming, but there was a sentence at the end of the report.
And it said, “Most people with this result develop emphysema.
” And that hit me like a ton of bricks.
- [Southard] After follow-ups with doctors, Kristin confirmed that she did have a severe deficiency, but there were treatments that she could undergo to keep her healthy, longer.
- [Platt] That was life-altering to hear.
It was either face what was the reality of my situation, or pretend I never took that test-- I felt relatively healthy-- and cross my fingers, and hope for the best.
And so after some soul searching, I made the decision to start augmentation therapy.
And I've been doing that for five years now.
- [Sewell-Smith] I've seen people who, based on how they tested, they took that information to their doctors, and then were able to use that to advocate for different drugs that they were using to combat health conditions.
- [Southard] For Kristin, at-home DNA testing gave her information that she didn't even know to look for.
And it changed her life.
Make sure to check with your doctor when you receive your DNA test results.
Kristin's experience is her own, but it is informative about what these incredible tests can do for you.
They helped put Kristin's life into a greater perspective.
- [Platt] I'd always had some health issues that couldn't be explained growing up.
Problems with my liver in middle school, I had been misdiagnosed with adult-onset asthma in my 30s.
So when I got my health testing back, all of a sudden a lot of things clicked.
And it was like finally getting this piece to this puzzle that I had been trying to put together for years and years.
- [Southard] Putting together the puzzle of who we are is one of the incredible, really awe-inspiring benefits of DNA testing.
It doesn't matter why you start your DNA journey- maybe you've always wondered about what stories were true in your family's mythology.
Maybe you want to know a little more about your health.
Maybe the science fascinates you.
For me, it was all of the above!
- [Copeland] Like a lot of people who do DNA testing, we made discoveries in my family that would not have been possible through genealogical research alone.
- [Southard] The next key to revealing DNA secrets is to take your results and follow through with them.
That means “doing the genealogy.
” - [Sewell-Smith] The first step in genealogy for anyone, is to always start with yourself.
Literally extract things from your brain, like, who do you remember?
Engage the other family members, people who are older than you, maybe even family friends.
The aunt or the uncle that's a pack rat, that keeps everything, you reach out to that individual, and gather all of those things.
Then start the process of searching online to fill in the gaps of the information that you don't have.
- [Southard] There are secrets hidden in every person's DNA, each with something to teach us about where we came from and who we are.
And making those discoveries can even help us decide who we want to be.
Our DNA secrets reveal something precious and valuable: the truth.
- [Plebuch] if I hadn't gone on this journey, I feel like a good deal of who I am now wouldn't be here.
- [Tran] I was able to wrest away my identity and uncover it for the first time ever in my entire life.
That's huge.
I was able to see all the answers I had been looking for.
And it was truly amazing.
I don't — I don't think I'll ever feel anything like it ever again.
- [Narramore] It's not just about you, it's about the other living people around you.
And it's also about, you know, your grandparents who may not be with you.
I chose the truth.
I thought that that was more important than anything else.
- [Lawton] DNA does not complicate the world.
DNA reveals that the world is more complicated than we thought.
- [Cornwell] It actually makes me feel like in my very veins, flows the excitement of adventure and courage.
What I didn't expect — and it's been so fun — to get a wide view of how I ended up where I am.
There's self-discovery when you go down this path of analyzing DNA and doing genealogy on your family.
But then it goes beyond that.
I feel like I've learned more about the world from doing this.
- [Carroll] DNA testing, it, it is not the solution for racism, bigotry, and xenophobia.
But I believe that it can soften up those ideologies moving forward in the future.
-[Dasgupta] DNA contains a vast wealth of information.
It's kind of stunning, really, if you stop and think about it that the blueprint for an entire human body across the lifespan is included in this one single molecule.
But it's not the whole story by any means.
There's certainly influence of things like dietary choices, exercise habits, environmental exposure, all of these things interface with our predispositions that are present in our DNA.
And together they form a unique combination for any given individual.
-[Copeland] When I was interviewing people who were searching for themselves through DNA I found this strange trend.
We value the truth for understanding ourselves.
People really want to know where they came from.
And being able to understand, like, even where your parents and grandparents came from in their lives, right, and the context for those lives.
DNA can show you things you didn't even know were possible.
It can answer questions you didn't even know to ask.
-[Judith Gass] I would definitely describe my experience as miraculous.
And, science has brought us here.
Science has brought us to this stage, um, in our lives' journeys that you can reunite people.
Um, so, it's... it's a gift.
-[Summerhill] Seeing the maternal lineage between me, my sisters, my mom and my aunt, and my grandmother is really special.
And there's no script, of course, for how these reunions are supposed to go, but it was just so special and so emotional, of course, and incredible to look them in the eyes and to, to hold their hands and to look at my grandmother and think, "Wow, like, this woman is "the reason that I'm here."
And it's absolutely brought us closer and bonded us on a deeper level.
- [Southard] DNA changed my life - and it has changed so many other people's lives in deep and profoundly moving ways.
Inside you, right now, is an incredible, captivating story waiting to be told.
Take control of your life with the information available only in your DNA.
I'm Diahan Southard.
And I want you to know that you can do the DNA!
Thanks for watching.
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