I have a friend who has recently received the shock of his life. It’s a personal matter, so I won’t use his real name to relay the story. I’ll call him Mortimer.

Mortimer was born in the 1940s. His early life featured struggle, heartache, and the stereotypical stepparent grief associated with a dysfunctional and broken family. Life was never easy for Morty. His family was poor and relatively uneducated. He was the first of his family to finish high school. Despite this rocky start, Mortimer overcame the odds and earned an advanced degree in college, later going on to work as an instructor at two major universities. He got married. He had kids. He had grandkids. He found joy despite the crummy hand life had dealt. Morty was, and remains, a winner in many respects. I admire his many accomplishments, which include a published book.

Then, technology came along to throw Morty for a loop that no one could have anticipated.

Mortimer decided to buy a home DNA testing kit from one of the large, online services. You’ve seen the ads. “Find out who you are! Learn about your ancestors! Build your family tree! Connect with long, lost relatives!” Cool, right? The temptation is great. Who wouldn’t like to learn they are related to some epic historic character like Erik the Red or Joan of Arc?

So, Morty went online and bought the kit. In a few days, a little plastic tube arrived in the mail with instructions for Morty to drool into it and mail his sample off to a mysterious high-tech lab somewhere, no doubt, deep in the bowels of the earth, complete with those shiny metallic orbs with crackling lightning bolts arcing between them. (OK, I know. I’m getting carried away. They probably don’t have those cool orbs.) Mortimer went through the exercise and dropped the package off at the post office.

Days passed. Weeks passed. Finally, an e-mail arrived in Morty’s inbox. The results were in. In excited anticipation, Morty’s fingers flew across his computer keyboard as he keyed in the address for the genealogy website. Typing too anxiously, he mis-keyed his password twice with icy fingertips before finally accessing his account. There it was! The button labeled, “See your DNA report” glowed enticingly on the screen. Unblinking and breathless, Morty clicked it.

“What? Norwegian? Phhhttt! What is this crap? I’m not Norwegian.” Morty was more frustrated than angry. He waited all this time only to be the victim of some kind of lab mix-up. “Hon, these dopes must have gotten my slobbers mingled with someone else’s,” he called across the house to his wife. “They think half of my DNA is from Norway.”

Only they didn’t mingle Morty’s genetic data. The analysis was correct.

Part of what DNA testing services promise is the chance to find relatives you didn’t know you had. On Morty’s list was a full brother, living in the northeastern region of the United States. This was impossible. Mortimer’s parents separated when he was still a young boy, never to collaborate again on the subject of procreation. It might be possible that Morty had a half-sibling, but it was inconceivable that he had a full brother out there.

But he did – and does.

A thousand miles away, another DNA testing customer’s eyes bulged as he saw the answer to a question his family had been asking themselves for some time. This family had done DNA testing as well, and they had found that one of the group of siblings in their midst didn’t seem to belong. Can you imagine the awkwardness?

Skip (not his real name): So, Todd. Let me check out your DNA report. Weird that you don’t show up on mine as a brother.
Todd (also not his real name): Er, uh … it hasn’t come back yet.
Skip: It’s been weeks, dude. What’s up?
Todd: I don’t know. You know how these things go. Maybe they lost it.
Skip (looking over Todd’s shoulder): Hey! I see an e-mail right there in your inbox. Looks like you did get the results. Let’s check it out!
Skip, acting like a typical pushy sibling, reaches around Todd and clicks the e-mail link. He incessantly pesters Todd to log on and display his report. Todd resists.
Todd: Look, Skip. There’s something I have to tell you. I’m not really your brother.
Skip: Whaaaaaaaaaa …???

You can fill in the rest with your imagination. This really did happen. I’m serious. It did. Using the online service, Mortimer and Todd’s (sort of) brother got in touch. Skip told Mortimer that his “brother” Todd was born at the same hospital on the same day as Morty. The stuff of cheap, low budget movies and episodes of “The Twilight Zone” was, in this case, reality. Mortimer and Todd were switched at birth, probably as a result of an inattentive nurse or doctor passing infants around in the maternity ward at a small Pennsylvania hospital. Two sets of parents went home with a child they thought was their own.

Mortimer learned that his original destiny included a well-to-do family with multiple high achievers in medicine and other sciences. Money and opportunity abounded. Todd had been eating from the silver spoon meant for Mortimer while Mortimer scrounged and fought for everything he had.

How do you think Mortimer and Todd feel about all of this? They have been talking. They are learning things about parents they never met and families that are, so far, only stories shared over the phone and through e-mail. They are planning a meeting. I can’t imagine the rivers of emotion that will flow when that happens. Through it all, Mortimer isn’t bitter. He doesn’t begrudge Todd for a lifetime of privilege and ease that should have been his. Had the mix-up not happened, Mortimer would have never met his loving wife. Consequently, the children and grandchildren who occupy such important places in Morty’s heart would have never existed. The challenges he faced would not have occurred to mold him into the strong man he is today. Given a time machine, he would not go back and tap the errant nurse on the shoulder to correct the mistake. Mortimer is well-adjusted and grateful for the blessings in his life. Not everyone would perceive this situation in such a positive light.

So, the question becomes this: What truths will science bring and are we better off having the answers or living in uncomplicated ignorance?

I argue that truth should win. That’s easy to say from my angle. I haven’t had to deal with the emotional thrill ride that Mortimer’s life has been over the past few months. Still, I think I would want to know if I came from a family different from the one in which I grew up. It has to do with legacy and the well-being of my descendants, including my own two daughters. It’s important to know who we are, even if it’s not who we think it is.

This article was written by Tilmer Wright, Jr. Tilmer is an IT professional with over thirty years of experience wrestling with technology and a proud member of the Authors Guild of Tennessee. In his spare time, he writes books. His second novel, The Bit Dance is a cautionary tale about what can happen when technology runs away from its creators. You can find links to Tilmer’s books at the following location: https://smile.amazon.com/Tilmer-Wright/e/B00DVKGG4K?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk…

His author information web site is here: http://www.tilmerwrightjr.com/

The photo of the DNA test kit is by Tony Webster and used under the Creative Commons license. No changes were made to the photo. This image was originally posted to Flickr by Tony Webster at https://flickr.com/photos/87296837@N00/47400098641. It was reviewed on 2 April 2019 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.