DNA Search Tips for Adoptees with Janet Weinreich-Keall
/Interviewee: Janet Weinreich-Keall - Interviewer: Haley Radke - Author: Shantu Ellis
DNA tests have become a primary means for Adoptees and foster kids to discover their origins and even reunite with their biological families.
It’s simple, right? You swab your mouth, wait a few weeks, and the science fairy fills in all of the pieces you’ve been looking for. At least, that’s how the major commercial DNA testing companies market their products. Unfortunately, that’s far from reality. The truth is that searching for your roots reveals secrets, and reuniting with kin is mentally and emotionally taxing, especially for Adoptees.
Janet Weinreich-Keall, who is rightfully dubbed the Search Maven, was a foundling—abandoned on a doorstep as a baby and temporarily housed in an orphanage before becoming an Adoptee.
At 18, she aggressively started a 20-year search for her biological family by any means, including newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV. She even posted on store bulletin boards and telephone polls. Everything changed after Janet took DNA tests through three leading consumer companies: 23andMe, AncestryDNA, and FamilyTree. A high-probability match led to a number of discoveries that revealed the truth about her history.
Janet took the task of searching for her biological family into her own hands. And while it took years of courage and trial & error to develop, she now has a wealth of experience on search tactics, best practices, and preparing for the psychological toll that inevitably comes with Adoptee reunion. For her, the key was separating the emotional side of her search from the logical side.
“In the early days of my search, I was very emotional,” Janet admits. “Then, as I started building my career and business, one day it came to me that this is a project. Yes, I can always be very in tune to my emotions: my needs, who I am, my triggers, and what I know needs to be healed. But when I’m searching, I’m going to have files and a computer system, and even a server to back up my files, and paper files for each person.” This approach allowed her to compare the stories she heard with facts from her own research. “If you don’t do it in that manner and have it really rigid and organized, in the end, you to yourself won’t have the truth.”
But we’re getting way ahead of ourselves. Before you even take a DNA test, Janet has some helpful suggestions.
Assess your current life
Janet says the first thing to consider is the stability of your life right now. You simply don’t know what’s in Pandora's box when your DNA test results are revealed, and the inevitable ripples may feel more like tidal waves, at times. If you’ve recently gone through a significant life change—such as a divorce, a move, a new baby, or a new job—adding the roller-coaster that can come from DNA results might not be the best idea right now.
“You do not know what you’re going to find,” Janet says. “For some people, I have seen what they found to be very short and sweet and very simple. . ., but then I’ve seen other people where all of a sudden, these secrets that lay dormant for 30 years come to the surface. How does that impact these new families?”
Truthfully, there may never be a ‘perfect’ time to receive DNA results. “If you are the person searching, I find that you are the person who does all of the work,” she says. “You are the person who’s making the phone calls and archiving and creating a family tree for the first time ever. There’s so much data coming at you. Make sure you’re in the right time of your life that you can actually do it well.”
Get comfortable on a therapist’s couch
Therapy is (thankfully) pretty much recommended for everything these days. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that it’s very helpful for Adoptees in reunion or those who are searching for their biological families.
“Make sure that you get therapy before you spit in the tube,” Janet warns. She’s seen many cases where therapy was overlooked, often to unfortunate results. “In my foundling community, most do not do it at all. They actually say, ‘no, I’m good, I’m strong,’ and then about three months later, they have a full mental breakdown.”
Unfortunately, the top DNA companies don’t encourage or provide mental health resources because, as Janet learned, they are currently “not in the therapy business—” a response she received from one of the companies directly. Considering the impact that DNA results are already having on the larger society—on family structures, on revealing generational secrets, and reuniting Adoptees with their biological families—that may change. But for now, you’re emotionally on your own.
Different kits provide different information
Not all DNA kits are created equal (they’re also not 100% accurate, but we’ll get to that). As the science behind them becomes more accepted, it’s also becoming more niche. Right now, there are DNA testing kits for specific health screenings, genetic dispositions, and even cat ancestry—knock yourself out.
Different companies offer different pieces to your DNA puzzle, and to help with your search for your biological family, you’ll want as many of those pieces as possible. Some of the information you receive in your DNA results may be confusing. Remember, we’re talking centimorgans and segments here and most of us weren’t formally trained in genetic coding.
You’ll also find that some of the information you receive is simply not accurate. Janet reminds us that the science behind genetic testing is ever-evolving. On any day, she can check her DNA matches or ethnicity ‘estimate’ to find differing results. Janet suggests casting your net wide and buying the top three DNA testing kits to get a more complete picture.
Also, DNA testing companies use the word ‘estimate’ in ethnicity and relational results. “People do get attached to the estimated labels, and that causes so much anxiety and distrust because often, it’s wrong,” she says. “For example, Ancestry shows that a confirmed half-sibling of mine is a first-cousin . . ., however, on 23andMe it shows that we are, in fact, half-siblings.”
Consider a private test
The sad truth is that some biological family members don’t want to be found. They’ve hidden information for years—decades—and while you’re searching, they may not be. You want the information you receive to be as accurate as possible and in many ways, consumer DNA testing companies simply do not offer that reassurance. Because results are estimated and the technology behind them is constantly being recalibrated, you may find yourself with new questions after you receive your test results.
Some of this ambiguity can be removed by supplementing your results from a consumer company (such as the ones mentioned above) with those from a private one. While private DNA testing companies are usually more expensive, they can provide more certain results.
“In foundling cases, there are no biological mothers that really admit what they do,” she says from her own experience, research, and community. “They’re outed to their entire family and maybe even their current husband has no idea that they’ve done it. Everything in their family has shifted.”
In Janet’s case, a private DNA test helped confirm much of the information from her other search methods. “I like my facts and I like organization, and I don’t like ‘estimated’,” she says. “I went through a private siblingship test that also does private paternity tests, and sure enough, those came back with absolute accuracy.”
Become your own detective
“The amount of data that people share in today’s world is astonishing,” Janet says. Once your information is in the database of a commercial DNA testing company, it’s linked to everyone else in that database—love it or hate it. In many cases, you’ll be able to see the names, bios, pictures, and who-knows-what-else of people in your DNA matches list. “Unfortunately, not everybody who’s on the site is searching or wants to be found. Some people are on there because they want to know what their ethnicity is. Whatever people go on there for, it’s not necessarily for the reasons that we are.”
If you’re using your DNA test results to find your biological family, Janet recommends becoming your own detective. Use the information you receive through your DNA test results and scope out people’s social media profiles. Organize your files and literally screenshot anything and everything that will benefit your search.
If and when you make contact with a potential relative, she suggests taking the conversation offline quickly and keeping it light at first. “What I’ve found unfortunately is that the older generations will get spooked and scared off, and will then set their profiles to ‘private’, and you can never contact them again.”
This is where your organized files come in handy. Now that you’ve got the names, you’re not limited to discovering your biological connections only through the DNA testing company’s website or app. “Don’t just sit in the land of DNA,” she says. “You do not have to find people just through that portal. If their name is put out there, you can find people, I guarantee you.”
Best of luck in your search!
“Searching through DNA is far more psychologically taxing than it’s made out to be,” Janet warns. While the marketing strategies of commercial DNA testing companies use images of happy, healthy, hugging people to sell their DNA kits, the reality is that DNA results have the potential to devastate people’s emotions.
“That does have implications because it gives a sense of how easy it is and how easy it always should be …,” she says. “Don’t confuse the ease of information coming at you with the ease of what you are going through as a human being. It is incredibly difficult to go through reunion, and you have to get psychological support and take care of yourself.”
Listen to this episode of the Adoptees On Podcast
“Don’t confuse the ease of information coming at you with the ease of what you are going through as a human being. It is incredibly difficult to go through reunion, and you have to get psychological support and take care of yourself.”
