If you don’t know who daddy is, this could be a gold mine.
intercst
5 Likes
I deleted all my 23/Me data a year or two ago after a possible leak warning, too bad, as I’d poked in a lot of our known family links, but hadn’t added much from it that I hadn’t already known from my own genealogy research over the years… Next step is to find a reliable relative, interested enough to continue the research, pass it along…
This from Google AI on 23&Me Follies:
Key events often associated with the “follies” include:
** October 2023 Data Breach: Hackers accessed the data of approximately 6.9 million users, obtaining sensitive personal information such as geographic data and family trees. The incident raised significant concerns about the security of genetic data, which is not protected by federal laws like HIPAA.*
** Financial Downfall and Bankruptcy: Once valued at $6 billion, 23andMe saw its market value drop significantly, eventually losing 98% of its value. The company faced challenges with its business model, which relied heavily on one-time test kit purchases and failed to gain traction with subscription services. In March 2025, 23andMe filed for bankruptcy.*
** Corporate Turmoil: In September 2024, all seven independent directors of the company’s board resigned due to disagreements with the CEO, Anne Wojcicki, over her plan to take the company private.*
** Company Sale and Data Concerns: In July 2025, a court approved the $305 million sale of the company to a nonprofit led by Wojcicki. This move prompted consumer alerts from officials like the California Attorney General, urging users to consider deleting their data due to ongoing privacy concerns surrounding the sale and how data might be used in the future.* Historical Regulatory Issues: The company also has a history of regulatory run-ins, most notably a 2013 FDA warning that forced it to halt marketing of its health-related genetic risk reports until they received proper clearance years later.*
2 Likes
I didn’t delete mine, as in “who cares?” who my second cousin is.
DB2
1 Like
An unknown cousin of ours was discovered by 23andMe.
A wealthy cousin in our extended family paid for the newly discovered cousin (age 45) and his two middle-school-age children to meet his never-married father. They looked identical (except for the darker skin of the new cousin). The father was in the hospital and died of cancer the following week.
The son, who always felt like the odd man out in his family of 5 siblings, matches our family perfectly. Musically talented, intelligent and outgoing, he was immediately welcomed in a family reunion and changed his last name to his biological father’s name.
I don’t know anything about an inheritance but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Imagine being a lifelong bachelor and discovering on your deathbed that a fling you had in the Navy resulted in a son and grandchildren.
Imagine finding out at age 45 that you have a whole new family…and that you’re half Jewish!
I removed my data for security reasons when 23andMe went bankrupt. But they did some amazing things.
Wendy
8 Likes
Back in the 2000s cell phones and texting were just becoming popular. A co-worker, married n two kids, had had his phone for a while, and I’d just gotten mine.
He didn’t know, and didn’t know my phone number.
I got an app that was a “jingle” with a baby asking “are you my daddy?”.
I sent it to him - anonymously - a dozen times over a week or so, thinking I was just joking around.
He became increasingly agitated.
At first I was amused, but then realized that for him, it was NOT a joke.
When I finally told him it was me, he said something like he was afraid one of his infidelities had caught up with him.
It was stressing him.
ralph
3 Likes
I think you can recover your DNA test results by doing some research on 23/Me, Family Tree DNA and Ancestry websites. You can import your 23/Me data into Family Tree DNA for free. Or you can join them and have new DNA tests done. For family research you also need lots of vital records and civil records. Ancestry and other genealogy companies have huge collections of these records for US and the world.
@rainphakir here’s a joke that resonates with your prank.
A man is shopping one day when he vaguely recognizes a young woman.
He says, “Do I know you?”
She answers, “Well, I have one of your kids.”
He stammers, “Were you the showgirl that I [deleted] on a pool table in Vegas during my friend’s bachelor party?”
She says, “No, I’m your son’s fifth grade teacher.”
Wendy
12 Likes
Oh, I’ve collected tons of family history records over the decades since I began looking into it, maybe back in the '80s when a friend sent me an early genealogy program, written in Basic, we converted it to Apple Basic, passing it back n forth by mailing flood disks, as we fixed this or that, but eventually the LDS had a decent program, as well as tons of data to cruise. I later replaced that with an app called Reunion, written for the Mac, and it holds its data in a cloud server as well as local copies.. So the venture into 23&Me was to check on some family members, linkages, but not the hours already spent in local LDS microfiche files or other resources… In the beginning, I realized there were fewer and fewer senior folks left to answer questions, and some never did explain the why’s od what happened in earlier times. But court records, online portals led to answers.. A trip to Denmark led to further answers on my father’s side, discovering great uncles, etc…
But I haven’t done much recently other than adding new kids or deaths as time marches on… Might go to Ancestry if/when the interest levels rise up again… For now, pretty satisfied with what I have found, recorded.. Next is to find a younger generation to pass it along to, maybe continue the digging…
weco
1 Like