{"id":57466,"date":"2019-02-03T02:43:14","date_gmt":"2019-02-03T02:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=57466"},"modified":"2019-02-03T02:44:38","modified_gmt":"2019-02-03T02:44:38","slug":"two-sisters-bought-dna-kits-the-results-blew-apart-their-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=57466","title":{"rendered":"Two Sisters Bought DNA Kits. The Results Blew Apart Their Family."},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Sisters Bought DNA Kits. The Results Blew Apart Their Family.<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/a>
\n2019-02-01<\/p>\n

Amy Dockser Marcus<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>
\n\u00a9<\/sup>Hurwitz and Dolvin family<\/small><\/p>\n

In an age of ubiquitous direct-to-consumer genetic testing<\/a>, family secrets are almost impossible to keep.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sonny and Brina Hurwitz raised a family in Boston<\/a>. They both died with secrets.<\/p>\n

In 2016, their oldest daughter, Julie Lawson, took a home DNA test<\/a>. Later, she persuaded her sister, Fredda Hurwitz, to take one too.<\/p>\n

In May, the sisters sat down at the dinner table in Ms. Hurwitz\u2019s Falls Church, Va.<\/a>, home to share their results. A man\u2019s name popped up as a close genetic match for Ms. Hurwitz. Neither had ever heard of him.<\/p>\n

Ms. Lawson searched for the man on Facebook . When she saw his photos, she knew. He looked like their late father. Based on his age and the close physical resemblance, Ms. Lawson immediately told her sister, \u201cHe\u2019s got to be our brother.\u201d This was their father\u2019s secret. He had a child they never knew about.<\/p>\n

Then came a second shock. Ms. Lawson\u2019s test showed she didn\u2019t appear to have any genetic connection to this new man. This was their mother\u2019s secret: Ms. Lawson was the product of a brief extramarital affair. The man who raised her wasn\u2019t her biological father.<\/p>\n

The revelations ricocheted through the family. They created new bonds with people who were once strangers. They caused tension with family they had known all their lives. And they sparked a fight between the sisters about the bonds of loyalty\u2014and how much their parents should have told them.<\/p>\n

Ms. Lawson, 65 years old, said she is still grappling with \u201cthe pain of knowing my life was a lie and having all these questions that can\u2019t be fully answered because both my parents are gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hardest part, she said, came the moment she and Ms. Hurwitz, 52, realized they were half, not full, sisters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe held each other,\u201d Ms. Lawson said, \u201cand we sobbed.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an age of ubiquitous direct-to-consumer genetic testing, family secrets are almost impossible to keep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,414,2039,8,20],"tags":[29373,29378,29374,29376,29380,29379,29377,29375,5102,9705],"class_list":["post-57466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-family","category-health-medicine","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-amy-dockser-marcus","tag-brianne-kirkpatrick","tag-brina-hurwitz","tag-fredda-hurwitz","tag-ira-greenberg","tag-jack-greenberg","tag-julie-lawson","tag-sonny-hurwitz","tag-the-wall-street-journal","tag-wall-street-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57467,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57466\/revisions\/57467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}