You know those DNA tests

the sort you can take that will tell you a bit about your family and your ancestors?
Somebody I know just posted her results up - and she's happy with them. That's good.
Not so long ago I was talking to someone who was shocked by hers. 
Earlier than that a relative by marriage told me about her mother taking - and discovering that the man she thought of as her father not being her father at all.  That had been a shock too. Her mother's parents died some time ago so  she can't talk to them about it.
But things were even worse for this woman. She discovered that neither of the people she viewed as parents were related to her. Then her two brothers took tests as well. No, they were not blood related either - to their parents, each other or her. All three of them had been adopted and never told about it. Not only that but the information about their adoption had been successfully kept from their extended family because they were living in another part of the country when the adoptions took place. 
      "It's not so much the adoptions," this woman told me, "We can live with that. We were given everything we needed. My birth mother died long ago and I certainly don't want anything to do with her family. They are not nice people. It's the same for B...and R... We have families, just not the families we thought they were. It's the same for our children and will be for their children.  What bothers us is that our mother went on and on about how hard it was to conceive us and how difficult each pregnancy was - and she still keeps saying it. She keeps telling me that the tests are wrong." 
Yes, they had the tests done again at even greater expense. The results did not change. 
This woman wonders what her adopted father thought of all this. He died some years ago.
How their parents kept three adoptions secret is a mystery. Her mother won't admit to anything - even when faced with the paperwork. 
When I was told all of this and asked to write something on my blog I said, "Are you sure you want me to do this?"
The answer was, "Yes, just tell people to be prepared to be told something they would rather not know if they take the test."
That's not bad advice.