In this episode of DNA Clarity and Support, Brianne talks with Jen Jacober, a genetic counselor who brings a deeply personal perspective to her work. Jen is a late-discovery donor-conceived person, and she opens up about what it was like to learn this truth as an adult—and how that experience has shaped her understanding of herself and influenced her professional practice.

Maggy was the family genealogist who dedicated her heart and time to developing the family tree branches far and wide. A month after distributing a book of their genealogy to her excited family, she discovered the book no longer included her.

Over the past 12-and-a-half years since her surprise DNA discovery, Maggy has been on a long and winding journey grappling with her identity and navigating changes in her relationships.

Maggy shares encouragement with other NPEs and advice for finding the community that fits your needs. She shares her experience of using a painful discovery to help others (and help yourself in the process). 

Podcast Ep 5: With the increasing popularity of at-home consumer DNA testing through companies like Ancestry.com and 23andMe, more and more men are finding previously unknown offspring. For a man with a wife and family, this discovery presents unique challenges, particularly if that newfound "child" is a grown woman.

I recently received an inquiry from the uncle of a newly-discovered adult adoptee who had searched and identified his biological mother via 23andMe. The question was why his sister (the birth mom) had at first been excited that her biological son had been found, but then changed.

On today's episode, Glaser talks with DNA Clarity and Support host Brianne Kirkpatrick about the history of coerced adoption in the United States and the influence of culture and stigma on women who in other circumstances might have chosen to parent rather than surrender their to the adoption system.

In this episode, Brianne interviews author Diahan Southard, creator of Your DNA Guide, who brings a much-needed dose of enthusiasm to the talk about genealogy, a biological parent search, and DNA testing!

J.C. Kenney is the author a series of cozy mystery novels, one of which involves using DNA and genealogy to solve a murder cold case. You need not be a true crime fan or a DNA expert to learn from today's episode! The conversation with J.C. hones in on the highlights of DNA and crime investigation and is a great intro for those unfamiliar with investigative genetic genealogy, often shortened to IGG. 

Michael's search entered a new phase when a consumer DNA test connected him to paternal DNA relatives. The up-and-down journey, the people he came to know along the way, and the new understanding he has of his parents are all documented in his memoir, I Had My Underwear on the Entire Time.

The conversation between host Brianne Kirkpatrick and Boni swings back and forth, exploring the personal impacts of a misattributed parentage discovery on Boni and his awareness of the need for societal change. Boni shares how the new trauma of the NPE ('not parent expected') discovery rekindled some of the old trauma from his past, requiring hard work in the therapist's office to work through.

K.S. “Katie” Hopkins never guessed that a discovery about her sister's unexpected paternity would be just the start of a number of surprises in the family. What began as crumbs of information left in family documents led to DNA testing which confirmed a hidden family history.