When Sammy took a DNA test, he didn’t know it would reveal he had a brother – or that he was adopted.
On the morning of June 3, 41-year-old Sammy B was mindlessly scrolling through emails at his home in Montreal, Canada, when he spotted a message that would upend life as he knew it.
“Hello Sammy, I was born in Lebanon in 1981 and I live in France. A brother!!?? I hope to read from you soon.” The sender was Laurent W, a name he recognised from the results of a genetic test he had taken a couple of weeks prior.
Like more than 26 million consumers worldwide, Sammy had turned to a commercial ancestry database to gain insight into his ethnic origins and health.
But his results appeared to be way off the mark. His geographic origins had been traced back to a largely-Shia Muslim part of Lebanon his Christian family did not hail from. Names he had never heard of were marked as relatives.
The oddest thing, however, was that the test claimed he shared more than half of his genes with Laurent – making him a fraternal twin.
The message sent Sammy into a spin. Could it be a scam, he wondered. Had the DNA sample been mismanaged – or worse, could it have been tampered with?
