Top 10 Darkest Stories About Genealogy & Family Secrets

10 Twisted Genealogy Horror Stories

Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re looking at some of the darkest genealogical discoveries ever made.

Ted Wood’s Double Discoveries

In the 1990s, Ted Wood set out to locate his birth parents. He met his mother and other relatives, but it would be decades before he found out anything about his father, Linwood “Woody” Gray. In 2013, Wood signed up for Ancestry and connected with distant relatives who knew his father. He discovered that, in 1982, Gray killed his partner, Michael J McKeen, and then took his own life. Despite the shocking truth about his father, Wood’s story does have a silver lining. As a college student, he donated sperm for some quick cash, and in April 2018, Ancestry sent him a new DNA match. It was Melissa Daniels, his donor-conceived daughter, whom he welcomed with open arms, along with two more daughters.

Dani Shapiro’s Family Secrets

Dani Shapiro wasn’t looking to find any relatives when she sent off her DNA to Ancestry. But in 2016, the best-selling author made a discovery that led her to question her entire identity. Shapiro, who grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family, found out that her late father was not her biological father. She learned that her parents were unable to conceive and consulted Pennsylvania’s Farris Institute for Parenthood, where they underwent “confused artificial insemination” treatment. The controversial method combined the father’s sperm with an anonymous donor’s, giving parents hope that their child could be linked to the father biologically. Shapiro wrote about the emotional journey in her 2019 book “Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love.”

Fertility Fraud in Idaho

In 2017, Kelli Rowlette received a DNA match on Ancestry linking her to a stranger named Gerald Mortimer, claiming he was her biological father. She was unaware that her parents, Sally Ashby and Howard Fowler, sought fertility treatments from obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Mortimer in Idaho Falls. Rowlette and her family were horrified, alleging that the now-retired doctor used his own sperm to artificially inseminate Ashby instead of mixing Fowler’s with an anonymous donor’s. In 2018, the family sued Dr. Mortimer for medical malpractice, fraud, and emotional distress, among other actions. He first denied the allegations but eventually admitted to secretly using his sperm in fertility treatments for Rowlette’s parents and many other couples without their knowledge or consent. However, a judge dismissed the case in 2021.

Baby Abandoned in Ohio

When Arizona resident Steve Dennis’ children encouraged him to send his DNA to Ancestry, he didn’t expect to find himself at the center of a decades-old mystery. He connected with a cousin who told him the family knew that a relative had been abandoned as a baby. In January 1954, deliverymen in Lancaster, Ohio, found an infant swaddled in blankets, placed inside a cardboard box, and left in a telephone booth. The shocking discovery made headlines. The baby was adopted by a loving couple, but the identity of the birth parents remained unknown. Dennis learned that his mother was young and left him behind at the behest of his father, who disappeared shortly after. Over 60 years later, Dennis finally met her and his half-sister.

The Abduction of Carlina White

When Nejdra “Netty” Nance was pregnant in 2005, an inquiry into her own birth certificate uncovered the shocking truth she’d long suspected. She was not the biological daughter of Annugetta “Ann” Pettway, the woman who raised her. Netty was born Carlina Renae White on July 15, 1987, at Harlem Hospital, where Pettway posed as a nurse and kidnapped her as a 19-day-old. In 2010, she searched the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children website, eventually finding her baby photo. Netty reunited with her birth parents, Joy White and Carl Tyson, in January 2011. They became temporarily estranged after disagreeing about Pettway. Netty was supportive, while White and Tyson rightfully sought justice. Pettway only served part of her 12-year sentence before her release in 2021.

Catching the Grim Sleeper

From around 1985 to 1988, a serial killer terrorized South Los Angeles, taking the lives of at least ten Black women and leaving their bodies in the garbage. Due to his 14-year hiatus and reemergence in the early 2000s, the press dubbed him the Grim Sleeper. It wasn’t until 2010 that investigators finally got a break in the case. Using a new method called familial DNA analysis, the LAPD got a partial match with convicted felon Chris Franklin, leading them to his father, Lonnie. Although it’s believed he killed more, Lonnie Franklin Jr. was charged and found guilty of ten counts of murder and one attempted murder, resulting in multiple death sentences. Franklin died in 2020, though the cause of death was never made public.

South Korean Adoption Fraud

In the 1980s, South Korean adoptions were at an all-time high, with 200,000 Korean children sent to parents in other countries, namely the United States, Europe, and Australia. What seemed like the government finding loving homes for orphaned children was much more nefarious. For decades, Korean adoptees have searched for their birth parents, some with more success than others, with many learning that their parents didn’t willingly give them up for adoption. Agencies like Korea Social Service (KSS), Eastern Social Welfare Society, and Holt Children’s Services targeted impoverished neighborhoods and unwed mothers, even telling some parents their babies didn’t survive birth when really they’d been sent overseas. Between falsified adoption papers and swapped identities, the road to truth and justice continues to be devastating.

Lydia Fairchild’s Chimerism

When Lydia Fairchild applied for public assistance from Washington state in 2002, she couldn’t have imagined the nightmare ahead of her. A required paternity test confirmed that her former boyfriend, Jamie Townsend, was the father of their fraternal twins. However, Fairchild’s DNA did not match, leading to a welfare fraud accusation, putting her at risk of losing custody. With a court-ordered witness present, she gave birth to her and Townsend’s third child. The DNA results showed the baby was not a match, proving Fairchild was the mother. After more tests, scientists discovered that she was likely a “chimera,” a rare medical condition where one person has the cells of two, meaning her kids were genetically linked to her twin she absorbed in the womb.

Finding the Golden State Killer

In the 1970s and 80s, California was plagued by multiple serial killers, including Edmund Kemper and Richard Ramirez. One of the most prolific murderers went by an array of nicknames, like the Visalia Ransacker, and more infamously, the Golden State Killer. Across the state, he ransacked over a hundred homes, sexually assaulted at least 50 women, and murdered over ten people. The case went cold for decades, until investigators utilized genetic genealogy via GEDmatch, finding dozens of the killer’s distant relatives. They soon identified former police officer Joseph DeAngelo as a match to DNA collected from the crime scenes. An elderly DeAngelo was apprehended in 2018. Two years later, he pleaded guilty to 13 counts of first-degree murder and kidnapping, earning him consecutive life sentences without parole.

Dr. Donald Cline’s Decades-Long Fertility Fraud

In 2014, Jacoba Ballard met her first half-sibling on a website for donor-conceived children, and the number kept growing. She confirmed with 23andMe that their biological father was Donald Cline, an Indiana infertility specialist their parents consulted. For decades, he secretly fathered over 90 children, many of whom lived within 25 miles of each other, meaning they could have unknowingly dated their half-siblings. The remorseless Cline was only charged with obstruction of justice for lying to the Attorney General, resulting in a one-year suspended sentence. Despite violating nearly 100 women and admitting as much, he faced no jail time, though he paid over $1.3 million in civil suits. Cline was stripped of his medical license in 2018 and can never reapply.

Which of these genealogy horror stories shocked you the most? Let us know in the comments below.