People Are Sharing Life-Altering Family Secrets They Discovered Too Late

Every family has its secrets, but, of course, some are deeper, darker, and more damaging than others. Over on Quora, people are discussing the family secrets they unearthed later in life that changed everything. Here are some of their stories, including some responses from the BuzzFeed Community.

1."This family secret was kept from my sister and me until I was 13 and my sister 15. Every summer, we would visit my aunt's for two weeks and spend time with our cousins. Something seemed off this summer, but we made the trip as usual, and the trip was going great. One night, my aunt and her boyfriend argued, and he said, 'You better tell them. They deserve to know the truth...'"

"My aunt turned to both my sister and me and said, I'm your mother, and those aren't your cousins. They are your brothers and sisters. My sister and I asked to call our mother and ask if what we had just been told was true. My mother said, yes, she is your birth mother, but I have raised you as my own since you were two years old. After learning this secret, it caused waves in our family for many years, and growing up away from your biological family is hard when you know they are just right there, but you are living a different life."

—Jessica C.

2."My dad passed in 2020; my mom passed in April 2023. I had taken a DNA test roughly a year ago; mom did one a month before she passed. About a week after she died, my brother got a message from an old neighbor saying she thought he looked like her brother. So my brother decided to take a DNA test also..."

3."After 52 years on this earth, I discovered that the man I thought was my father wasn't actually my father. My sister took a 23andMe test, and a few weeks later, she texted me a screenshot. It said I was her half-brother with the caption, 'Guess dad's not your dad.' After the initial shock, we talked, and she asked me not to tell her father. She also said that it always was a family rumor that I was a product of an affair..."

"After I was born, my father (according to my birth certificate) started abusing my mother. My earliest childhood memory is of him beating her and her yelling at him not to touch me. They eventually divorced when I was nine. We moved out of state to avoid his drunken visits.

Over the next 40-plus years, I saw him fewer than 15 times. In 2012, my mother was on her deathbed, and my sister called me to ask her who my birth father was. My mother swore up and down that the father I grew up with was my father, and she was sick of hearing about this rumor around the family. Fast forward to 2021, when the news dropped. Through the use of a genetic genie, I discovered who my birth father was. I attempted to contact my birth father, but he thought it was a scam.

I hope my birth father comes around (I have made no attempts to contact him again, nor will I since my initial letter). If we never meet, oh well, his loss; I am successful, have a wonderful wife, and two very successful daughters."

—Jim B.

4."I had been lied to for 26 years about my birth date. I always thought my birthday was May 17, and I always had my birthday parties on that date. Whenever I filled in any form requiring my birth date, I entered May 17. When I was in grade 13, we had to apply for our birth certificate, and when I filled in the form, I, of course, put May 17. When it came back, it said May 15, so I asked my dad..."

5."I have a friend who is a genetic scientist who actually helped write the DNA code for 23andMe. She also took the test herself and, in the process, later discovered that she had a full sister that her parents had given up for adoption when they were teenagers and before they were married. They never told her or her brother about this third sibling."

—Anonymous

6."My oldest brother and I hadn't been close growing up because he was several years older than me, but we reconnected the year before he died of cancer. We shared many good times just reminiscing and enjoying our time together. We both knew it wouldn't be long enough. One day, he looked at me and said, 'Did you know I'm not really your brother?'..."

7."Several weeks ago, I learned that I have a biological sister. She had been adopted as an infant and didn't realize that she also had a sister until her DNA tests and genealogy research led her to our family. It was shocking to learn that I'm no longer a big sister but a little sister. I'm no longer the eldest biological child but a middle child. I'm no longer the only girl! I am an aunt! I have two lovely nieces..."

"It took a lot of courage for me to phone her up, but not even half as much as her introductory call. She'd already done all the hard work for me — all I had to do was phone her back. I imagine how much courage she must have taken to make that call.

I worried she wouldn't like me. I worried she would think I was too weird for her. I worried about being too 'Californian' and that her Midwestern values would be opposite my own. I picked up the phone the day I learned about her and said, 'Uh…hi. This is your sister, Wendi.' I had nothing to worry about. We started laughing together. An easy, comfortable conversation followed, and it flowed like sisters sharing a room our entire lives. We've spoken nearly every day since.

Sometimes twice a day, for hours on end. (We have a lot of catching up to do.) I absolutely love and adore my beautiful sister! She is the best shocking secret I've ever had revealed to me. I love it when secrets turn out to be the good kind!

—Wendi T.

8."I started having problems with my teeth. A spontaneous abscess that resulted in multiple root canals. My dentist looked into what the cause might be and found some really odd abnormalities with my incisor roots and nerves (the teeth afflicting me)...so he sent out requests for help to a couple of professors who knew in the field..."

9."I learned I was adopted via AncestryDNA results: it was a shock since my parents never told me. We've been estranged for a long time over other issues, so I still don't know who the birth mother is. But I found three paternal half-siblings who all look like me! I learned that my birth father had wanted me and begged the mother to let him raise me, but she refused..."

10."My mother-in-law was contacted by a woman saying her DNA matched that of my MIL's nephew, and she found her through Facebook. She said they were half-sisters with the same father. My MIL thought it was a scam or someone messing with her, so she did an Ancestry test. The woman wasn't her half-sister... turns out my MIL's father wasn't her father at all, but he was the stranger's father..."

"Both of my MIL's parents were deceased, so she couldn't ask them. But an uncle confessed everything. Her mother was pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend. The man who raised her stepped up and married her mom before she was born. They had four more children. He then had an affair when my MIL was 10 years old, resulting in the stranger. This has been devastating for her. Not only is she dealing with finding out her dad isn't her dad, but she isn't full-blooded with any of her siblings, and the stranger is their half-sibling but not hers. Understandably, they have fully embraced the stranger, but this also makes my MIL feel like even more of an outsider."

—k4049ba36a

11."I was adopted in 1952. My daughter gave me a 23andMe DNA test for Christmas in 2023 when I was 70. My results said I had a full sister. After contacting her, she said I also have five brothers. We have all met; the resemblance, voices, and even our hobbies are similar. I have a whole new loving family."

12."I jumped on the genetic testing bandwagon to learn more about my ethnicity and was discussing the results with my parents. I also mentioned how the test provides health info, but I was not thinking anything of it since I was just excited to learn more about where we were from..."

"Later that night, I was at my sister's and went upstairs to say goodbye to the kids. My parents must have thought I left as when I came downstairs to leave, I overheard them discussing the test and my mom saying, 'Do you think it mentions Huntington's Disease?' So yeah. That was how I discovered my mom was hiding being diagnosed with late-onset Huntington's."

—Anonymous, 51, California

13."My grandmother hoarded food. When we went to buffets, she would bring Ziploc bags along and take some for 'the trip home,' which could be the five minutes between her home and the synagogue. She had three fridges stuffed with food and an ample pantry. My dad used to assure me that if the apocalypse came, we could survive for years in her basement. I was mortified by her behavior."

14."When I was in high school, one of the kids in my year read my palm. Apparently, it was a thing in his family that was passed down from generation to generation. So, he said that we are four siblings. I said, no, we're definitely three. He said maybe something happened, but you were originally four..."

15."My mom passed away in 1981. Life continued, and we all got older. And then, I don't remember when, sometime after 2001, my sister called and asked me if I had ever known that my mama lived in Texas. To my knowledge, she had never been to Texas. We soon found out just how wrong we were..."

"My mother moved to Jacksonville in the later forties. The doctor's son from her hometown in Georgia visited her several times. She was living in a rooming house then, and I was in touch with one of the ladies who knew her then. They had kept in touch. My mother got pregnant and moved to someplace in Texas until the baby was born.

The baby boy was immediately whisked away and adopted by a couple from California. My mother returned to Jacksonville and met and married my father. They remained married until her death. Apparently, that 'baby' was all grown up and hired someone to track down his birth mother. Because of the work in which my sister was involved, my mother's birth name, the name under which she gave birth to this child, was a part of some record that the people who were trying to track down this man's birth mother looked at. It was a real shock to my family.

My dad had no idea my mother had a child before meeting him. The only person who knew and was sworn to secrecy because of his position was our family doctor, who happened to be my second or third cousin on my father's side. Of course, I had spent half my life as a child asking for a baby brother, but this was not what I had in mind."

—Pamela L.

16."I was 50 years old and was at my aunt’s house for a Christmas party talking to my aunt. I said I was worried because my father was in the hospital with cancer. She was drunk and told me not to worry because he wasn’t my father. Seems that my five brothers and sisters were not my brothers and sisters. And my aunts and uncles weren’t my aunts and uncles, either..."

Do you have something to add? What is a family secret you discovered later in life that changed your life in some way? Tell us in the comments or in this anonymous form.

Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.