A Girl Gave Her Dad A DNA Kit For Christmas, But The Results Exposed A Dark Family Truth

When Rebecca Cartellone purchased her mom and dad DNA testing kits for Christmas, she thought the trio could explore their family history together. Perhaps she and her parents could bond over tracing their roots, too. But at the time, Rebecca had no idea just how much trouble her well-intentioned gift would cause. You see, when the Cartellones received the results of their respective tests, they uncovered a dark – and completely shocking – secret.

Eager to learn

Rebecca had been born in November 1994 to Joseph and Jennifer Cartellone, and she had remained the couple’s much beloved only child even as she grew up. In time, though, the Cartellones’ daughter was eager to learn more about her unique family heritage, which was Italian on her father’s side.

Gift of heritage

With that in mind, Rebecca decided to gift her parents DNA tests so that they could all learn more about their roots. She would undergo the same procedure, too, so that she and her mom and dad could examine their shared heritage together. As Rebecca handed over the presents to her folks, though, she had no idea that the findings would come to tear her world apart.

Testing at home

It’s fair to say that at-home DNA testing has emerged as something of a phenomenon in the last decade. That rise seems to have been fueled, moreover, by the public’s interest in family history. In 2014, in fact, genealogy became the second most popular hobby in the United States. And the concept of tracing one’s heritage is now a billion-dollar enterprise that is catered to by a number of websites, books and TV shows.

23andMe

Meanwhile, genetic testing kits as we know them today first hit the market in 2007 – the same year that 23andMe launched its saliva-based DNA test. Family history giant Ancestry followed by launching its own DNA service in 2012, and this has since risen to become one of the most popular such schemes in the world. It may have helped, however, that as of 2019 Ancestry has accumulated over ten million people on its database – thus making the chances of finding previously unknown relatives a distinct possibility.