DNA Tests Are Uncovering the True Prevalence of Incest

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DNA Tests Are Uncovering the True Prevalence of Incest

People are discovering the truth about their biological parents with DNA—and learning that incest is far more common than many think.

By Sarah Zhang
March 18, 2024

When Steve Edsel was a boy, his adoptive parents kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings in their bedroom closet. He would ask for it sometimes, poring over the headlines about his birth. Headlines like this: “Mother Deserts Son, Flees From Hospital,” Winston-Salem Journal, December 30, 1973.

The mother in question was 14 years old, “5 feet 6 with reddish brown hair,” and she had come to the hospital early one morning with her own parents. They gave names that all turned out to be fake. And by 8 o’clock that evening, just hours after she gave birth, they were gone. In a black-and-white drawing of the mother, based on nurses’ recollections, she has round glasses and sideswept bangs. Her mouth is grimly set.

The abandoned boy was placed in foster care with a local couple, the Edsels, who later adopted him. Steve knew all of this growing up. His parents never tried to hide his origins, and they always gave him the scrapbook when he asked. It wasn’t until he turned 14, though, that he really began to wonder about his birth mom. “I’m 14,” he thought at the time. “This is how old she was when she had me.”

Steve began looking for her in earnest in his 20s, but the paper trail quickly ran cold. When he turned 40, he told his wife, Michelle, that he wanted to give the search one last go. This was in 2013. AncestryDNA had started selling mail-in test kits the previous year, so he bought one. His matches at first seemed unpromising—some distant relatives—but when he began posting in a Facebook group for people seeking out biological family, he got connected to a genetic genealogist named CeCe Moore. Moore specializes in finding people via distant DNA matches, a technique made famous in 2018 when it led to the capture of the Golden State Killer. But back then, genetic genealogy was still new, and Moore was one of its pioneers. She volunteered to help Steve.

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https://www.archivebuttons.com/articles?article=https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/03/dna-tests-incest/677791/
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https://www.archivebuttons.com/articles?article=https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/03/dna-tests-incest/677791/

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