I Contacted My DNA Matches and here’s what I learned

In 2018 I took a MyHeritage DNA test, and after two years of emails telling me I had “new matches”, I finally decided to reach out.

Full disclosure: The original test was sent to me for free by the company. (#Gifted) I created a video about taking the test and never planned to create more, but I was intrigued by all these emails I received over the next two years claiming to have found new DNA matches, so I decided to start contacting the matches.

When I first logged in, I was very surprised to see a genuine cousin among my top matches — I hadn’t known that she had taken the test, and I was even more surprised that the test accurately picked out a real cousin of mine!

I contacted a number of other “matches” via the site and spoke to one other match via Zoom. Unfortunately, we were unable to figure out exactly how we were related, but we had a lovely chat and shared what we did know about our family trees.

So what did I ultimately learn? I learned that these DNA kits really can tell who is related to you but that a…