In 2014, my now-wife’s Valentine’s Day present to me was a 23andMe testing kit.
If you’re unfamiliar, the gist is you spit into a tube, ship it off to a lab and then receive a bunch of reports about your ancestry, health and family tree.
Anyone learning about this concept in 2025 is probably horrified at the thought of entrusting such personal data to a private company. But I was just 26 at the time. Trust came easier then.
To this day, I consider that testing kit to be the sweetest gift I’ve received. She wanted to help provide answers to questions I’d wondered my whole life.
Whereas my wife can flip through some pages on Ancestry to pinpoint her paternal lineage to two cities in Italy, I knew almost nothing about my family’s history.
No one on my mom’s side seemed to care too much. I’ll always remember a conversation with my grandma where, sitting at her dining room table with a spread of sauerkraut and kielbasa, I asked about our family’s roots.
She shrugged. “Polish?”
At least she passed down her sense of humor.
As unhelpful as my mother’s side was, the other side was simply a black box. I never knew my father — not his middle name, or what he looked like, or whether he had a kidney disorder like me.
So I always wondered: What kind of health history did I inherit? And was it possible my family’s origin reached back to somewhere as exotic as Italy?
I spit in the tube.
I. ‘Delete your data from 23andMe’
The title of a New York Times podcast stopped me last month.
“Delete your data from 23andMe,” it read.
Before listening, my first thought was maybe the company had started turning over DNA to law enforcement agencies without a warrant, or maybe there was another hack leading to another major privacy breach. Both would be podcast material.
But how bad could either option be? Are we talking don’t-drink-diet-soda-because-carcinogens bad? Because I 100% ignore that one.
Still, I listened to the podcast.
It was something else entirely.
I learned that 23andMe filed for bankruptcy last month. The company needs a new buyer.
And, the podcast warned, you can’t be certain what a future owner would do with your data.
The attorney general in California is even telling people like me to consider deleting my information before it’s too late.
II. Toes and potatoes
It's eerie how much information that 23andMe knows about me based simply off analyzing my saliva.
No, I don't have a bald spot. Yes, I experience motion sickness. No, I can't sing. Yes, my second toe is longer than the rest.
Some stuff is completely off, though. One report, for example, claims I probably don't have much upper back hair. Fact check: definitely false.
Even then, you can consider me a fan of the reports. Sure, a lot of that “health” information reads more like teen mag horoscopes, but they’re still fun.
The ancestry reports have been especially interesting.
The first thing my wife and I learned — and the factoid I’ve since told basically everybody who asks — is that I share ancestry with an ancient Irish king. (Just ignore the fact that this is true for one in seven users.)
I also have more than 1% of Neanderthal DNA. Is that the part that’s responsible for my back hair?
More to the point, my ancestry is 98% Northwestern European, most of that British and Irish.
Between the news of Irish royalty and ancestry, I believed I was starting to piece together a background on par with my wife’s ties to Naples.
Ryan, after all, is an Irish name. And I enjoy potatoes.
There is, of course, a third aspect of 23andMe, however.
You can see who you’re related to.
III. Unknowns
It didn’t come as some great shock that I would see the names of unknown blood relatives. In addition to the father I never met, a close relative on my mother’s side had an extended family that I never knew.
So, to tell you the truth, my memory is fuzzy about when I first saw the names of a potential aunt and a potential first cousin. I don’t recall experiencing any particular emotion — there was no dramatic reveal, no pit in my stomach, no rushing to my wife to declare that we were on the cusp of unraveling a mystery.
I probably just thought that was neat but then went about my day.
Would it have been different when I was younger? Yeah, I always dreamed of having a dad. I always wondered what his life and family were like.
But by my 20s and 30s, that dream had died. I found a way to grow into a man who felt no bitterness or, even, curiosity.
While my memories are spotty, I do remember that the first cousin sent me an invitation to connect in spring 2019.
I accepted. "Looks like we're first cousins," I wrote simply. "Good to meet you.”
IV. A family first
There’s a long story that could be told about what happened next. Maybe I’ll write about that another day.
The short version, though, is that it took me six years after that message to finally muster the courage to meet my biological father’s family.
That first cousin was one of two people to send me an invitation to my biological father’s memorial last month. He died of kidney disease.
My wife and I showed up together. Family pictures revealed to me, for the first time, what he looked like.
“He looks … just like you, Ryan,” my wife said, clearly unsure if I was ready to accept the truth staring at me through a polaroid.
I was ready, though.
Most importantly, though, I hugged the first cousin who contacted me in 2019. I also hugged an aunt who, for years, had been covertly following my career accolades and sharing them with my biological father, hoping he would one day contact me.
He never did, but I’m glad she did.
V. I can’t delete my account
I suppose if 23andMe only told me about my hair and toes, then I’d have no problem following the advice of the California Attorney General.
Maybe an Elon Musk-like figure will acquire the company, and therefore my DNA, in pursuit of some pseudoscientific but ultra-capitalistic goal. I readily acknowledge the risk here.
But I just can’t bring myself to delete my account.
Finally, more than a decade after I spit in that tube, I’m starting to learn where I came from.
VI. This edition’s beat
"This Alive" by Deb Never
But from the other side
The sun is always shining brighterAfter all this time
I've only made it to the light
An incredible story, my friend.