31 January 2024 , 10:50
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When taking a DNA test, most people expect to reconnect with a long-lost second cousin at most - not uncover a deep, dark family secret. But that's exactly what happened to one woman who came to learn all about her grandad's secret life - and the utter heartache he brought upon her grandma.
According to her grandma, her grandad died when her father was just four-years-old, meaning she never met him and her dad doesn't have many memories of the man. But, through the DNA test results, she came to learn he'd actually run away to start a new life with another woman, going on to have seven children with her.
She said on Reddit: "My grandfather did not die when my dad was aged four like we always thought. Instead, he faked his death, walked 1500km to the other end of the country, married a 16-year-old girl, and had seven more children."
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But to make matters worse, she went on to reveal how her grandad gave his youngest children the exact same names as his oldest. She added: "All the while leaving my grandmother to bring up the six children he had with her and his two children from an earlier marriage. The worst part was that he used the same names for the second batch of kids as his first lot."
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Sharing their own DNA discovery, one user replied: "Similar story of my great great grandfather. He never divorced any of his wives, and my grandma's half-siblings are still coming out of the woodwork about 80 years later. He was a horrible man apparently."
Another user added: "A former (retired) co-worker had a similar story. He discovered a whole batch of half-siblings in Eastern Europe. His father had been married and "went off to fight" in WWII and instead immigrated to Canada and started over. The first family just figured he didn't survive."
A third user said: "I am from Germany and after WW2 a guy lived in the same house as my grandparents, after he died it turned out he still had a family from before the war but he never went back to them."