All over Ireland and across the world, family secrets are being revealed for the first time because of commercial DNA tests.
Whether by accident, through mere curiosity or as part of deliberate and painstaking detective work, individuals are finding out about a hidden biological parent or an unknown sibling.
They are discovering affairs and liaisons that were covered up for decades, and the results are often painful, but enlightening. Siblings such as the abandoned babies Helen Ward and David McBride, whose story was told in these pages this month, are suddenly united.
In some ways, the process of doing a DNA test seems simple. In return for a fee of less than €100, a company such as Ancestry or 23andMe will send you a test tube for you to spit in and send back for analysis.
Weeks later, reams of information come back, showing up relatives who have also given DNA samples.
Dolores Quinlan, a psychotherapist who herself found her mother through DNA and helps adoptees who are going through the process, says: "People give DNA tests as Christmas presents, but they should come with a government health warning.
"People might do the test for the craic, and they may get back a chart showing how Irish they are," she explains. "People can keep their information public or private, but many don't know that, and they leave their information on the database, where other DNA samples will be automatically linked with their sample if they match - including those of future DNA contributors.
"All of a sudden, they are contacted by someone who is a daughter of the husband from a previous relationship that they never even knew about. The husband might not even have known that their ex-girlfriend got pregnant and had a baby. Or else it could be a half-brother or sister that suddenly contacts you."
The State may be notoriously reluctant to release adoption records, but the emergence of relatively cheap DIY databases such as Ancestry has driven a coach and horses through that cloud of bureaucratic secrecy.
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