Warning: If you buy everyone in your immediate family an ancestry DNA kit, it might bring you together or threaten to tear you apart.

Sure, we’re all curious about our ancestry, but sometimes there are family secrets that could be damaging if they were revealed. Other times, there are ancestry secrets that should be revealed in private or when the person hiding the secret is ready to tell the truth.

Then there’s the fact that ancestry kits are not 100% accurate. You wouldn’t want to change your entire world view based on the results because some of it is just a guessing game.

One man found out how potentially damaging an ancestry DNA kit given as a gift could be when he decided to buy them for his family members as Christmas presents. He wrote on Reddit that he the kits were on sale, so he bought one for himself, his mom, his dad and his two sisters. He didn’t expect his mom to freak out when everyone opened the presents.

“As soon as everyone opened their gift at the same time, my mom started freaking out. She told us how she didn’t want us taking them because they had unsafe chemicals. We explained to her how there were actually no chemicals, but we could tell she was still flustered. Later she started trying to convince us that only one of us kids need to take it since we will all have the same results and to resell extra kits to save money.”

Later, his mom and dad went upstairs, and the kids could hear them arguing for over an hour. Obviously, they had been hiding a secret, and they could only assume that one of them must have a different biological father.

Thankfully, his mom and dad eventually talked it out and came to terms with the situation. It wasn’t as bad as the kids assumed, and it actually did end up being a decent Christmas. Yes, it turns out that one of the children actually did have a different dad.

“Turns out my sisters father passed away shortly after she was born. A good friend of my moms was able to help her through the darkest time in her life, and they went on to fall in love and create the rest of our family.”

Why did mom and dad hide the truth about the oldest sister’s true dad? Their mom simply found the experience too painful to share; however, she was finally ready.

“They never told us because of how hard it was for my mom. Last night she was strong enough to share stories and photos with us for the first time, and it truly brought us even closer together as a family.”

Have you ever taken an ancestry DNA kit? If so, were you surprised by the results? Do you think an ancestry DNA kit is a good idea for a Christmas present?