DNA Testing - Why Not

[flipflops]

I think with the prices charged, it would be unlikely that anyone would volunteer to pay unless it was a very deserving relative ! 

At the prices they charge I'd not only have to be exceptionally keen, I'd have to see photo ID and take and post the sample myself

[Redroger]

I'm having a problem with this do you mean as in #your daddy's not your daddy but your daddy don't know#

That summarises a situation which has either arisen in my family or in a "parallel" family sometime between 1795 and 1900. You put it much more succinctly than I did thanks!

[flipflops]

I'd like to take credit for being succinct but it's a song lyric that should take any credit 

[Billyblue]

[

That summarises a situation which has either arisen in my family or in a "parallel" family sometime between 1795 and 1900. You put it much more succinctly than I did thanks!

And you don't always need DNA to prove that either         , for people alive or recently so.

A friend of mine discovered, when he took up pathology as a profession, that his dad wasn't his dad - I didn't ask how he knew but presume their two blood groups were incompatible!
He was never game to ask his mother about it, or even mention it to them         

Dawn M

[Nick29]

I read somewhere that as many as 60% of the people in the western world have fathers whose name does not appear on their birth certificate.  Of course, nobody knows the actual number.

[flipflops]

Of course it doesn't have to be infidelity.

The story of how when James II's wife was giving  birth a substitute was smuggled into the Royal Bedchamber in a warming pan because the genuine baby was still born.  False rumour or not, it's hard to imagine that the idea of substituting one baby for another if the circumstances demanded it should be confined to works of fiction.

[Redroger]

Of course it doesn't have to be infidelity.

The story of how when James II's wife was giving  birth a substitute was smuggled into the Royal Bedchamber in a warming pan because the genuine baby was still born.  False rumour or not, it's hard to imagine that the idea of substituting one baby for another if the circumstances demanded it should be confined to works of fiction.

This was taken seriously enough for two things to have happened, 1) Up to recently the Home Secretary was required to be present at the birth of an heir to the throne; and 2) Royalty do not usually take DNA tests, the only exception I know of being Prince Phillip to determine the identity of the Romanov remains.

If royalty did take DNA tests, the entire hereditary edifice might collapse.

[Nick29]

I've heard that some members of the royal family go out of their way to avoid DNA tests 

[mike175]

The story of how when James II's wife was giving  birth a substitute was smuggled into the Royal Bedchamber in a warming pan because the genuine baby was still born. 

I guess not too many people would be in a position to 'acquire' a substitute newborn baby to order . . . 

I doubt if many of us are going to find that situation in our ancestry . . . apart from those descended from royalty, obviously