DNA & Genetic Genealogy

Christina Bryan has an impressive portfolio of skills that make her exceedingly good at her work as a genetic and family investigator, but it’s her tenacity that drives her success where others may fail. Based in Marin County, California, she helps clients across the country cope with life-altering DNA test results and shocking family surprises, untangling misattributed parentage discoveries and locating their biological family members. Whether working with adoptees, donor-conceived adults, or others who’ve had a misattributed parentage experience (MPE), she employs an array of investigative strategies and doesn’t stop until she’s solved a client’s puzzle.

A Portland, Oregon native, Bryan moved to the Bay area to go to California State University, East Bay, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology and became a performance analyst in the investment banking field. But after she took an autosomal DNA test in 2014, she found herself on a new career trajectory. She learned about the science of DNA, applied it to her own family tree, and began using her newfound skills to help others solve the puzzle of their parentage or better understand their ancestry. It quickly became apparent it wasn’t merely a hobby; it was a calling, as the nickname her clients have given her suggests—Super Sleuth.

In 2016, she began taking on complex cases for high profile clients and performing international and historical research. She’s in demand not only for her persistence but also for her intuition, which has helped her solve cases for attorneys and law enforcement personnel. She’s also co-host, with Jodi Klugman-Rabb, of Sex, Lies & the Truth, an entertaining and informative podcast about DNA surprises.

Bryan knows her job doesn’t begin and end with solving a case. She’s likely to encounter clients experiencing stress, trauma, identity confusion, and intense emotions related to their change of status within their family and she offers comfort, humor, and emotional support. Here she talks with us about her work.

During these tumultuous and uncertain times, we’re all looking for the courage and inspiration to keep on keeping on. Many of us are exploring our identities and looking for clues and connections to our past, present, and futures stories. These stories can touch us, move us, and make us feel a little better, often deepening our connections to the people around us. We all have a primal need for belonging, and these connections are built around our stories.

Many of us are turning to 23andMe.com, Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, and other web sites to discover family legacy stories, hoping to find a deeper sense of identity and the answers to profound identity questions: “What makes us who we are?” “To whom am I biologically related?” “Who am I?”

But sometimes digging into the family tree unearths pieces of a bigger story than the one you might have envisioned.

The good news is that experts say knowing the truth, even if it feels harsh or hard to accept at first, can be healing. In some cases, it can give us a sense of empathy and greater connection to others when we realize we are all human; sometimes we find ourselves making decisions that have a ripple effect for generations to come. In her book Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love, author Dani Shapiro says: “When we tell the secret that we feel sets us so completely apart from everyone else, we discover that it doesn’t and that to connect with others is valuable and powerful.”

Carole Hines has experienced firsthand how learning the truth can answer questions that have nagged her throughout her life. She always knew she was somehow different than her siblings, but it was not until she got the results of her DNA test that she knew why. All her life, she says, she never understood racism or prejudice. When a DNA test revealed the San Francisco resident did not share the 99% of European descent of her two siblings—that she did not have the same biological father and she was mostly Latina—she began a journey of deeper understanding into racial divides.

How long did you spend researching and writing The Lost Family?

Altogether, about three years. I first wrote about Alice Collins Plebuch’s fascinating genetic detective story in The Washington Post in early 2017. The response to that story, which was hundreds of emails from other consumers sharing intimate and moving DNA testing stories, convinced me the topic needed to be a book, and I started researching for the proposal soon afterward. But the bulk of the work was done during 2018 and 2019. In The Lost Family, I revisit Alice’s story and tell it much more fully. I was able to travel to Washington State and spend time with her, as well as do historical research going back a hundred years to illuminate her family’s astonishing story. And as I follow her story, I also tell many other tales from people I Interviewed—wrenching, moving stories of how this technology is changing how we see ourselves and how we talk to one another, not to mention how we think about truth and the past.

What so intrigued you initially that you were willing to devote so much time and attention to this issue? Did you realize early on how complex the subject would be?

I was really intrigued by the idea that questions about genetic origins and family could lead individuals, families, and the culture at large to deep explorations of essential human questions about identity, what makes a family, and how we define ethnicity. The science was indeed quite complex, and so were the experiences of people affected by this technology. I got to interview a lot of genetic genealogists about their techniques and the history of the field, and to tour a DNA testing lab and speak with a number of scientists and historians about human genetics and autosomal DNA testing.

Tell me a little bit about your background and how you came to be interested in creating DNAngels, and how you educated yourself about genetic genealogy?

18 years ago, my aunt researched our Tippa family roots back to 1804, when these ancestors first sailed to America from Germany. My father surprised me with a beautiful bound book of this research as a gift, along with the story of how our last name was Americanized to Tippy. I loved sharing this history with my brothers, nieces, and nephews, relishing the sense of identity and family unity it brought me. I guess this is where my interest in genealogy really began.

In the Fall of 2017, I decided to create a similar keepsake of family history for my grandchildren as a Christmas gift. I already had an account with Ancestry, and became familiar with using their data to access all types of records, such as birth, death, census, military, and marriage. It occurred to me the Ancestry DNA tests would include specific information regarding the actual regions of one’s ancestors, so I thought this would be a nice addition to include in their family tree book.

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.
Six weeks later, my test results arrived. As someone who loves family research, it was exciting to see so many relatives listed from first to fourth cousins! Searching for familiar names on my father’s side, I was confused as not one could be found. I decided to call a few Tippy family members who I knew for certain had also tested. They logged into their Ancestry account but did not see my results either.

In the back of my mind, the distant memory of a comment made by my uncle surfaced. He once told me my daddy could not father children, so none of his kids were biologically his. I brushed the comment off at the time, as my brown eyes were certainly the same as my father’s, making me confident I was his. Suddenly, my world turned upside down as I feared there may be some truth to what my uncle said.

Tell us little about yourself apart from your adoption journey and your podcast/genetic genealogy work?

I am a wife and mother of two. I’m currently on my fifth career. I made my living as an actress/singer for most of my life. That slowed down in my forties, so, needing a creative outlet, I went to beauty school and got a cosmetology license. I’ve always been a genealogy hobbyist, but the advent of direct-to-consumer DNA testing changed my world and heralded a whole new skill set.

And the impossible question: Can you summarize your own adoption journey? 

Always knew I was adopted and was always implicitly aware of the general mismatch between me and my adoptive family. To be clear, that doesn’t mean I didn’t love and appreciate them. It means I spent my life feeling like I was “other” than those around me, and it was emphasized by the general consensus that I should try harder to blend in and not be my own person. I found my biological mother in my early twenties and it was quite uneventful and stress free. My parents were supportive of this effort and even reached out to my biological mother in solidarity.
Years later, after having my own children, I realized I needed to complete my search and began an arduous and often shocking journey into identifying my paternal family. It became an obsession. As has always been my way, if those around me told me that something was impossible, I leaned in to prove otherwise. Being hypervigilant is a common thread among adoptees and it has pretty much dominated my motivations in life. (For the full story, please listen to the first 20 or so episodes of my podcast “CutOff Genes.” Caveat: Genetic genealogy is relatively new and always evolving, and the testing sites update their platforms regularly. That said, some of the earlier episodes may contain content that’s no longer relevant.)