72-year-old Alice Collins from Washington decided to take a DNA test eight years ago, thinking she had a good idea about her ancestry as both her parents were devout Irish-American Catholics. However, the results shocked her as she wasn’t who she thought she was. Alice had long been preoccupied with questions about her family, especially her father’s side, which had no known history. Her father, Jim Collins, was the son of Irish immigrants, and he knew little about his family history. Alice had traced her mother’s lineage back to the 1500s but felt guilty about her father’s side.
When Alice began researching her father’s lineage, she knew some details of his childhood, such as his time in an orphanage and his later life as a devout Catholic. However, she didn’t know where he came from or what had happened to his parents. Alice wrote to the orphanage but received no helpful information. Read the full story here ▶
