Family Twist: A Podcast Exploring DNA Surprises and Family Secrets

Send us Fan Mail What if you discovered your adoption was never legal? This week, Corey and Kendall welcome adoptee, author, advocate, and National Association of Adoptees and Parents (NAAP) board member Patricia Knight Meyer for one of the most extraordinary stories we've ever featured on Family Twist. Patricia always knew she was adopted. But at 13, she learned she had no original birth cer...

Send us Fan Mail She didn't tell me we were Jewish. Those seven words changed everything. Author Joan Moran joins Corey and Kendall to discuss her remarkable memoir, Suddenly Jewish , a story that spans generations, continents, and one life-changing family secret. Joan grew up believing she knew her family's story. Then, just before marrying into a Jewish family, her mother revealed some...

Send us Fan Mail Can horror movies actually help us heal? In this special crossover episode with Horror Heals , Corey sits down for a conversation that might surprise Family Twist listeners. While one podcast explores DNA surprises, adoption, and identity, and the other celebrates horror, both are ultimately about the same thing: how people make sense of difficult experiences and find connection t...

Send us Fan Mail Julie Ann Brumley expected a DNA test to answer a few questions. She didn't expect to find a sister, a 100% Italian biological father, or an entire family where she could finally see herself reflected in someone else's face. In part one of our conversation, Julie and Kendall compare reunion stories and talk about the moments that don't always make it into the movies...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when a mental health professional finds herself navigating a DNA surprise of her own? In this deeply personal episode of Family Twist, Corey and Kendall sit down with Angie Miller, licensed mental health therapist, wellness coach, speaker, and host of the Strong Mind, Strong Body podcast, for a conversation about identity, family secrets, and the emotional chaos that...

Send us Fan Mail Nicole thought TikTok was being ridiculous. After posting wedding videos online, strangers flooded the comments insisting there was “no way” she was half white like she’d always believed. Some people were curious. Others were cruel. But the comments kept coming. “You look Black.” “That’s not your dad.” “You should take a DNA test.” So she did. What Nicole expected would be a funny...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when you spend more than 40 years sensing something about your life doesn’t add up… only to discover you were right all along? In this deeply emotional and unforgettable episode of Family Twist, Corey and Kendall sit down with Dr. Syb, a late discovery adoptee whose world changed forever just before her 42nd birthday. What began as a lifetime of unanswered questions b...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when your search for family stretches across decades, dead ends, sealed records, and fading hope? In part two of this deeply personal conversation, Corey and Kendall continue their discussion with author and journalist Paul T. O'Connor. Together, they explore the emotional realities of adoption, foster care, identity, and the lifelong impact of family secrecy. Ke...

Send us Fan Mail What would you do if, on the day you buried your mother, you discovered a hidden bundle of records labeled with one clear instruction: Please destroy these ? In this gripping first part of Corey and Kendall’s conversation with retired journalist and author Paul O’Connor, a lifetime of hidden family history begins to unravel through DNA testing, courthouse archives, old birth recor...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when a sperm donor from the 1990s suddenly discovers he has children decades later? This is one of those stories that could only happen right now. A decision made in the early ’90s, when anonymity was expected and protected, collides with modern DNA testing, where secrets don’t stay buried. In Part 1 of this conversation around the documentary Dad Genes , we sit down...

Send us Fan Mail  What happens when a sperm donor from the 1990s suddenly discovers he has children decades later?  This is one of those stories that could only happen right now. A decision made in the early ’90s, when anonymity was expected and protected, collides with modern DNA testing, where secrets don’t stay buried. In Part 1 of this conversation around the documentary Dad Genes , we sit dow...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when your story starts with secrecy… and ends with a global family? In this milestone Episode 200 of Family Twist , Kendall sits down with author, musician, and adoptee Zara, whose life began in England during the forced adoption era of the 1960s, a time when young, unmarried mothers were often given no choice but to relinquish their children.  Zara always knew she wa...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when a life-altering DNA discovery becomes a feature film… and then gets unpacked in a room full of people who truly understand it? In this special live episode of Family Twist , Corey sits down with filmmaker, actor, and storyteller Lisa Brenner at Untangling Our Roots. Lisa shares the real story behind her film One Big Happy Family , inspired by discovering at age 4...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when you go from being an only child… to one of twelve overnight? In this episode of Family Twist , and Kendall sits down with Elizabeth Barbour , an adoptee, adoptive mom, and reunion expert who has spent more than two decades living the reality so many are just beginning to face. Elizabeth shares her story of searching in a pre-DNA era, making that life-changing pho...

Send us Fan Mail What does adoption feel like for the person who never had a choice? In this episode of Family Twist, Corey and Kendall talk with Leslie Pate Mackinnon, LCSW, a birth mother, therapist, and one of the most respected voices in the adoption and donor conception space. As a teenager, Leslie placed her two firstborn sons for adoption during a time when young women were often given litt...

Send us Fan Mail What would you do if a simple DNA test revealed that the man you believed was your father wasn’t your biological parent? In this episode of Family Twist , Corey and Kendall sit down with Laura Olmsted , founder of DNAngels , to talk about the moment a family history project turned into a life-changing DNA discovery. What began as a curiosity-driven test while building a genealogy...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when a family secret rewrites your identity? In this episode of Family Twist , Corey and Kendall welcome author Gail Lukasik , whose work explores the powerful impact of hidden family histories and DNA discoveries. Gail reads a moving excerpt from her book What They Never Told Us: True Stories of Family Secrets and Hidden Identities Revealed , inspired by the flood of...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when a child asks a question the adults in the room aren’t ready to answer? In this episode of Family Twist , Corey sits down with Dr. Vicki Sanders, a psychologist who has spent decades working with adopted and foster children, and the families raising them. Her work lives in the spaces most people avoid, the pauses, the deflections, the “we don’t need to talk about...

Send us Fan Mail What if your father’s childhood was a handful of strange fragments, a “castle,” a room with 25 beds, hunger, silence, and a single forbidden question. Filmmaker David Quint grew up sensing his dad was different, but nobody explained why. His father, Urban, had been raised in a 700-year-old Swiss castle that served as an orphanage, then at age 12 received a letter that changed ever...

Send us Fan Mail What does adoption feel like for the person who never had a choice? In this episode of Family Twist, Corey and Kendall talk with Leslie Pate Mackinnon, LCSW, a birth mother, therapist, and one of the most respected voices in the adoption and donor conception space. As a teenager, Leslie placed her two firstborn sons for adoption during a time when young women were often given litt...

Send us Fan Mail She thought she knew her story. In 2021, a casual AncestryDNA test reopened questions Alicia had quietly carried her entire life. Why did she never see her original birth certificate? Why was her birthday often forgotten? Why did her brother feel like he belonged in a different way? Then a first cousin match appeared. And everything started to unravel. In Part One of this three-pa...

Send us Fan Mail She logged back in. After months of denial, after accusing AncestryDNA of switching samples, after trying to shove the results back into the box, Alicia Sharon Denise Williams opened her DNA account again. The first cousin matches were still there. This time, she did not look away. In Part Two of this three-part late discovery adoptee story, Alicia takes us into the moment curiosi...

Send us Fan Mail Reunion is not always soft. In Part Three of this powerful late discovery adoptee story, Alicia Sharon Denise Williams steps into the aftermath of truth. After learning she was adopted, after uncovering sealed Michigan adoption records, after discovering both biological parents had passed away, she begins reaching out to siblings. The first response is rejection. A phone call to a...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when your story begins in one country, is rewritten in another, and then calls you back decades later? In this powerful episode of Family Twist, Corey and Kendall sit down with Sandi Morgan Caesar to explore a life shaped by early loss, international adoption, racial identity, and an unrelenting search for truth. Sandi was born in Panama to a 14-year-old mother and sp...

Send us Fan Mail A Netflix documentary about fertility fraud lit the fuse. After watching Our Father , a question would not let go: how do you actually know donor conception was handled ethically, and how do you know the story you were told is true? So a DNA test gets ordered. While waiting for the results, the question gets asked at home. The response is silence first, then the truth. An anonymou...