The sister I never knew: Ancestry DNA

By Portland Tidwell

SAN ANTONIO — 

On Jan. 6th of 2024, my half-sister Zoe texted me after receiving a 23% DNA match on Ancestry DNA with a woman named Tiffany Parran. 

Ancestry DNA said that because of this percentage of shared DNA, Perran would likely be a close relative, or first cousin. 

After years of being inactive, I finally logged into my Ancestry DNA account to see that I too had a DNA match with Parran. 

My Ancestry DNA match with Tiffany Parran 

However, mine showed up as 29%, and after a talk with my parents, my father explained that she may be the child he had tried to track down for several years to no avail. 

That day, my family expanded, and I found the sister I never got the chance to know.

When we were younger, my siblings and I had an inkling that there was a long lost sibling of ours out there somewhere.

In fact, he always would make comments under his breath about how we may have a sister, and this always puzzled me as a child since it was such an odd statement, with a specific gender attached to it.

In the 80’s, my dad was a high school student who loved to party and do normal teenage things. 

My father, David Tidwell during his years at John Marshall High School 

Before my mother and father met, my dad claimed he had relations with someone at the age of 16, and never heard from her again. 

Luckily, my mother understood the situation and tried to console him and help him navigate through this emotional journey. 

All he knew was that she was pregnant, which he had heard from a friend, and she denied the fact that he could have possibly been the father of the unborn child. 

She eventually left San Antonio. 

Years went on, and my dad to this very day still says that this situation has always been sensitive to him, but we never knew the extent of it or if it was even real since he likes to joke a lot. 

I have three half siblings now. 

One is solely my mothers daughter, and the other two, Zoe and Tiffany are my fathers children. 

My full sibling is my brother Boston, the baby of the family. 

I never looked at my sisters as half-siblings anyway but it may be important to state before we get deeper into genealogy. 

When Tiffany first reached out to Zoe, she mentioned she didn’t know anything about her father, only that he was in San Antonio when she was conceived, and that he and her mom may have gone to the same high school.

The math on Tiffany’s story makes sense, especially when my dad explains what he can recall from the 80’s regarding his possible long lost daughter. 

My father says he remembers meeting Parrans mother at a party, and trying to take ownership of the baby that could have been his.

Allegedly, she told him to never contact her again and that he had nothing to do with her pregnancy. 

Looking at side by side photos of all of my fathers children, there is no denying that Zoe’s 23% match, my 29% match and facial features make us siblings. 

From left to right and oldest to youngest: Tiffany Parran, Zoe Tidwell, Portland Tidwell

I found it odd that the DNA I share with Tiffany was higher than the DNA I share with Zoe, and my maternal half-sibling, Victoria. 

However, Rob Phelps, a pharmacist here in San Antonio who knows quite a bit about genealogy broke it down for me. 

“You get half of your DNA from your biological mother, and half from your biological father. The most that you could theoretically get would be if you were from the same biological parents and for a full sibling, that would be 50% to 100% for a biological twin,” Phelps said.

Phelps added that with Parran, I am essentially looking at half of a half with a sibling that shares only one biological parent with me making it a quarter. 

That quarter percentage is 25%, however, I am a 29% match with my new sister.

My AncestryDNA matches showing my shared DNA with my half-sisters Tiffany, Victoria, and Zoe

Phelps found it odd that I share the most DNA with her but, this could be because there may be some extreme dominance with the parent we share.

If I share more of my dads genetics than my mothers then it would make sense that Parran and I have such a large DNA match. 

I contacted AncestryDNA myself, and they explained to me that if a DNA percentage meets a certain number, it is clear that she is my half-sister.

According to AncestryDNA, half-siblings share 25% of their DNA, and 50% of that DNA comes from the shared parent as they inherited about half of the same DNA from that parent as one other. 

Maybe, we just share most of my fathers genes, and when we as a family first met Tiffany and her family, I saw that we had similar features and mannerisms. 

Growing up adopted by her grandmother, Tiffany knew absolutely nothing about her father, and she mentioned that her grandmother told her that her mother didn’t know who he was.

Courtesy of Tiffany Parran

“I always wondered about my real dad and imagined what he looked like. Growing up, I struggled with feelings of not fitting in with my adoptive family, which led to ruminating thoughts of not knowing where I came from”, Tiffany said. 

According to Tiffany, she had always wanted to get a DNA kit. 

She signed up for Ancestry DNA in 2013, but only ordered and activated a kit in November of 2023. 

When she saw the results of her kit, she had first seen my sister Zoe as a match, thinking she was a first cousin.

That is when Tiffany decided to reach out.

Zoe contacted me, we spoke to my mother and father, and then our family expanded.

We as a family decided to call her and her husband, and plan a date to meet. 

Before the meeting, Tiffany was excited, yet nervous at the same time.

“It felt like what I imagined a heart attack might feel like. It was the realization that I have a family, and they look like me,” Tiffany explained. 

After the zoom call, we drove to Killeen, which is not far from San Antonio, making this an even better experience, as we wanted from the get-go to meet and continue to communicate with them in person.

I got to know Tiffany and her family within a span of two days.

My dad and Tiffany

This was an incredibly emotional experience for Tiffany and my father, and I think their first hug lasted about five minutes.

I have not seen my father smile that big in a long time.

I now have a new sister, a brother-in-law, two nephews, and a niece, who all call me auntie. 

My new sister said that she wanted nothing more than a family to love and reciprocate that back unconditionally.

From left to right: Tiffanys Husband Ty, Tiffany, our father David Tidwell, and my mother Celeste Tidwell

She is eager to be able to get to know herself more through us, and is happy that we were all able to connect.

My family and I are feeling more than blessed to have new additions to our family, and now she and hers are preparing to meet with the extended family during Spring Break 2024. 

One thing I can’t wait to do is show my new niece Justin Bieber, and finally give her the “Bieber Fever” experience.