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MyHeritage Discoveries

MyHeritage Discoveries

You just can't make this shit up.

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Andy Parker
May 08, 2024
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Hey there-

I’m sure there are many of you like me who are just flat worn out hearing about the latest Trump tantrum or the spoiled, entitled brats/professional protestors wreaking havoc at college campuses. So today, I’m going to share a tale that comes under the “you can’t make this shit up” category.

I was what they called a “test-tube baby” back in the 1950s. The only dad I ever knew was not my biological father. My mother shared this news with me when I was about 12 years old and as you can imagine, it came as a shock but it made sense even to the 12-year-old me. I was a tow-headed blond, and Woody, the father who raised me, looked like Desi Arnaz. I accepted the fact that my biological father was a sperm donor and that half of my genetics was a mystery. And yet…

My mother’s sister confided in me when I was in my early 20s that she believed she knew the identity of my biological father. She told me the donor was a doctor in Austin, Texas, my hometown. I distinctly recall visiting his office with my mom when I was around 10 years old and at the time, I wondered why we were there since I wasn’t sick. My mother said we were there just to say hello to this doctor friend of hers. It was odd, but I was just a kid and didn’t think any more about it until my aunt’s revelation. But if he was my father, how would I ever find out for sure? It wasn’t something I dwelled on because there really wasn’t a thing I could do about where I came from.

The years went by, and my features became more pronounced. I was a professional actor caught in the middle—not handsome enough to play the leading man but not goofy enough to be a character actor. I had a bit of a schnozz, and my Jewish agent in LA advised me to get a nose job, which I did and have regretted it ever since. Why? It still didn’t improve my prospects and cost me a lot of money.

Then along came DNA testing with companies like MyHeritage and 23andMe. I wanted to find out just how Jewish I was if I was at all. My test came back that I was 52% Scandinavian/Irish and 48% Eastern European—i.e., Jewish. Maybe my aunt was right. In retrospect, it seemed like my mother was introducing the doctor to his offspring, but I had no way to prove it since the doctor I was introduced to didn’t have a Jewish last name.

Periodically, I’d get an alert from MyHeritage telling me they found a match for someone who could be a second or third cousin, but I wasn’t interested in pursuing contact. Then one day a few weeks ago, I got an alert that caught my attention. It said there was an 87% probability that a guy named Brian Turner was my half-brother. Now the pieces were coming together.

I reached out to Brian, shared my side of the story, and asked if he was that doctor’s son. He immediately got back to me, confirmed it all, and we set up a Zoom. He told me he wanted to see just how much of a Jewboy I really was! I was stunned, and so was he. I found out who my biological father was, and he found out his dad was a sperm donor. I was a Texas Jewboy just like him.

My biological father, Dr. Milton Turner

(Speaking of—Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys was one of my favorites in college. They were a country band that was just plain out there. Kinky wrote and sang such classics as “Ride ‘em Jewboy”, “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed”, “They Ain’t Making Jews like Jesus Anymore”, or “The Ballad of Charles Whitman”. Kinky was doing satire before it was cool.)

Brian and I zoomed the following day, and as we talked, I kept thinking there was something familiar about him. There was some family resemblance, but not overwhelming. And he had this big ‘ol Texas twang. Then he put it together for me, and this is the part where “you can’t make this shit up”.

As soon as Brian got my initial note, he knew who I was, not because of my notoriety, but because he knew my sister. How, you ask? He had married her best friend from childhood about 25 years ago. And…… he reminded me that we had all gone to have BBQ in Austin 20 years ago—my sister, Brian, and his wife Haddy, who was like my other little sister. We met as half-brothers and didn’t even know it.

And to tie it up with a show biz bow, my dad, Dr. Turner, had a sister who married the actor Vic Morrow. Their child is actress Jennifer Jason Leigh. So Jennifer, if you happen to read this, you’ve got a cousin you never knew you had!

My cousin Jennifer

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