While DNA tests used to be a thing we’d watch unravel storylines and solve cases on the big screen, they’re now something we have far easier access to.
Now we can find out for ourselves who our dad might be or even easily do a full analysis of our ancestry as a Christmas present.
But a little less merrily, when this married couple of over a decade decided to take a DNA test, it left the mum-of-three ‘sick to her stomach’.
Celina Quinones decided to do a 23andMe test to be able to trace back her family tree and it ended up leaving her questioning if she should leave her husband, Joseph.
Advert
They were wed after just four months before going on to have three kids together.
And after becoming a parent, the woman decided to look into her family history, but things were a little, well, closer to home.
Celina explained to the Love Don’t Judge podcast: “I started really diving into my DNA because I wanted to find out my heritage – my daughter is really dark-skinned, and my son has curly hair, my middle child is light-skinned, and everyone would ask ‘what are you what are you?’ I couldn't really give an answer except Native American.”
So, the Colorado couple sent off their DNA swaps only to be baffled when the results came back.
Turns out, Celina and Joseph are not only husband and wife, but third to fifth cousins. When the woman realised she was ‘a little sick to [her] stomach’.
“I was thinking, 'Should we get a divorce? Are we even supposed to be together?’” she recalled.
Trying to embrace it, she shared the shock to TikTok as she reckoned it would be ‘funny’.
However, it backfired a little as she was hit with backlash and abuse.
“I did not know it was going to blow up that big,” she said. “One person on there said, ‘This is so disturbing, why would you marry your cousin?’”
Celina described how there was a mass load of comments like this as others insisted they should have known and said they even ‘feel bad for the kids’.
Their teenage son did speak out and said: “I feel a little bit weird about it, because it's not something you want to brag about or put out to the world or anything.
“If they found out before they got married I think there'd be something obviously wrong with that, but since they found out after there's not one single problem.”
When Celina and Joseph got married, none of their relatives recognised each other at the wedding. It turns out that Joseph’s grandma on his father’s side had adopted, meaning a family link was missed.
Celina added: “Colorado seems so big, but it’s really not that big.
“Everyone knows everyone, and most likely, everyone is related.”
And it's not got between the pair, as they've now been married for 17 years.
Jess Battison