Teen finds anonymous sperm donor father via internet

A 15-YEAR-OLD boy tracked down his anonymous sperm donor father using nothing more than a swab of saliva and the internet, it was revealed yesterday.

The case of the teenage DNA sleuth has major implications for men who have made sperm donations hoping to keep their identity secret, say experts.

Similar searches could also help the police identify a suspect’s surname after collecting DNA from a crime scene.

New Scientist magazine reported how the teenager traced his father from the Y chromosome, which is passed from father to son virtually unchanged.

The boy took a swab of saliva from inside his cheek and sent it off to an online genealogy DNA-testing service, FamilyTreeDNA.com.

His genetic father had never supplied his DNA to the site.

But after nine months the boy was contacted by two men who were on the database and whose Y chromosomes closely matched his own.

Both men had the same surname, although with different spellings, said New Scientist.

This was the vital clue the boy needed. His mother had been told of his father’s date and place of birth, and his college degree, even though his name was kept secret.

Using another online service, Omnitrace.com, he purchased the names of everyone born in the same place on the same day.

One man had the surname he was looking for, and within 10 days he had made contact.

The news will be unsettling for men who donated anonymously before the power of genetics was fully appreciated, said New Scientist.

“Donors were often college students who traded their sperm for beer money,” said the magazine. “Many have not told their wives or children and have never considered the implications of having a dozen offspring suddenly wanting to meet them.”

Trudo Lemmens, a bioethicist at the University of Toronto in Canada, said: “The case shows that there are ethical and social concerns about assisted reproduction that we did not think about.”