When Carmen Thomas was growing up in Boston, her mom told her that her absent dad’s name was Joe Brown. So when she sent a saliva sample to 23andMe in her 20s and got a match with a Brown, she was excited.
It turned out the man she believed to be her father had died five years earlier, but she connected with two likely half sisters. They went out for boba tea and at a sleepover at their grandmother’s, she looked through family albums and held a pillow with his photo printed on it.
A year later, she was suing the Brown sisters and their mother. Thomas wanted a share of a multimillion-dollar medical-malpractice award they had won after Joe Brown died of an undiagnosed aortic aneurysm. After all, she was his daughter too, Thomas said in a court complaint early last year.
Surprise heirs like Thomas are popping up because of DNA test kits, lawyers say, and wreaking havoc for families handling their loved ones’ estates. States are grappling with how to rewrite laws to address the issue, and lawyers are encouraging people to rethink their estate plans.
The lawyer representing the Brown sisters and their mother said his clients were taken aback by Thomas’s claims.