Family Twist: A Podcast Exploring DNA Surprises and Family Secrets
Family Twist shares real-life stories of DNA surprises, adoption, donor conception, NPE discoveries, and the secrets that reshape families. Hosted by Corey and Kendall Stulce, each episode explores what happens when the truth about identity, parentage, or family history comes to light. These revelations sometimes happen by choice, often by accident, and always with life-changing impact. Through candid conversations with adoptees, donor-conceived people, late-discovery NPEs, birth parents, and family members who are navigating unexpected truths, Family Twist looks beyond the initial shock. We explore what comes next. We talk about the relationships that grow or break, the boundaries that help or hurt, the grief that surfaces, and the unexpected connections that can heal. Kendall's personal journey plays an important role in the heart of the show. He was adopted at birth, searched for decades, and eventually discovered his biological family through a DNA test. His experience brings empathy, humor, and honesty to every conversation. Corey brings warmth and insight as the couple creates space for guests to share the real, complicated, hopeful, and often surprising moments behind their family twists. If you are searching for your people, untangling a difficult discovery, or simply fascinated by the truth behind modern families, this podcast will remind you that you are not alone and that your story matters. New episodes arrive every week, including in-depth interviews and shorter Story Snapshots that highlight powerful moments from our guests. Have a Family Twist of your own? Share it with us.
Episodes
Genetic sexual attraction is one of the most difficult and misunderstood possibilities that can emerge after biological family reunion. For decades, Monica Hall rarely spoke about her own experience with it.
In part one of this special two-part Family Twist conversation, Monica returns alongside filmmaker and fellow adoptee Kristal Parke. Their friendship began after Monica learned about another Cree adoptee in Canad...
What happens when adoptive parents enter adoptee spaces and hear things that are difficult, angry or painful?
Charlyn Spiering doesn’t believe the answer is to get defensive. She believes it’s to listen.
Charlyn is the host of Adoption Uncovered and the mother of five children, both biological and adopted. She joins Corey and Kendall for a candid conversation about raising adopted children, talking openly ...
A baby abandoned on one of America's most historic days. A mystery that lasted nearly eighty years. Could modern DNA finally reveal the truth?
On August 15, 1945, while crowds filled Boston Common celebrating the end of World War II, a young woman handed her infant son to a teenage newsboy, slipped him a few dollars, and disappeared.
That baby grew up to become Tina Drzal's father. For decades, his family knew only fr...
Most movies treat adoption, donor conception, or DNA discoveries as a plot twist. Then the credits roll. But for the people living these stories, that's when life actually begins.
Writer and director Jason Mullis wanted to tell a different kind of story. Before writing Myth of the Ghost Kingdom, he spent months listening to adoptees, donor-conceived people, late-discovery adoptees, NPEs, and others whose lives had be...
For years, Louise McLoughlin built her career telling other people's stories. Then she uncovered one she never expected: her own.
After learning she was donor-conceived, Louise set out to understand not only her biological origins, but the larger world of donor conception, family secrets, and identity. That journey led her to create the acclaimed documentary podcast You Look Like Me, where she gave donor-conceived pe...
Finding your birth family is often portrayed as the ending of the story. For many adoptees, it's actually the beginning.
In this episode, Patricia Knight Meyer returns to talk about reunion with both of her birth parents, the remarkable relationship she built with her birth father, and the emotional challenges that no one prepared her to face.
Together, we discuss:
• Why reunion with each birth parent took a very diffe...
What if you discovered your adoption was never legal?
This week, Corey and Kendall welcome adoptee, author, advocate, and National Association of Adoptees and Parents (NAAP) board member Patricia Knight Meyer for one of the most extraordinary stories we've ever featured on Family Twist.
Patricia always knew she was adopted. But at 13, she learned she had no original birth certificate. At 18, she discovered there had n...
She didn't tell me we were Jewish.
Those seven words changed everything.
Author Joan Moran joins Corey and Kendall to discuss her remarkable memoir, Suddenly Jewish, a story that spans generations, continents, and one life-changing family secret.
Joan grew up believing she knew her family's story. Then, just before marrying into a Jewish family, her mother revealed something she had kept hidden for decades. Their famil...
Can horror movies actually help us heal?
In this special crossover episode with Horror Heals, Corey sits down for a conversation that might surprise Family Twist listeners. While one podcast explores DNA surprises, adoption, and identity, and the other celebrates horror, both are ultimately about the same thing: how people make sense of difficult experiences and find connection through storytelling.
Whether you've nev...
Julie Ann Brumley expected a DNA test to answer a few questions.
She didn't expect to find a sister, a 100% Italian biological father, or an entire family where she could finally see herself reflected in someone else's face.
In part one of our conversation, Julie and Kendall compare reunion stories and talk about the moments that don't always make it into the movies: sitting through family stories you weren't there fo...
What happens when a mental health professional finds herself navigating a DNA surprise of her own?
In this deeply personal episode of Family Twist, Corey and Kendall sit down with Angie Miller, licensed mental health therapist, wellness coach, speaker, and host of the Strong Mind, Strong Body podcast, for a conversation about identity, family secrets, and the emotional chaos that can follow a late-in-life DNA discove...
Nicole thought TikTok was being ridiculous. After posting wedding videos online, strangers flooded the comments insisting there was “no way” she was half white like she’d always believed. Some people were curious. Others were cruel. But the comments kept coming.
“You look Black.”
“That’s not your dad.”
“You should take a DNA test.”
So sh...
What happens when you spend more than 40 years sensing something about your life doesn’t add up… only to discover you were right all along?
In this deeply emotional and unforgettable episode of Family Twist, Corey and Kendall sit down with Dr. Syb, a late discovery adoptee whose world changed forever just before her 42nd birthday. What began as a lifetime of unanswered questions became a journey through ...
What happens when your search for family stretches across decades, dead ends, sealed records, and fading hope?
In part two of this deeply personal conversation, Corey and Kendall continue their discussion with author and journalist Paul T. O'Connor. Together, they explore the emotional realities of adoption, foster care, identity, and the lifelong impact of family secrecy.
Kendall shares stories from his years-long se...
What would you do if, on the day you buried your mother, you discovered a hidden bundle of records labeled with one clear instruction: Please destroy these?
In this gripping first part of Corey and Kendall’s conversation with retired journalist and author Paul O’Connor, a lifetime of hidden family history begins to unravel through DNA testing, courthouse archives, old birth records, and one relentless sea...
What happens when a sperm donor from the 1990s suddenly discovers he has children decades later?
This is one of those stories that could only happen right now.
A decision made in the early ’90s, when anonymity was expected and protected, collides with modern DNA testing, where secrets don’t stay buried.
In Part 1 of this conversation around the documentary Dad Genes, we sit down with Aaron and Jess to unpac...
What happens when a sperm donor from the 1990s suddenly discovers he has children decades later?
This is one of those stories that could only happen right now.
A decision made in the early ’90s, when anonymity was expected and protected, collides with modern DNA testing, where secrets don’t stay buried.
In Part 1 of this conversation around the documentary Dad Genes, we sit down with Aaron and J...
What happens when your story starts with secrecy… and ends with a global family?
In this milestone Episode 200 of Family Twist, Kendall sits down with author, musician, and adoptee Zara, whose life began in England during the forced adoption era of the 1960s, a time when young, unmarried mothers were often given no choice but to relinquish their children.
Zara always knew she was adopted. What she didn&rs...
What happens when a life-altering DNA discovery becomes a feature film… and then gets unpacked in a room full of people who truly understand it?
In this special live episode of Family Twist, Corey sits down with filmmaker, actor, and storyteller Lisa Brenner at Untangling Our Roots.
Lisa shares the real story behind her film One Big Happy Family, inspired by discovering at age 40 that the father who raised her ...
What happens when you go from being an only child… to one of twelve overnight?
In this episode of Family Twist, and Kendall sits down with Elizabeth Barbour, an adoptee, adoptive mom, and reunion expert who has spent more than two decades living the reality so many are just beginning to face.
Elizabeth shares her story of searching in a pre-DNA era, making that life-changing phone call, and hearing the words ma...
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