A shocked woman discovered with a home DNA test that her real father was an Essex moving man whose sperm had been used without his consent by a Harley Street fertility doctor.
The disturbing story will be revealed in The Gift, a new BBC radio series which will be broadcast from next Monday.
It examines how millions of Britons and others around the world have taken tests sold by companies such as Ancestry.co.uk and 23andMe, often after receiving them as gifts from friends and family.
One of the interviewees, who is identified under the assumed name Madeleine, had always believed that her father was a young medical student who had willingly donated his sperm before using it to impregnate her mother at a clinic run by Dr Reynold H. Boyd, who died in 1991 at the age of 90.
Because she suspected that Dr. Boyd herself could be her father, she took a DNA test, only to discover after uploading the results to Ancestry’s website that the fertility expert was not related to her.
Instead, her real father turned out to be a man identified as Peter, who had never been a sperm donor but had produced samples at another East London clinic run by Dr Boyd when he and his wife tried to become pregnant.
It is believed that Dr. Boyd then used Peter’s sperm in the treatment of Madeleine’s mother, who was allegedly unaware of its true origin.
A shocked woman discovered with a home DNA test that her real father was an Essex moving man whose sperm had been used without his consent by a Harley Street fertility doctor. Above: The woman’s mother was treated at Dr. Reynold Boyd, at 52 Harley Street (photo). The clinic closed decades ago
Peter, now in his eighties and retired, had done his own DNA test after receiving one as a gift from his family.
Born in 1969, Madeleine initially messaged him on Ancestry’s platform, but received no response.
After tracking down his phone number, she called him out of the blue.
Madeleine says on the upcoming programme: “He picked up the phone and I said, ‘I’m a match with you at Ancestry.
“A parent-child match, based on the DNA test.” He sounded a bit confused and just said, “What do you mean?”
“I said, ‘About Ancestry. Ancestry, you know, the DNA test you did. I told him about the clinic, I said my mom had been there, and donor-conceived sperm and things like that.
He said, “I really don’t know what you mean.” And then I said, “Didn’t you go to a fertility clinic in London and donate your sperm?”
And then he said no, no he didn’t. Then he started saying, well, when he thought about it, he’d been to a fertility clinic, but it wasn’t in London, it was in Wanstead…
Dr. Reynold H Boyd died in 1991 at the age of 90
“I thought, oh my god, that clinic is run by Dr. Reynold Boyd,” she said.
Doctor Boyd’s clinic, at 52 Harley Street, closed decades ago.
As was customary at the time, Dr. Boyd’s own obituary. It is contained in a file available on the British Medical Journal website.
It tells how he was born in New Zealand and had traveled to England with his wife in the 1930s.
He initially specialized in genitourinary surgery before moving on to infertility treatment.
In addition to his clinics in Harley Street and East London, he also had a branch in Chelmsford.
“I started working in fertility…when a semen analysis was an insult to the husband,” he wrote. “I was a pioneer in artificial insemination.”
Peter says in the program that he never ‘willy nilly’ consented to his sperm being used.
“I can only assume Madeline’s mom went there to try and get herself in order and picked up some of my stuff,” he adds.
Madeleine then met her father in person, an experience she described as “uncomfortable” because he was “a complete stranger.”
Madeleine didn’t discover until she was 40 that the man she’d always thought was her biological father wasn’t her real father.
She and her brother were conceived in separate fertility clinics after the man she thought was her father had a vasectomy.
Presenter Jenny Kleeman says in the preview of The Gift that ‘without us really realizing it’ a worldwide database of DNA has been created because people used the kits.
The series will hear from other men and women whose lives have been changed after taking a test, priced at £59 by Ancestry.co.uk that requires users to spit into a tube before sending it in the post.
Ms. Kleeman adds, “Throughout six episodes, I meet the men and women whose lives are forever changed after they open a box of a DNA test.”
Ancestry’s DNA kits, bought by millions of Britons, promise to reveal behavioral traits determined by your genetics. Above: One of the kits
DNA databases on popular websites have been used to solve crimes in the past.
Notorious serial killer Joseph James DeAngelo, better known as the Golden State Killer, was apprehended using the method.
Officers created a DNA profile of DeAngelo using crime scene evidence and then uploaded it to a public genealogy database normally used by people to find relatives.
Police were then able to identify the killer’s distant relatives and then used public records to build a family tree and eventually identify him.
Ancestry’s DNA kits, bought by millions of Britons, promise to reveal behavioral traits determined by your genetics, including whether you’re an introvert or a risk taker.
Ancestry’s kits cost £59. Above: The test taken by a MailOnline reporter earlier this year
Ancestors determine behavioral traits by examining people who have had their DNA analyzed and find correlations between their genes and responses
Earlier this year, a MailOnline reporter put one of the kits to the test.
While some of the identified traits were correct, others — including the likelihood of napping and dream recall — didn’t match reality.
Some Britons have discovered earth-shattering facts about their ancestry using the DNA kits.
Teacher Nicki Field told MailOnline in 2019 how she used one of Ancestry’s tests to help find her real father.
When she was a teenager, her mother had told her that the man she thought was her father was really just her stepfather.
Her mother then told her that a man named Gary Holmes was her father, but DNA testing showed that he was not related to her.
After sending her DNA to Ancestry.co.uk, she posted the results to sites that match people with shared genes.
Finally, in July 2017, she was warned about someone who would be her cousin.
Further investigation revealed that his uncle, a married father of four, was Nicki’s biological father.
The Gift starts on Monday 11 September at 11am with episodes broadcast weekly on BBC Radio 4. Episodes can be listened back on BBC Sounds.