The expression 'a skeleton in the closet' refers to a secret source of shame, potentially ruinous if exposed, which a person or family makes efforts to conceal. The results of a recent DNA test illustrates this perfectly.

A man has been left devastated after his innocent activity ended up ruining his parents' marriage after 33 years.

Having a keen interest in genealogy at the time, he ordered two DNA kits - one for his dad and the other for himself and was overall excited to learn about his “ancestry composition”.

But things went horribly wrong when he noticed something was 'off'.

Taking to social media platform Reddit, he said: "I ordered myself and my dad a kit when they were on sale and we received our results a couple of days ago.

“My mother has never really been interested in genealogy or DNA stuff so I didn’t tell her about it. The first thing my dad and I did was compare our ancestry composition and I noticed it was a bit... off to say the least.

“He is highly British and Irish (most strongly connected to the UK) with a small bit of French and German. I am mostly Scandinavian (most strongly connected to Sweden) with over a quarter French and German and some Italian.”

The confused dad and his son ended up checking other family members but discovered a horrifying truth - they were not related.

“He didn’t pop up on mine and I didn’t pop up on his," he added. “There was a half sibling (sharing 26.3 per cent) and father match, however. I began freaking out and my dad got so angry.

“My mum came home and he confronted her about it. She lost it and admitted she knew I was some other man’s child all along and would’ve tried to stop us had she known we got the tests. They are now divorcing which sucks. He’s now wondering if my two younger siblings are his or not.”

You can read more in an article by Hannah Kane published in the mirror.co.uk web site at: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/i-dna-test-whim-within-30472626.