The HIT 92.9 co-host never thought he’d reach so many people.
The entire potential audience of Perth is less than 2 million. Yet Ryan Jon’s self-produced video about his search for his birthmother has been viewed over 200 million times since he posted it last May on Mothers’ Day.
Since then Ryan’s been searching for the woman who put him up for adoption 30 years ago. No luck yet but he has managed to track down his biological father and two half brothers in London (main pic: supplied).
On Monday evening, Ryan, as in the Xavier, Heidi and Ryan HIT 92.9 Breakfast show spoke with HIT Network Drive co-host Carrie Bickmore as in Carrie and Tommy, on TEN’s The Project.
You can watch Ryan’s story so far here. And you can read his own words below.
I found my family with an Ancestry DNA Test
I met my biological father for the first time after finding him with an Ancestry DNA Test.
I’d never seen a biological relative of mine in my 30 years on this planet.
I’d never heard the saying, “like father like son” no one ever asked “do you look more like your mother or your father?” and you often felt sheepish when I doctor asked about my medical history and I couldn’t answer.
But Ancestry’s DNA tests changed that for me.
Knowing nothing about my family routes it was fun to find out I’m 62% Irish, 11% Italian and 10% Greek. But it was a random potential 4th cousin that led to me meeting my birth father.
Being able to build out and follow along family trees at Ancestry.com led to us finding a slightly closer relative, then an even closer one, then a great grandparent, then grandparent and finally my biological father.
He’s an American man and was backpacking around the world when he was 23 years old and it was during this trip he met my biological mother.
They didn’t know each other for long, but it was long enough for me to be conceived and be brought into this world. My birth father continued his travels and for 30 years had no idea that he had a long lost biological Australia son and without that Ancestry DNA test, we wouldn’t have known each other for the rest of our lives.
I think the term ‘life changing’ is thrown around a lot these days. Most technological innovations are great but I think they’re mostly just fun perks and convenience.
Using an app to get food delivered to your door – fun perk.
When your car can further on a tank of petrol than 10 years ago – convenient.
But since Ancestry have changed the game with their DNA tests and family history resources,
I got to meet my biological family and my life will never been the same.
My birth father welcomed me with open arms. “What’s mine is yours” he said many times telling me that with his web of friends, colleagues and cousins that “you’ve got a place to stay in almost every city in the USA” and invited me to family fishing trips, Thanksgiving, Christmas any other event I wanted to attend.
I flew to London where he now works and lives we hung out and went out for dinner and drinks for the week I was there. I met his wife and his two so sand after growing up as an adoptee and only child, having half-brothers that look like was incredible.
The whole family was warm and welcoming and my only regret was not doing an Ancestry DNA test sooner because finding out about myself and my biological family has been incredible.
Find about more about RYAN JON’s story on Facebook or on Instagram.