Joining the register and implications of the donor linking process
To join the register please contact us and we will ask you to complete a registration form – make sure you provide your date of birth if you are a donor conceived person or donation years if you are a donor.
At this point, we will process your application and you can choose to access our service as and when you require, at your own time and pace.
If you are considering pursuing donor linking via DNA testing it is helpful to consider the following in advance.
If you decide to go ahead with DNA testing in the hope of making contact with a donor, offspring or donor-conceived half sibling, you’re likely to go through many different emotions: anxiety, curiosity and excitement may all play a part.
Your feelings may change and perhaps become more intense after you have received the outcome of your DNA testing and it is important to bear in mind the implications of not finding, as well as finding, a link.
We strongly encourage you to take advantage of our confidential counselling service (2 sessions are free and costed at £25 thereafter) which gives you the chance to talk things through in a way, and at a time, to suit you. This service is available at any time during your process.
You may wish to discuss what it is you wish to achieve from the process and whether it is a good time for you to start the process. It is helpful to discuss the implications for yourself and those close to you.
An accredited DNA testing service is used to establish proof of a relationship between two people such as maternity or paternity.
You can choose where to have your DNA sample taken such as at King’s College laboratory, your General Practitioner Surgery, through a Sampling Visit, or selected pharmacies in London partnered with the testing service. You will receive detailed information about Sampling Options once you are registered, or upon request.
The King’s College London DNA Analysis Team are experts in the field of genetics and provide an accredited service at the subsidised cost of £95. They, alongside us, will keep in touch with you regarding the process from start to finish.
Commercial DNA testing companies, such as Ancestry or genealogy linking sites, require you to provide a sample for analysis so that your profile can then be uploaded to a database and matched with others. If you are contacting us to verify results you have received from a commercial company, please be aware that results may be different. If you would like more information regarding this please contact us on donorconceivedregister
Should a match not be found on the Donor Conceived Register at this time you may feel disappointed and despondent. Here at the Donor Conceived Register we offer counselling support for everyone accessing the service and you can get in touch to discuss this with us further. If a link has not been found at this time, it may be in the future as more people register with our service. If you would like us to keep in touch with you and let you know of any potential links; please keep us up to date with your contact details and consent and we will be in touch should this occur.
If your results determine that there is potential link with another individual on the register both sides of the link will be informed of this and it is important to consider the implications of finding a match.
If you are a donor it is beneficial to consider the following:
- The number of Donor Conceived offspring you may have a link with
- How your own genetic children, if you have any, may feel about you being a donor
- The possibility of half sibling links
- The potential of meeting links
- Do your partner/children know you donated and how would it impact upon them?
- The possibility that the donor conceived individual may not want similar level of contact.
If you are donor conceived it is beneficial to consider the following:
- The potential of meeting links
- The possibility and implication of a number of half siblings
- The possibility that if you have siblings, they may not have same donor and whether these siblings are aware they are donor conceived
- The potential that half siblings or donors may not want similar level of contact.
If your results determine that there is potential link with another individual on the register both sides of the match will be informed of this. A report will be provided from DNA Analysis at King’s College London that describes the nature and the likelihood of the match.
Both parties will be independently invited to state how they would like any contact to proceed:
- Exchange of information/communication through an intermediary worker
- Exchange of non-identifying biographical information
- Exchange of email addresses
- Exchange of identifying information e.g. name, address, telephone number, email address
- Face-to-face meeting.
A member of the DCR team will then engage with both sides to help manage the contact, based on the preferences expressed by both parties.
The key principle followed will be that neither party will be expected to go beyond the level of contact they are comfortable with. Typically, there will be sequential progression through the contact process, over a period of many months, with either party free at any time to withdraw from the process or further contact.