History Main / GeneHunting

* On ''BoyMeetsWorld'', Shawn gets a letter from his MissingMom in which she reveals that she is not his real mother. He proceeds to try to track his real mother, and is unsucessful in doing so. His dead father later appears to him in a vision and says that his biological mom was a stripper who took off after giving birth to him, though it's unclear if this vision was real or all in Shawn's head.
* In an early episode of ''HighlanderTheSeries'', orphaned Richie Ryan does this, to no success--the man claiming to be his father is a con man, and the woman he'd always believed to be his birth mother turned out to have been fostering him. This turns out to be foreshadowing, as Richie is later revealed to be an Immortal, all of whom are foundlings.
* ''GilmoreGirls'' has a girl come into Luke's diner saying that she's doing a DNA test for her sicence fair to find out who her father is.

* Fran was adopted by a Chinese couple in ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad''. After Stan gets annoyed by their lack of assimilation, insistence on tradition, and refusal to treat him as "the man of the house" in his own home (they were pretty obnoxious and rude to him), he goes on a search for her ''real'' parents who turn out to be a pair of [[CompleteMonster Complete Monsters]] (they gave up their baby rather than downgrade to Coach seats on a flight).
* ''[[RockosModernLife Rocko's Modern Life]]'' once parodied this in the episode where Heifer found out he was adopted. To clarify, Heifer is a steer who was literally raised by wolves. Ultimately, Heifer has a dream where [[spoiler:his father informs him that he was abandoned at birth for being too much of a sissy. And that his mother's a car seat somewhere.]]
* ''CatDog'' went looking for their parents, and believed they found their relatives in a little town in the mountains where cats and dogs get along. [[spoiler: They're wrong, and also discover that the peace between cats and dogs is apparently really, ''really'' fragile. They eventually find out their real parents were (if I recall correctly, since the [=CatDog=] page doesn't say) ''a female yeti and a fish''. Considering this probably isn't the strangest thing they've ever seen, they're very accepting.]]
** [[spoiler: He is a frog with a very long nose, not a fish.]]

* The entire premise of ''JoeDirt'', minus the part where he was adopted. Result: They're jackasses.

There are a few different ways this can play out: firstly, they [[ChangelingFantasy find their genetic parents and discover happiness]] (this only works if the old parents are distant or [[AbusiveParents abusive]], otherwise there are some serious/offensive UnfortunateImplications). Secondly, they can find their genetic parents, only to find they are more distant or jerky than their adoptive ones (expect lots of Prodigal Son-style making up at the end). Thirdly, they can ''locate'' their biological parents, only to realize that they'd rather not confront them and risk disrupting everyone's lives. Finally, they can fail altogether to find their parents (a real DownerEnding will have the character give up ''just before'' they would have found their parents).

There are a few different ways this can play out: firstly, they [[ChangelingFantasy find their genetic parents and discover happiness]] (this only works if the old parents are distant or [[AbusiveParents abusive]]). Secondly, they can find their genetic parents, only to find they are more distant or jerky than their adoptive ones (expect lots of Prodigal Son-style making up at the end). Thirdly, they can ''locate'' their biological parents, only to realize that they'd rather not confront them and risk disrupting everyone's lives. Finally, they can fail altogether to find their parents (a real DownerEnding will have the character give up ''just before'' they would have found their parents).

* Claire Bennet from ''Series/{{Heroes}}''. Eventually she finds her biological parents, and [[spoiler:her dad turns out to a be congressman and AloofBigBrother to the man who saved her life: Nathan Petrelli, destined to become President. Nice]].

The protagonist has been happily living with his or her family until one day, out of the blue, they learn that the people who raised them are not in fact their biological 'rents, either by adoption or by infidelity. There begins the gene hunt, to find their genetic parents. Expect lots of {{Freudian Excuse}}s, [[YoureNotMyFather You're Not My Father]] and "are my adoptive parents my ''real'' parents" {{Wangst}}. Often the result of ParentalAbandonment or RaisedByWolves.

* In ''{{Warrior Cats}}'', Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf are listening [[spoiler: when Ashfur is trying to kill them out of jealousy that Squirrelflight chose Brambleclaw over him. Squirrelflight tells Ashfur that the three aren't her kits.]] Hollyleaf thinks Leafpool might know who their real parents are, since she was there are the time of their birth. Leafpool reveals that [[spoiler: she is their real mother, which is against the warrior code since she is a medicine cat and medicine cats aren't allowed to have mates.]]

* In ''{{Warrior Cats}}'', Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf [[spoiler: when Ashfur is trying to kill them out of jealousy that Squirrelflight chose Brambleclaw over him. Squirrelflight tells Ashfur that the three aren't her kits.]] Hollyleaf thinks Leafpool might know who their real parents are, since she was there are the time of their birth. Leafpool reveals that [[spoiler: she is their real mother, which is against the warrior code since she is a medicine cat and medicine cats aren't allowed to have mates.]]

The protagonist has been happily living with his or her family until one day, out of the blue, they learn that the people who raised them are not in fact their biological 'rents, either by adoption or by infidelity. There begins the gene hunt, to find their genetic parents. Expect lots of {{Freudian Excuse}}s, [[YoureNotMyFather You're Not My Father]] and "are my adoptive parents my ''real'' parents" {{Wangst}}. Often the result of ParentalAbandonment or RaisedByWolves.

* ''{{Secrets and Lies}}'' is all about somebody looking for her birth mother, though she knew she was adopted all along, the death of her adoptive mother triggers the search.

* Chuck does this in season 2 of ''PushingDaisies''. Inverted with Emerson Codd, who tries to publish a book to lead his lost daughter to him.

** Given the onscreen explanation of why the little boy was zombified by the nanogenes, it seems pretty clear that he was looking for his Mummy because that is what the little boy was doing when he was hit by the bomb.

* The KoreanDrama ''WinterSonata'': Joon Sang is a high schooler checking school records for who his father might be.

* On ''BoyMeetsWorld'', Shawn gets a letter from his MissingMom in which she reveals that she is not his real mother. He proceeds to try to track his real mother, and is unsucessful in doing so. His dead father later appears to him in a vision and says that his biological mom was a stripper who took off after giving birth to him, though it's unclear if this vision was real or all in Shawn's head.

*** But the inversion is subverted in that they were originally fully content to leave Neone to her ignorance to protect her from Intimidator Irendus.
*** However, they decided to make peace with their past and meet her anyway; since Friar Rubberion had confirmed Neone was Neotondo and Jante's daughter through a paternity test and wanted them to face their fears.

* Po's arc in ''KungFuPanda 2'' is driven in part by this, especially since he has faint memories of his original parents abandoning him. But he eventually comes to terms with both the fact that [[spoiler: they loved him so much they died for him, and that his adoptive father loves him no less.]] Cue CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming marathon.

* ''ChicoAndTheMan'' has a Japanese young man come and claim Ed Brown as his father, stemming from a tryst after WW2, and how he elaborates on how he and his mother plan to move to LA to spend their lives with him. Turns out [[spoiler: Ed's not the bio-father, it had been an Army buddy of his]] letting the Japanese decide it's wiser for them to go back to Japan.

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* A common premise for ''[=~Pan's Labyrinth~=]'' fanfic.

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* Featured in the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episode ""[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E21DragonQuest Dragon Quest]]", when Spike starts questioning his self-identity as a baby dragon raised by ponies. When [[ParentalSubstitute Twilight Sparkle's]] research fails to yield any information, he joins the Great Dragon Migration to learn more about his species.

* The young adult novel ''The Girl on the Milk Carton'' is about a teen girl that sees a picture of a missing girl on her milk carton and realizes it's her. She spends the rest of the book wrestling with the knowledge that her parents aren't her true parents, that she might have even been kidnapped by them, and that she has another set of parents that are looking for her desperately.

* The driving plot of the movie ''Twins'' has the main character leaving his island to search for his family, finding a brother, maybe a father, and finally a mother in the process.
* Secrets and Lies is all about somebody looking for her birth mother, though she knew she was adopted all along, the death of her adoptive mother triggers the search.

* GilmoreGirls has a girl come into Lukes's diner saying that she's doing a DNA test for her sicence fair to find out who her father is.

* ''Mamma Mia!'' Sophie, who has lived fatherless her whole life, finds an old journal of her mother's detailing three lovers she had around the time of Sophie's conception. So she invites the three men over, and instantly develops a rapport with one of them. Which one is her father? [[spoiler: No one ever knows.]]

* Leela's personal plot in early Futurerama episodes is this, though played with. As she belives she's an alien, she's looking for her entire race, not just her parents, and she doesn't have adoptive parents, she was raised in the orphanarim from childhood. She belives she finds the only other cyclops, but he turns out to be a shape shifting alien who only wants her to take care of one of his castles. She eventually discovers that she's not an alien, but a sewer mutant who looks mostly normal. Her parents left her on the orphanarium's doorstep because they wanted her to have a normal life and watched over her from the shadows her entire life. She vists them often in later episodes and tries to go back and have a life with them after being returned to a teen, but returns to normal.

A common result of ParentalAbandonment or being RaisedByWolves. The protagonist has been happily living with his or her family until one day, out of the blue, they learn that the people who raised them are not in fact their biological 'rents, either by adoption or by infidelity. There begins the gene hunt, to find their genetic parents. Expect lots of {{Freudian Excuse}}s, [[YoureNotMyFather You're Not My Father]] and "are my adoptive parents my ''real'' parents" {{Wangst}}.

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** He knew full well where he came from in TheBible. He murdered an Egyptian out of ethnic/nationalistic pride due to not wanting to see his own attacked by an Egyptian wrongly. ''ThePrinceOfEgypt'' merely tidies the story up for young viewers, by making that whole murder thing an accident. The idea that he didn't know who he was actually comes from the film ''TheTenCommandments''.

There are a few different ways this can play out: firstly, they [[ChangelingFantasy find their genetic parents and discover happiness]] (this only works if the old parents are distant or [[AbusiveParents abusive]]). Secondly, they can find their genetic parents, only to find they are more distant or jerky than their adoptive ones (expect lots of Prodigal Son-style making up at the end). They can locate their biological parents, only to realize that they'd rather not confront them and risk disrupting everyone's lives. Finally, they can fail altogether to find their parents (a real DownerEnding will have the character give up ''just before'' they would have found their parents).

There are a few different ways this can play out: firstly, they [[ChangelingFantasy find their genetic parents and discover happiness]] (this only works if the old parents are distant or [[AbusiveParents abusive]]). Secondly, they can find their genetic parents, only to find they are more distant or jerky than their adoptive ones (expect lots of Prodigal Son-style making up at the end). Finally, they can fail altogether to find their parents (a real DownerEnding will have the character give up ''just before'' they would have found their parents).

* This is the backstory of Izzy Sinclair, from the ''DoctorWhoMagazine'' comic. In the end, she doesn't find her birth parents, but she does reconcile with her adoptive parents (making this a Type 3 with a happy ending).

* ''[[RockosModernLife Rocko's Modern Life]]'' once parodied this in the episode where Heifer found out he was adopted. To clarify, Heifer is a steer who was literally raised by wolves.