The Family He Grew Up With—and the Family He Found

Jaret grew up with Danny and believed he understood the basic shape of his family.

Then consumer DNA testing changed it.

A DNA connection led a woman named Laurie to contact him, initially believing they might be cousins. A few days later, she wrote again with a much bigger possibility: they might be brother and sister.

They were.

They shared the same biological father. Through Laurie, Jaret discovered two more older sisters, Julie and Gina. Reaching back out required some internal and external back-and-forth, but eventually Jaret found himself with three big sisters he had never known existed.

The greatest surprise for all of them was how little forcing the relationships required.

They spent holidays together. He met nieces and nephews. The connections did not feel artificial or awkward. They felt normal—as though everyone had arrived late to a gathering where a place had somehow already been set for them.

Years later, Jaret was playing in Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman’s charity golf tournament in Southern California with Gary, Marco and Dave when he checked his email between holes.

Gary looked at him and asked whether he was okay.

Jaret stared at his phone.

“Can you putt for me? I think I just got a little brother.”

The email was from Keeton, who had first found Gina and then Jaret through Ancestry. They shared the same biological father. It was Keeton’s thirty-second birthday.

The two spoke later that evening, and Jaret was immediately struck by the timbre of Keeton’s voice. After a lifetime of being told he had a “Muppet voice,” it was comforting to hear a familiar higher pitch on the other end of the phone.

Jaret had always been the baby of the family. Now he had a younger brother, and the protectiveness arrived almost immediately. Keeton became close with Jaret and his family. He met Danny—who is not biologically related to him—and Jaret’s mom and dad. He also developed relationships with the three older sisters.

When Keeton and his wife, Cassidy, welcomed their daughter Nora, Jaret became the proud uncle to another child who never would have entered his life without one unexpected message.

Fans who have seen Bowling For Soup in recent years may have heard Jaret announce from the stage:

“I can’t stop finding siblings!”

Then came another brother, Chris.

Chris and Jaret were born nine months apart and share the same biological father as Keeton, Laurie, Julie and Gina. Photographs of Jaret and Chris in their high-school years look startlingly similar. Jaret calls them Irish twins.

Jaret never met their biological father, and neither did his younger brothers. He is at peace with that. Discovering his siblings did, however, create new feelings about choices made before any of them had a say. Those feelings became stronger when he began viewing the situation not only as a son reckoning with someone else’s decisions, but as a protective older brother.

The story of his existence became more complicated.

His family became larger.

Both things can be true without canceling each other out.

Jaret is simply grateful they found one another.

Ask him again about the man who raised him and he will tell you that his dad gave him everything. He would not have asked for a different childhood or a different father. He considers his parents the ultimate love story—one that survived, recovered and ultimately thrived through some “crazy shit.”