After Receiving A DNA Test As A Gift, One Woman Made A Life-Changing Discovery About Her Dad

A DNA test might not be your idea of the perfect Christmas gift, but that’s exactly what the patriarch of the McDonalds of Nashville, Tennessee, hit upon as the ideal present for the whole family. Of course Mr McDonald’s intention was to give the family an insight into their shared heritage through the DNA information. But that was not quite how things worked out — especially for his daughter Catherine.

Catherine McDonald

Let’s get to know Catherine. By all accounts, the McDonalds were a contented family and she’d had a happy childhood. All kinds of normal, undramatic stuff happened such as the young girl getting a kitten when she was little. And affection for felines was something that would stay with her right into adulthood, which made the name most knew her by — “Cat” — all the more apt.

“My fur baby”

In a post on Instagram, Catherine wrote, “I can’t even begin to describe how much better my quality of life is with my fur baby.” This “fur baby” was her pet cat Eleanor, whom she had rescued from a kitten farm. There, the animal had been rejected as being imperfect, but the feline seemed to be perfect in every way as far as its new owner was concerned. 

Music

Eleanor had been just 21 days old when Catherine took her on some four years ago. Ever since the kitty’s been a support to her mistress and is actually a registered therapy pet. But there’s much more to Cat than just a love of four-legged critters. There was something that her parents recognized in her when she was just a little girl: a talent for music.

Instagram

Catherine loved music — and she had an extraordinary aptitude as a player on her chosen instrument, the violin. After wowing her teachers at school with her skills, she started to record tracks and post them on her Instagram page. Her talented performances were rewarded by growing numbers of enthusiastic followers — nearly 18,000 of them to date! Whether her first love was her cat or her violin was a close-run contest.