A St. Louis man who was adopted as an infant has learned that his biological father is Michael McDonald, the five-time Grammy-winning singer with the Doobie Brothers. Michael Goessling, 58, said the connection started with a DNA match to a half-brother he did not know he had.
The New York Times reported that McDonald’s younger son took an ancestry test that showed a brother named Michael Goessling in St. Louis. On May 6, 2025, Goessling received a letter from a lawyer for his birth parents asking whether he wanted to be in touch. He met his birth mother on his 58th birthday. On a later phone call, his father said he was a musician getting ready for a tour stop in the area. Goessling told the Times he put the voice and the story together and asked, “Are you Michael McDonald?” McDonald chuckled and said, “Yeah, I’m afraid so.”
People magazine reported that Goessling told KMOV he always knew he was adopted and was raised by Paul and Kay Goessling. He said the half-brother got a 23andMe email within 36 hours naming “Michael Goessling, half-brother, St. Louis.” The two men share a first name by coincidence. After the phone call, father and son met in person. Goessling said McDonald greeted him with a hug. McDonald also learned he was a grandfather.
McDonald, 74, has written that he was in eighth grade when his girlfriend became pregnant and the couple was pressured to place the baby for adoption. Both were 14. He later left school to play music, including a stretch with Steely Dan, before joining the Doobie Brothers. He told interviewers he had carried guilt for decades about not knowing how his son’s life turned out, and that hearing Goessling had a happy childhood was a relief. He and the birth mother had stayed in touch over the years.
Goessling has said the news did not change how he feels about the parents who raised him. The reunion is the latest high-profile case of a consumer DNA test connecting relatives who had been separated by a closed adoption.
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