He hadn’t given up looking, but Richard had long ago stopped expecting he’d find anything about his biological family.
A 50-year-old adoptee, he’d been stymied for years by sealed adoption records. So when Richard’s wife gave him a 23andMe kit for Christmas last year, they were more focused on learning about health and traits he may have inherited, and maybe get some information about his ancestry.
That’s why one of his DNA Relative connections was such a shock.
“When I read the first line: ‘I am your sister,’ I dropped my phone,” Richard told KSNV Channel 3 in Las Vegas.
Connecting with Sarah, his half-sister in London, allowed him to fill in the blank pages of his life. And probably most emotional of all for Richard was that Sarah immediately knew who he was. She’d known about him for more than 15 years but assumed he was living in Ireland. Her father, Richard’s biological father, had told her about having fathered a child with his girlfriend when the two were in college and of putting up the boy’s adoption. That’s all that Sarah had known.
But it was all a revelation to Richard, who was able to learn more about his biological family.
“I had completely given up hope of ever finding out any information about my birth family,” he said. “I now know so much more about my adoption and my birth father, and I have gained an amazing sister.”
