These siblings shared an incredible reunion that would result in a precious connection.
Janet Barnicoat, who lives in Hesperia, California, had been abandoned at birth and adopted into a loving family, but remained curious about her origins, CBS Los Angeles reported. Miles away in Wisconsin, Dean Hundorf, also abandoned at birth, was wondering about his own backstory, as well. The two separately sent their DNA to an ancestry website, and discovered that they are half-siblings. The pair met for the first time on Saturday night in an emotional reunion at Los Angeles Airport.
"It’s still unreal to me," Hundorf told CBS of the meeting. "I don’t know what feelings I’m feeling. I never thought this day would come."
Barnicoat was also overwhelmed, telling the source, "I've waited my whole life for this. And I know he has too."
Separated by several states, the half-siblings led lives with similar beginnings. Barnicoat was abandoned in 1981 in an alley in Lawndale, California, while Hundorf was left on a porch in a neighborhood in Los Angeles in 1986. While both ended up in happy families, they still had many questions about their backgrounds. The answers they found on the website, they say, brought them a connection they hadn't even imagined.
"I was interested in my ethnic makeup," Hundorf told the source. And this was something I never would have dreamed of."
Hundorf has since met his sister's children, and the extended family has been making up for lost time in the best way they can -- with a visit to Disney World, Yahoo reported.
The emotion-filled reunion between Barnicoat and Hundorf was one that Allan Healey and Margaret Mitchell, who were reunited after more than a half century apart, can probably relate to. Healey and Mitchell last saw each other in 1954, when their parents separated. That is, until Healey posted a blurry photo of the siblings together on Facebook. Mitchell, who had coincidentally been looking for her brother, saw the photo and recognized him. The two connected and were reunited 60 years after their last interaction.
In a similar moving meet-up, twins Ann Hunt and Elizabeth Hamel were reunited this year, after 78 years apart, the Associated Press reported. The sisters were separated at birth when one of them was given up for adoption. One of Hunt's daughters tracked Hamel down and sent her a letter, putting the two in contact with one another. With the help of a professor, who had been doing a study on twins, a reunion was arranged and the two met for the first time in Fullerton, California.
Related
Before You Go
