A DNA test led me to discovering a brother and a granddaughter I never knew

I will always remember the moment I met granddaughter, Ophelia; she stepped out of the car and our eyes met.

There was an immediate connection and within seconds, we were hugging one another and crying.

You see, for the first 19 years of Ophelia’s life, I didn’t know I had a granddaughter. I only learnt about her existence three years ago, when, at 61, I did my family tree.

I was 16 years old when I met my then-girlfriend Camille, who at 18, was a year and a half older than me. Childhood sweethearts, we were smitten with one another and she soon fell pregnant. Immediately, I joined the Army in an effort to provide for her and our unborn baby girl.

But it was not to be. Her family were horrified when they found out she was expecting and threatened to have me charged with statutory rape if I didn’t agree to adopt our baby.

I was heartbroken, and angry, but I felt like I had no choice. So I wrote a letter to my little girl, who we named Sarah, with all of my contact information and social security number to be passed onto her when she was 18, praying she’d want to get in touch with me.

Forced apart from Camille as well, I devoted myself to the military, serving in Iraq, Kuwait, and Europe.

But no matter where I was, I never forgot about my little girl, wondering how she was and whether she was being properly looked after. I never gave up the hope that I’d someday get to meet her and be a part of her life.

Even when I returned from the Army in 1981, married my now-wife, Elizabeth and had our children, Melanie and Alex, my firstborn never left my thoughts.

As soon as Facebook launched, I posted my information publicly so that she could find me. I once even hired a private investigator.

But she never got in touch.

Then, in 2018, Melanie did a DNA test through myheritage.com, which launched a project focused on reuniting adoptees with biological families, to find out more about our family ancestry.

You see, I had been adopted too, and one of the only things I knew about my biological mum was that she was part Cherokee Indian. Melanie wanted to know more.

I submitted my DNA sample shortly afterwards, in the hope of finding Sarah – but it was Tom, my half-brother, who I discovered first.

Seven years younger than me, our DNA confirmed that we shared a dad. I’d been told that my father passed away when I was four, but the truth was, I’d been 11 years old when he died. I’ll never know if he knew I’d been born.

Incredibly, Tom lived within a mile of my home in Kansas City and had done so for two decades.

When I met him in December 2018, everything about us was so similar – including our faces and dress sense. We both drove trucks and rode motorcycles and even today, we are still coming across several coincidences.

We’d been to several of the same community events and he used to shop in the grocery store where my wife worked.

Then in summer 2019, I got another match. This time with Ophelia. My granddaughter.

It was just by chance that Ophelia had also done a DNA test to find some more of her family and when we started messaging, I don’t think I could actually believe I’d found someone who could lead me to my daughter.

That is, not until 15 July 2019, when we finally met in person. When she stepped out of the car, I could see both myself and Camille in her face.

For two and a half hours, we talked non-stop. I was anxious, of course, to hear about her mother, my daughter, and it cut a piece from my heart when I found out she’d died of an accidental overdose seven years before.

I would never get to meet my darling little girl.

Ophelia explained that her mother, who had been renamed Angela by her adoptive parents had lived in Missouri, 45 minutes east of where I lived, and, like me, had joined the Navy.

‘You look just like her,’ Ophelia told me, as she showed me pictures of her and Angela, of Angela dancing and on holiday with friends. It seemed like the sun was shining down on me in that moment.

Because although I was heartbroken to find out that Angela had died, I couldn’t help but be overjoyed that I’d met Ophelia. I was her only biological living relative, so I knew it meant a lot to her as well.

Now, Ophelia, Tom and I will be part of one another’s lives forever. I feel so blessed to have met them.

om and I meet every Sunday to watch the Kansas City Chiefs game, and sometimes we go camping and to motorcycle rallies together.

I text and call Ophelia as often as possible and was at her reception on the day that she and her now-husband Luke married in February this year.   

Doing a DNA test has helped complete my family tree, and gave me connections I didn’t know I was missing – family I didn’t know I had.

*As told to Rashi Agarwal

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