Adopted woman discovers a restaurant co‑worker is her long‑lost sister after DNA test

A woman who was adopted from the Dominican Republic discovered that a former co‑worker she had been friends with for years was actually her younger sister after a DNA test confirmed they shared parents. The two met in 2013 while working in a New Haven restaurant. They bonded over their shared Dominican heritage and even joked that they looked alike, but early checks of their adoption paperwork showed different birth‑mother names and birthplaces, so they let the idea go.

In 2018 she took a 23andMe test and used the service to contact a relative who helped her reconnect with her biological family. She spoke with her father for the first time in years and flew to the Dominican Republic to meet relatives in March 2019. A year later a different adoptee contacted her after seeing a shared birth‑mother name on paperwork; although that lead proved not to be a match, it prompted the woman to ask her father whether another child had been given up for adoption.

He confirmed it and described a girl who matched the profile of her old friend Julia. Julia took a DNA test and in January 2021 the results came back: “Are you ready? We are sisters,” Julia told her on the phone. They met two weeks later as siblings rather than friends. They returned to the Dominican Republic together in October 2022 to meet family members who greeted them at the airport.

Key Topics

Health, United States, Culture, Adoption, Dominican Republic, Dna, Family