Three Siblings Finally Reunite With Their Youngest Sister Following Decades Of Hopeless Searching

Dec 03, 2021 by apost team

There are many reasons to try using a DNA testing kit from a company like 23andMe or AncestryDNA. Some people may have questions about their heritage or want to look for potential health risks. Another opportunity the testing offers is the ability to connect with lost relatives found through a DNA match.

Laurie White, Christine Gottschalk and Brian Gottschalk are all half-siblings that were adopted when they were children. Having all gone through closed adoptions, the siblings were not able to contact their biological mother. However, they were given some information about their lives prior to being adopted. The three siblings were told that they had a younger sister named Amber. For many years the brother and sisters wondered if they would ever be reunited with their other sibling again. 

In 2018, Laurie decided to use a DNA testing kit from 23andMe so she could learn more about her heritage and where her biological family comes from. While on the website looking at her results, Laurie was told she had a DNA match with a person named Amber Lenehan. Knowing she had a long-lost sister named Amber, Laurie was thrilled.

Laurie reached out to Amber, and all four of the siblings met for the first time on “Megyn Kelly Today” in 2018. As Amber walked out on stage to be reunited with her sibling for the first time since she was a baby, tears sprung to her eyes after finally reconnecting with a family she thought she had lost. She also shared the happy news that she was expecting a baby. Keep reading to learn more about the reunion between these four siblings.

More and more people are using DNA testing kits at home every year. According to a Pew Research Center survey from 2019: “About one-in-seven U.S. adults (15%) say they have ever used a mail-in DNA testing service from a company such as AncestryDNA or 23andMe.” This makes the likelihood of finding a lost relative much higher than ever before. 

Jon Ward, vice president of consumer marketing and acquisition at 23andMe, said: “We have noticed an increasing number of people becoming interested in genetic testing. Consumers are interested in discovering a range of information about themselves, from learning more of their background and where their ancestors came from, to identifying lost relatives or learning more about their health.”

However, if connecting with an unknown member of your family is not something you are interested in, then DNA testing kits may not be for you. 23andMe’s privacy statement warns: “You may discover things about yourself and/or your family members that may be upsetting or cause anxiety and that you may not have the ability to control or change.”

For Laurie, she was thrilled the moment she discovered her sister through 23andMe. She immediately contacted her siblings and said: "I think I just found our half-sister that we've known about but never known.” The brother and three sisters could not be happier to be reunited with each other and plan to make up for the lost time. The tearful reunion was a good way to mourn all of the years they missed out on, but the siblings said moving forward they will all be a family again. 

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