Fifty years later, a woman is on a mission of her own.
It all started when she submitted her DNA test to Ancestry.com. Olivia Robles’s only intention was to learn her true ethnicity. While she knows that she was born in the Philippines, she never knew much about her family’s life or the lineage before her.
However, her submission snagged an unexpected match to a “distant cousin”. After some exchanges, Robles and her cousin traced her connection back to a man living on the other side of the country.
It was then that Barnes received a proposition through a phone call – undergo a DNA test to see if Robles is the daughter he never had.
“For individuals who have always had their parents all their lives, it’s just something a lot of people really take for granted,” Robles said to WTSP. “You have that longing.”
They met the first time in person when Robles flew to California. Nervous and a bit emotional, Barnes hugged Robles tightly as she exited the gates.
With Robles at 50 and Barnes at 78, he didn’t just gain a daughter, but three grandsons and a great-grandson as well. The newly reunited family was keen on making up for lost time and spent Christmas together with Robles’ family in Tampa.
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