Woman meets twin sisters for first time
A Fort Myers Beach woman recently met her twin half-sisters for the first time in Maine after doing a DNA test online.
Sharyn McNeill, who works at Fort Myers Beach United Methodist Church, said her son, Michael, went onto ancestry.com and did his DNA test because he was curious about her husband’s history, which was vague.
In that process he found out that Jean Ellis and Joan Bean, her twin half sisters, were connected to him.
“He contacted me and said Mom, I think you have twin sisters,” McNeill said.
Curious she visited the same website under her maiden name, Kane, her twin sisters’ biological father.
“It still pulled them up as my half sisters and then I searched my father’s records,” McNeill said. “Everything just proved that they were.”
The search was also being done by the sisters after Sue Ellis Lambert, Jean’s daughter, decided to buy her a DNA kit for Christmas in 2016, which uncovered a close DNA amount indicating she had a half-nephew, Michael.
“I went to Maine in January. It was snowing. They live in the mountains. It was way up in the mountains. There was snow and ice and we had to rent a car. We hadn’t driven in snow in 25 years,” McNeill said.
When they arrived, the sisters’ families was waiting and hugs were shared among everyone.
“Oh my gosh, we knew we were related,” she said. “It was just fabulous. It was just fun and amazing. They were 82 and I am 74. All of these years they were there and we never knew.”
The sisters finally got to know who their biological father was.
“My father made an audio recording of his life history,” McNeill said, adding it included being in the Civilian Conservation Corp in New Hampshire.
“They got to hear their real father’s voice. I have all the genealogy for them and all the history that someone wants to know about their real father.”
McNeill, who comes from a family of three brothers, the youngest and only girl, now has sisters.
“It was a blessing to me. We talk to each other a couple times a week. We have a long time to make up for,” she said.
McNeill recently saw her sister Joan again as she vacations in Florida every winter.
“They do that every year. We didn’t know,” she said.