A woman named Melissa Hall spent years searching for her biological relatives on her father’s side and finally met them for the first time in Florida, Local 10 reported Saturday.
Hall knew her parents, who were in college in California during the 1960s, gave her up for adoption after her birth.
“Because she was Hispanic — white hispanic — she couldn’t really have a brown baby,” Hall explained, adding her adoptive parents were loving towards her.
However, she could not shake the feeling that something was missing in her life.
She began her journey through Ancestry.com’s DNA testing, and when she received the results, they connected her with Deboral Hallmon and Synita Seymour, two of her cousins, who did the same test.
“Family was so important and I just knew it was always a lot of missing puzzles, and I just wanted to find them,” Seymour recalled.
Hall messaged them and Hallmon was the first to answer.
“I just responded and she responded back and so it started from there,” she explained, and Hall noted Hallmon began talking about her biological dad.
“I was like, ‘This is matching up,'” Hall told Local 10, adding, “This is real.”
Following a couple of years of calls and text messages between them, Hall knew it was time to meet her relatives and flew to South Florida for the Christmas holiday.
The moment the door flew open, everyone was overcome with joy as they embraced.
A photo showed the family smiling with their arms around each other:
“It was like ‘oh my goodness this is like really happening,'” Hall stated. “I really see that there are people that share my blood out there.”
During the visit, she saw photos of her grandfather and her late father, whose name was Johnny.
Hall said she was sad he was not there to enjoy the reunion, but “I know that he’s looking down saying, ‘I’m glad you met my family.'”
According to the Adoption Network website, approximately seven million American citizens are adopted.