Women Reunited With Sister After DNA Test and 57-year Search Ends the Mystery of a Forced Adoption
 Sisters June (left), Trish (centre) and Geraldine – SWNS
Two women found their long-lost sister after a 57-year search thanks DNA test results that sounded like an ‘April Fools prank’.
Now in their 60s, sisters Trish and June spent their lives searching for their oldest sibling, Geraldine, who is more than a decade older.
Geraldine was a four-year-old when her mother Mary Wills was forced to put her up for adoption by a religious order of Catholic nuns in the convent where the single mom and her daughter spent their early years.
Mary moved on and later met Peter Wills, with whom she had three children after marrying in 1956, settling in Somerset, England.
Despite always knowing they had an older sister, Trish and June weren’t able to find her before their mom died from liver cancer in 2011.
When Trish gave her daughter, Laura, 34, an Ancestry DNA test for Christmas in 2023 it didn’t turn up any matches—until last month.
Little did they know that their biological half-sister Geraldine would upload her details onto the same website database and Laura would be notified that Ancestry had uncovered a match “without a doubt”.
On April 1, Laura reached out to Geraldine through email and reassured her it wasn’t an “April Fool’s joke”.
Trish, a writer, from Somerset, England recalled: “I thought Laura was playing April Fool’s on me – turns out Geri thought the same thing too.”
The three sisters video called before meeting in person for the first time two weeks ago in Somerset, England, and felt “instant love” for their long-lost sibling.
“Meeting for the first time was emotional, and I felt an instant feeling of love for Geri,” Trish told SWNS news agency.
“Me, her, and June all have the same laugh—and I can’t believe how similar we all look.
“We feel like Mum is with us now and this is what she would’ve wanted.
“Having Geri in my life is something I’ve always wanted. June and I had always been told about Geraldine, but we hadn’t been able to track her down.”
 Geraldine visiting Mary’s grave for first time – SWNS“I couldn’t believe it when Laura said she’d found Geri. It’s just a shame we couldn’t do it when Mum was still alive.”
The sisters knew that their mum had moved from Ireland after giving up Geraldine at aged four and trained as a nurse in Bolton, near Manchester, but they had not been told the details of Geraldine’s adoption, or where she had relocated.
Geri learn more about her late mother—but the meeting also unveiled family secrets for Trish and June too.
They discovered their mum was a survivor of Bessborough Mother and Baby Home, in County Cork, Ireland, run by Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. The home, which was subject to an investigation by the Irish Government in 2021, was found to have forced many adoptions and treated unmarried mothers—whom they deemed “sinful”—with severe cruelty.
Mary was a victim of the convent’s ill-treatment and their policies were the reason she was forced to give Geraldine up for adoption.
Speaking about the reunion, Trish said: “I never thought we’d find her, and I never thought we’d be like a Long Lost Family episode.
“We took her to mum’s grave, which was very emotional… and we’re planning to take a trip to Ireland to see where Mary had spent her earlier years.
“But this is the start of making memories together now.
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