Her DNA Sample Sat in a Drawer for 3 Years. Then She Sent It — and Found a Sister
Debie Clark, 54, a MyHeritage user from Portland, grew up without knowing who her father was, and her mother died when Debie was only 6. A few years ago, she applied for a free MyHeritage DNA kit through MyHeritage’s pro bono DNA Quest project to reunite adoptees with their birth families. She received a kit and took the test, but it took 3 more years until she was able to send her sample to the lab. When she finally did, she received a DNA Match that led her to discover a sister.
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‘I can’t know where I’m going before I know where I came from’
Debie’s mother died at the tragically young age of 33, when Debie was only 6 years old. A few years later, when Debie was 10, she was adopted. She possesses only two photos of her mother. One of them is a wedding photo with the man whose name Debie carried before her adoption. “I met him only once, when I was 28,” says Debie, “and all he did was rudely state ‘I am NOT your father!’”
When Debie heard about DNA Quest, she decided to apply because she was “tired of feeling alone.” “I honestly need to finally be able to check the appropriate boxes on applications, and be able to answer when I’m asked about my roots,” Debie wrote in her application. “I can’t know where I’m going before I know where I came from.”
Debie was sent a free MyHeritage DNA kit and she took the test in 2019. “It sat in a drawer and a box in storage for 3 years until 2022,” says Debie. “I’d already forgotten about it, and accidentally found it again one day. It took me a few more months to mail it out. I was sure it had expired by then, and that I lost the opportunity given to me. I didn’t get my hopes up — at all.”
But as it turns out, her DNA sample was intact, even after 3 years. When the results came back in May 2022, Debie had a DNA match: a second cousin from Hawaii, Linda Libician-Welch — who happens to be a passionate genealogy enthusiast. “When I saw Debie’s name pop up in MyHeritage showing that we shared about 250 cM of DNA, I was very excited,” says Linda. “The first thing I did was to look at others who share DNA with the two of us. Because I have a fairly extensive family tree, I immediately recognized three other cousins and all were on my father’s maternal side of the family. I knew that Debie and I had to share the same great-grandparents.”
Linda reached out to Debie and the two started sharing information. Linda added Debie to a private Facebook group for descendants of their common ancestors to see if they could identify Debie’s parentage, and the family responded with enthusiasm. Two cousins who hadn’t taken DNA tests before immediately agreed to submit their DNA. When the results came back, they were very clear: Debie was Ooallna’s half-sister.
Debie’s DNA Match with Ooallna
Debie finally knew for sure who her father was — just in time for Father’s Day 2022.
Sadly, he had passed away from COVID only 6 months earlier, and Debie didn’t get the chance to meet him during his lifetime. But now, she has a sister!
‘I won a sister’
“When I saw her picture, I just immediately knew,” says Debie. “Even before the results came in.” The resemblance between the two was obvious. They were in touch every day, waiting impatiently for the results to come in.
“It almost felt like it was a race, like ‘I hope she is my sister,’” says Ooallna. “I won! I won a sister.”
On August 6, 2022, only 7 weeks after the astounding discovery, Debie traveled 455 miles and 11 hours by bus to meet her sister Ooallna for the first time in Kettle Falls, Washington State.
Watch the adorable pair meeting for the first time in the video below:
“I hear I have a sister on board here?” Ooallna said as she approached the bus.
“You do!” confirmed the bus driver. “Debra is right behind me.”
After helping Debie down the steps, Ooallna presented her with a lovely bouquet: “I brought you some flowers, I hope you’re not allergic… I put them in a sundae glass.”
“Where’s the sundae?” asked Debie with a wink.
“That will be after we get home!” Ooallna assured her.
The sisters leaned in for their first photograph together. “Wow, we’re about the same height,” Debie remarked. “We’re going to have to share clothes.”
“You’re 47 years late to meet me,” Ooallna quipped. “Are you always this late?”
Ooallna says that nobody knew her father had another daughter, including her father. “He would have wanted to be involved in her life. And had he known that her mother died when she was so young… he would have claimed her and wanted to take her in and raise her.”
“I feel like a brand new person,” says Debie. “Because now I know who I am, where I came from… I feel complete.”
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