Sisters in their 70s meet for the first time, thanks to DNA test

Dec. 9 (UPI) -- A pair of sisters in their 70s met one another for the first time in Denver after first finding out about one another's existence from a website.

Harriet Carter, 76, who was given up for adoption at birth, found out she had a sister, Linda Hoffman, 73, when both women recently signed up for Ancestry.com and took DNA tests.

Hoffman said her parents never told her she had an older sister, who was born when both parents were 18.

"I had a message from Harriet saying, 'I think we might be related,'" Hoffman told KMGH-TV. "We were 100% match, but our parents never told a soul ever."

The sisters got to know each other over the phone during the pandemic and finally were able to meet face-to-face this week at Denver International Airport.

"I can't quit staring at you," Hoffman told Carter, who flew into the airport from Sacramento, Calif.

The women said they are not focusing on the time they lost, but rather the time they have now.

"I think we found each other when we were supposed to," Hoffman said.

A Nebraska woman who works as a medication aide at Dunklau Gardens in Fremont was reunited with her long-lost sister last year when the other woman was admitted the facility while recovering from COVID-19.

Bev Boro, 53, said she was looking over her patient list in summer 2020 when she spotted the name of Doris Crippen, 73, the sister she had been trying to find for years.

The women, who share a father but have different mothers, were raised in separate homes and, despite knowing each other's names, were unable to locate one another until chance brought them together at Dunklau Gardens.