Bobbi Gambrell was adopted as a child, and her daughter Mary Butler was able to reunite her with three of her siblings, with whom she had lost contact for 65 years.
“Family is important. It gives you a sense of belonging,” Butler said to Good Morning America. “It gives you a sense of identity.” Since she started raising her own family, this has become of even greater significance for her.
Butler began researching her ancestors on the internet two years ago. She claimed that she made that decision because she was curious about her heritage because her mother was adopted. So, in the summer of 2021, she ordered a DNA test from MyHertiage.com.
No major matches were discovered at first, until she received a phone call from Randolph Mitchell, who claimed to be her uncle. He confirmed that he was one of her mother’s thirteen brothers and told her about the DNA matches she had found on MyHeritage. He went on to claim that he has found three of her sisters so far, and her mother is the fourth.
Mitchell then released images of himself and his daughter, as well as his birth certificate, which included information about Gambrell’s parents.
Butler immediately went to her mother’s house to inform her of the news. According to WFTS, she stated in a TikTok video that realizing she had aunties, uncles, and cousins was a “prayer being answered.”
Her mother, Gambrell, struggled to digest the equally tragic news during a video phone call with Mitchell, the newborn brother she had never met.
“I can’t right now, baby,” she says in the clip, tears streaming down her face. “It’s just too much.”
Earlier this year, Butler once again got a call from Raymond Tate, an uncle she never knew existed. “I answered it, and he’s like, ‘Um, I know you don’t know who I am, but I found you on MyHeritage; we’re matching, and I’m your mom’s brother,” Butler recalled to ABC Action News.
According to the family, Tate, Gambrell, Rodger, and other siblings were separated in the 1960s. Several of them were placed in foster care and grew disconnected.
Tate had no idea he had sisters until that moment. “You know, I’ve been hunting for my siblings and family for many, many years. And it’s a dream come true,” he said.
Gambrell, Mitchell, and their older sister Lois, 77, were reunited with some of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren earlier this month in Florida.