After being placed up for adoption as an infant and spending most of her life without knowing her true bloodline or relatives, amazingly an Irish American woman managed to find five siblings living in the same county in New York state with the help of DNA testing company 23AndMe.
In 2019, Caryn McCabe, living in Massapequa Park on Long Island, decided to take a DNA test through 23AndMe having known she was adopted in 1958.
Through the DNA test, the retired schoolteacher found one of her first cousins but decided not to be the one to initiate contact. Speaking to Newsday, Caryn said “People out there know nothing about me. I didn’t want to rock the boat or do anything that would upset anybody. So that’s why I figured, let them come to me.”
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Then a law passed in New York state allowed Caryn to view her pre-adoption birth certificate. This revealed her mother as an Irish woman Jane McMahon, however, her birth father, John Kearns, was not included.
Eventually, Caryn’s cousin Eileen Connolly reached out on the 23AndMe platform, and the cousins began to try to piece together the details. Thanks to one of her siblings, John, taking a DNA test, did they begin to fit together the final pieces of the jigsaw.
As it turns out, Caryn’s parents went on to get married and had five more children John, Eileen, Denise, Tricia, and Kathleen who they raised in Queens, New York. Caryn also happened to grow up in a different part of Queens too.
Eventually, the siblings grew up and relocated to Nassau County on Long Island to raise their own families just as Caryn did coincidentally. Unfortunately, before any reunion was able to happen, Caryn’s adoptive parents died, as did the siblings’ father John Kearns.
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Thanks to the DNA results, the siblings were able to meet up in person and make up for the lost time. They suspect Caryn was put up for adoption as her birth parents were unmarried at the time and were part of strict Catholic families.
“We’re the lucky ones,” Caryn said as she spoke about the joy of finally figuring out her background and meeting her long-lost siblings.
Featured Image Credit: NewsdayTopics: Ireland, Daily Ladness, Good News