Don Roark of Milford, Del. knew he was adopted, so he went on a years-long mission to find his birth mother.
Don stops by the DelmarvaLife studio to share his remarkable journey with us and how he turned to the internet for answers.
Don was born in a small rural town in Georgia and has known for years that he was adopted as an infant. He tried for many years to find his birth mother, Lilllian, but had no success. Don turned to the Ancestry.com platform on the computer and created a family tree using only his name at birth, that of his birth mother and their dates of birth. Don put this minimal information out on the internet in hopes that someone might see it and respond.
In January of 2015, Mary Ryder of Ohio contacted Don via e-mail. She, too, was born in that same town, had the same birth mother and had been adopted.
Don’s sister, Mary
Don and Mary exchanged information about themselves including their birth certificates. Don was the first child; Mary was the second. That exchange was followed up with a DNA test that proved conclusively that they were full-blooded brother and sister.
Mary had known about her older brother and spent more than 20 years trying to find him. Her efforts were complicated by her brother’s adoption and his name being changed. In July of 2015, Don drove to Ohio to meet his sister, Mary, for the first time
Following that, Don discovered that his birth mother, Lillian, had already passed away and was buried in a cemetery in central Michigan. Don contacted the cemetery to see if perhaps they had a next-of-kin on file. They did.
The contact was Glenn Wooten and he was shown as Lillian’s son and that he was now living in Washington State. If Glenn was Lillian’s son, that meant that Don and Mary had another sibling. The three of them exchanged documents and it was confirmed that they all were in fact brothers and sister.
Don’s sister Mary and brother Glenn
The three of them met in Seattle on September 11, 2016. This was the first time the three siblings have all been together. All three siblings were raised by different parents in different states. As Glenn so eloquently put it, this is just the beginning of a journey for Don and Glenn as brothers.
