Siblings Reunite in Florida

“A story involving nearly a dozen siblings put up for adoption, thousands of dollars and years spent on searches, and the help of a Cape Coral search company culminated at Southwest Florida International Airport today in the first-time meeting of four of those children.

“This is the start of their family,” said Susan Friel-Williams, owner of Search Quest America of Cape Coral, which helped get the siblings together.

For one of them, Jonna Dean, 50, of Punta Gorda it took more than 10 years and well over $13,000 to get what most people take for granted, a family.

Shortly before 2 p.m. today Dean was reunited with three siblings she had never before seen, older brother and sister, twins Robert Sharp and Maureen Michalowski, 53, and another sister, Colleen.

A fifth sibling, Sheila, could not make the reunion.

And there’s another four to six family members yet to be found.

Helping this family reunion come together was a local company that specializes in tracing family members.

Search Quest America has been operating since 2008, founded by Friel-Williams and her husband, Lane Williams. In addition to adoption reunion and related adoption searches, the company provides search services including locating missing persons, genealogy services, lost friends, classmate searches and finding missing heirs.

SQA used DNA testing to confirm the familial connection between the siblings.

The brothers and sisters were all placed up for adoption at birth and never really knew their mother or father.

Friel-Williams said their mother, Angela Gallagher, was an Irish immigrant who came to the United States in 1957 and worked as a domestic.

“It wasn’t so much that she was promiscuous,” she said. “But it was just an age where birth control was not that common.”

Friel-Williams said both Dean and the twins had contacted SQA but at different times, Dean in 2012 and the twins earlier this year. Since the names were not the same there was no way to connect them initially.

“It was kind of serendipitous,” she said. “Neither one knew the other.”

A researcher for SQA found similarities in the two stories and had a case comparison done. “It was an ‘a-ha’ moment for the research team,” Friel-Williams said.”

Siblings meet for the first time thanks to Cape Coral company

[News-Press 9/6/13 by Michael Braun]