Meeting My Sisters For the First Time!

I always knew I had 2 sisters somewhere. Well, not always, but at a very early age. They were my father's daughters from a previous marriage. I had never met them, and since he died when I was only 4, I didn't even know their names. All I knew was that there mother's name was Jane and that she ended up marrying an Akron city policeman whose last name was Gray. I found these things out from my Nana and my mom over the years.

With the advent of the Internet, I had a way to reach out and research. Back in the early 90's there was Prodigy, AOL and Compuserve. I used Prodigy and belonged to several genealogy groups. People there helped me search for all of the Jane Gray's in Ohio. We came up with 5. Of those, 1 was in Akron and 1 was in Cleveland. These seemed the best ones to start with. I also found the address for the Police Department in Akron. I sent off letters then waited. This was in 1995 right around the time I was getting ready to move back to Pennsylvania.

After Tom and I moved back to Pennsylvania I got two responses! One was from the Akron Police Department and they said they knew who I was talking about and had forwarded my letter to him. The other was from Jane--my dad's ex-wife and the mother of my sisters!! She said Mary Kay and Janice had been looking for us too but didn't know we had left Ohio! Very shortly we were talking on the phone and making plans to meet!

Mary Kay and Janice drove out to Washington, PA to meet my brother and I that fall. It was awesome! We've gotten together many times since and they were the two people Tom and I had as witnesses at our wedding (Seth and Brogan were there too but they weren't old enough to be witnesses). They are awesome and I love them dearly! I just wish we could have found each other earlier!

Meeting my sisters for the first time was definitely a highlight of my life and a big pivotal event! I'm so glad they are now in my life!