ONLY ON ABC7NEWS.COM: Adopted woman finds relative in Bay Area after 17-year search
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- An adopted Portland woman made the trip of a lifetime to San Francisco, meeting the aunt she never knew she had.
Jackie Bridges-Cameron had been searching for her biological family for 17 years after her mother and father passed away. After going through a list of 7,000 possible names and not finding any relatives, she turned to a DNA testing kit from Ancestry.com.
A match revealed Patricia Krohn-Pope, a woman who lives in Livermore.
"I got a surprise one day over my email that somebody thought they were related to me because they did a DNA test. I discovered more information online and did a second test and...we are related!" laughs Krohn-Pope.
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What resulted was a year of emails and phone calls, which leads us to San Francisco International Airport.
Bridges-Cameron is arriving on a Sun Country flight and the two women, niece and aunt, will meet for the first time.
After what seems like an eternity of waiting, watching the planes roll onto the tarmac, the moment finally arrives.
Patricia is beside herself as she runs to the arrivals gate.
"That's her! Ahhhh! I never thought I would see this!"
The two women embrace and shed tears of joy. Jackie in particular, as Patrica symbolizes a whole new family just waiting for her a few miles away.
"My only blood relative before this point was my son," smiles Jackie. "And I had to make him. So it...it's...I don't want to start crying again!"
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The two women share uncanny similarities. Jackie works in the same industry, at the same employer that Patricia did before she retired.
The two share birthdays only one day apart (though there is 11 years between them) and similar medical histories.
Jackie and Patricia plan to spend not only a long weekend, but the rest of their lives making more memories together and making up for lost time.
