SIDEBAR Summer 2021 - 24

MONTGOMERY B AR .O R G
SIDEBAR FEATURE
Twin Sisters Reunite
36 Years Later After
Being Separated at Birth
E
mily Bushnell, Firm
Administrator at High
Swartz, LLP, got the
unexpected news of a lifetime on
March 3, 2021. She had discovered
that she had a long-lost identical
twin sister living in Florida after
opening an unexpected email.
The " new " family met in Fort
Lauderdale for the first time after
finding each other through a DNA
match on 23andMe. And Emily can
thank her daughter for the reunion.
The story begins with Izzy's
curiosity. Emily's 11-year-old
daughter, Izzy, had wanted to
explore her family tree on her
mother's side. Emily was adopted
from South Korea and Izzy wanted
to find her biological family. After
matches here and there with very
distant relatives, Izzy discovered
a peculiar match over a year after
joining. In March 2021, Izzy and
Emily received a message from a
woman named Molly Sinert. The
message stated that the site had
matched Molly as Izzy's mother.
This was news to Molly, being
that she had never been in labor before and did not have any
children.
Molly, not looking for family on the site but rather for
genetic traits, had actually found her niece with a 49.96% DNA
match, making Molly and Emily identical twins. After hearing
Emily's heartwarming story, High Swartz flew her and Izzy
to Florida to meet Molly for the first time. The sisters would
properly meet each other for the first time on the rooftop of the
Hyatt Centric Ft. Lauderdale on their 36th birthday, March 29th
2021.
24 SIDEBAR
Emily and Molly were born in
1985 in South Korea. After birth,
they were inexplicably separated
and taken to separate orphanages,
where Emily was adopted by a
Jewish family in Pennsylvania and
a few months later, Molly would
be adopted to a Jewish family in
Florida.
Molly visited Emily in
Pennsylvania in May bringing
her husband and parents along.
Molly, an only child, along with
her family, met Emily's brothers
and mother in person for the first
time. Emily says " our families are
a perfect match, a perfect union. "
The twins met again in Orlando
in June and have several trips
planned throughout the rest of
the year to make up for lost time.
The new-found sisters hope to visit
South Korea together and have
initiated a search for their birth
family with the help of the Seoul
Broadcasting System (SBS). SBS
will be filming and airing a twopart
documentary series in South
Korea, with the hopes of reuniting
the twins with their birth family. " Uncovering more about our
story and possibly even finding new relatives would be another
dream come true, " states Emily.
GMA3, ABC's Good Morning America afternoon show, was there
for the reunion. View the video and read more about Emily's story
here: https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/family/story/identicaltwins-separated-birth-reunited-36-years-77116281.

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SIDEBAR Summer 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of SIDEBAR Summer 2021