Discovering A Lost Brother

- Juliana LaBianca

KIERON GRAHAM ALWAYS knew he had an older brother. His adoption papers, signed and sealed when he was three months old, listed a sibling named Vincent but no last name. Though Kieron spent years thinking about Vincent, he could never track him down.

That changed in December 2017, when Kieron’s adoptive parents gave their four adopted children AncestryDNA tests as Christmas gifts. Kieron, now 21, sent his saliva sample in for analysis. When his results came back, he was stunned to find he had a slew of DNA matches for relatives who had also taken the test. Most were distant connections, but one match was so strong that it was labeled “close family.” His name was Vincent Ghant.

Kieron looked for him on Facebook and soon made a possible connection.

“This is going to sound so wild … but I think you’re my brother,” Kieron wrote on Facebook’s Messenger app. “I was given up for adoption in 1997 and it says on my paperwork that my mother has a son with your name and your birth date. Her name is Shawn.”