Jacksonville woman meets brother she never knew she had

Genealogy website helps unite siblings

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – After nearly 60 years, a Jacksonville woman met her brother for the first time, a brother she didn't know existed until a genealogy website brought them together.

Sandy Parrott wanted to learn more about her family history and sent her DNA to an ancestry website, where she learned of her German and Irish heritage. Three years later, she received an email from the website about a family match.

"I was shocked; I was shocked beyond belief. Flabbergasted!" said Parrott.

She found that she had another sibling, a younger brother she never knew about. Then he reached out to her in an email letting her know that the DNA results were a very close match and that he is 59 years old and was adopted when he was 2 -years-old in Florida.

When Parrott's mother died, her other siblings told her she had a different father: the same father as Tim Howze. 

All this time, her brother's been living in Rockledge, Florida, as a motorcycle minister. That's just a two-hour drive from Jacksonville, where Parrott lives. 

Over the weekend, they met for the first time in Daytona and immediately realized striking similarities in their looks.

"When I started to hug him, I said to him, 'You're my baby brother,' and he laughed at that."

Parrott said she never in a million years thought that going online and researching her background would result in something like this.

"It didn't even cross my mind. It's wonderful to have extended family, but it's more than that when it's somebody you've just found in your life. So it's just amazing," Parrott said.

Her motorcycle pastor brother brought her flowers when they met for the first time in Daytona Beach.

The flowers, along with a framed picture of the pair, remain on her desk. The newly united brother and sister plan to spend the holidays together this year.