The WIlliams Sisters Believe They Have Found Sister #5

Excitement was in the air yesterday as the Williams family got ready to appear on Good Morning America to tell the viewers about finding each other and about the search for Sister #5. (See previous blog from June 18 .) At the last minute GMA canceled their appearance. Apparently they had hoped to find sister #5 and present her in the course of the show. Well, I could have told them that it was not that easy!

In the late 50s, something had happened to rip apart the family. The only son, who was 11 months old died after a 2 hour illness. It has been speculated that the mother then suffered from a mental breakdown but we will never know. All the children were born at one year intervals and in different states. They were all put for adoption in Monroe Louisiana and adopted separately. Some had received what is referred to as a non-identifying information from the state and in two cases it said that there was another sister born in 1957. That is what we thought we knew. One non-ID gave a birth date of 2/21/1957.

Needless to say the family and all their supporters were crushed when GMA canceled their appearance. It had seemed such a good way to try to reach the fifth sister. However, USA Today picked up the information that morning and had an article on them. That is where sister #5 saw it and called Sister #2 Betty Robeson.

I received a call from the stunned family right after that. I asked for more Search Angels to check this woman out. They flew to the rescue and confirmed that she was a nurse, had gone to high school where she said she did and had a sister who attended the same high school and identified her mother.

We had planned to send someone to the hospital where she worked to take her picture on their phone and send it to us, bur she beat us to it and sent one herself. This is the picture that she sent -

The top picture is sister #5 , the bottom one is sister #4, Sandra taken on a phone a the hotel yesterday evening..

Here is a quick paste up of sister #5 on top of the reunion picture from June.

She seems to check out. The family is requesting a DNA test to be sure.

As all the Williams family is, she appears to be very nice and with a good sense of humor.  They were even comparing feet on the phone last night. We had been planning and sharing on Skype when they placed a call back to Sister #5. What a privilege to be part of this event!

I am leaving it to the family to name the sister, but I am so happy for them and will be holding my breath waiting for the DNA test,

This is a wonderful example of how perseverance, planning and publicity pays off.

Congratulations to this great family. Sister #5, you are one lucky gal