Long-Lost Siblings Find Each Other, 37 Years Later

Cindy Murray and Robert Williamson share the same father, but lost touch in the late 1970s, when they moved about 20 miles apart; Williamson was just 6, Murray eight years older, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. Murray, 51, went on to spend years searching for her little brother and only sibling, but unlike other such similar stories, Facebook, and the Internet in general, proved to be of little help. Says Murray: "I tried looking on Facebook, but there are a million Robert Williamsons. There are a million Bobby Williamsons. ... I wouldn't have known what he looked like anyway." But a call to her father—who she also hadn't seen or spoken to in decades—revealed a surprise: Her brother was in the Navy, where he's known as Chief Aviation Ordnanceman Robert Williamson). Thing is, so is Cmdr. Cindy Murray.

Crazier still, the two were both serving in California, roughly 300 miles away from each other, reports NBC San Diego. (At one previous point they were also stationed near each other in Maryland.) Murray handed her brother's Navy info to her chief petty officer. Within 15 minutes, Williamson explains, he got a phone call from him. "He said, 'Well, I’m pretty sure my boss is your sister. Do you have a sister named Cindy?' I went silent and said, 'Yes, I do.'" That led to many phone calls, and some tears. Two months later, the two reconnected at the Naval Medical Center San Diego yesterday. Upon seeing him, Murray screamed, "This is my brother!'" Williamson gave her a Navy salute ... and then a hug. (More siblings stories.)