With one mystery solved, brothers who found each other on Ancestry.com discover one more puzzler | Helen Ubiñas
Craig Michael Hansen, born 1962 in Hennepin, Minn., you have siblings trying to connect with you.
Last I left the half-brothers who had gone on Ancestry.com to find their father but instead found each other, they were getting acquainted — discovering similar senses of humor and tastes in cheesesteaks:
Dalessandro's, when Kevin Peck, a technical marketing manager from California, and his family came to visit Peter Klenk, a Philadelphia lawyer.
"I have had a Philly cheesesteak before," Peck said, "but that was definitely the best."
Bros by blood and cheese, it turns out.
And then, last month, they discovered something new.
Using the same genealogical site that led him to Klenk, Peck finally found their father.
His name: Darold Oliver Hanson. The brothers had so many questions for the Minnesota man, who'd fathered two sons in 1962.
But then, disappointment: More digging showed that Hanson had died in 2002.
It could have been the end of the road, except, now armed with their father's details, Peck kept looking on the site and found what appeared to be yet another half-brother.
Equipped with a script full of notes to prepare for questions the stranger might ask, Peck dialed the number for Scott Hanson, an engineer from Minnesota.
With every word from Peck's mouth, Hanson's suspicions grew.
The Californian on the phone was talking about a father who was an electrician. Hanson's father had laid carpet his whole life.
"What in the world?" he thought before hanging up. Whatever this guy was selling, he wasn't buying.
Peck sent the Minnesota engineer a few emails full of information he had gathered over the years, including the column I wrote about him and Klenk.
Hanson took one look at Peck's photo, turned to his wife, and said:
"My God, this might be true."
Hanson couldn't deny the resemblance. "He looks just the spitting image of me from the nose on up, and he looks just like my dad," he said of Peck. A lot of the information was spot on, too.
But it was the DNA test results that finally convinced him.
Hanson gave Peck and Klenk, both 55, some of the details they'd long sought — including a fuller family health history. Their father, a smoker, had died at 63 of lung cancer.
"My dad was supposed to be the key that opened up things," Hanson said, "but I guess I was the key that unlocked a lot."
And the 54-year-old engineer told them something else. He had two sisters from their father. And there was a half-brother that the Minnesotans had heard about when they were growing up but had never met. Someone named Craig, who maybe lived in California.
It seemed odd that the family would know about that half-brother, but not of Klenk and Peck. Maybe their father didn't know of them. No one knows for sure.
What Peck, who was adopted and has never met his birth mother, does know is that after years of searching, his family tree is suddenly taking shape — and it's fuller than he ever imagined.
It's a lot to digest.
>>READ MORE: One Ancestry.com DNA test later, Philly lawyer discovers a half-brother
When I checked in with Klenk, the Philly lawyer sounded conflicted.
Many of the feelings he thought he put behind him have bubbled up again, he conceded. It stings that his father's death means he'll likely never get answers to questions he had, that his mother has long refused to answer.
But like a good older brother — he's a couple of months older than Peck — Klenk's got his brother's back:
"Kevin's a really cool guy, and he obtained his goal, and seeing that, that's like the victory, right? You have to hold on to the victory, and he deserves it. He did all the work."
The brothers are traveling to the Twin Cities over Labor Day weekend to meet their new half-siblings and their families.
And in the meantime, Peck has set out to solve one more mystery — finding that last half-brother.
This time he's started a Facebook page. It's called, "Searching for Craig Michael Hanson B:1962."
It includes the few details he has. The man was born in 1962 in Hennepin County, Minn., to Darold Oliver Hanson and Ilga Debra Rozemberg.
And this personal message.
"You have siblings trying to connect with you."