Yahoo Lifestyle Separated twins reunited by Facebook
They were separated as tiny babies after each being adopted from an Indonesian orphanage by a different family , but almost 30 years on Emilie Falk and Lin Backman have discovered that they have been living just 40km apart their entire lives.
The twins were reunited after Ms Falk located her sister on Facebook, and DNA testing has confirmed that they are indeed sisters.
At the time the girls were adopted, Ms Backman’s adoptive parents were aware that there was a possibility that the girls were twins, and the families met up when the girls were babies. However, as the girls are non-identical, and the notes in the adoption papers from the orphanage were sketchy, they dismissed the idea.
After being told the story growing up, two years ago Ms Falk decided to look for Ms Backman, knowing than DNA technology would give them a certain answer.
Ms Falk initially began searching through a network for adopted children, but eventually turned to Facebook where she found Ms Backman’s profile and sent her a message.
They arranged to meet up, and like many other sets of separated twins, they soon found that their lives have had several spooky similarities. They both live in the far south of Sweden, both are teachers, and both got married on the same day, albeit one year apart.
While scientists have been quick to study identical twins raised apart, fraternal twins are considered to be genetically no more alike than singleton siblings, so less data exists to measure the similarities between them. As a result, it’s not known whether fraternal twins raised apart statistically have more in common than singleton siblings raised apart, although the similarities between Ms Falk and Ms Backman suggest it’s a possibility that warrants further investigation.
Asked if she regrets not finding her twin sister earlier, Ms Falk remains pragmatic, saying: ‘there’s no use in being sad about something I didn’t know about. I’m only happy to have found her.’
More bizarre parenting stories:
