Georgia man meets daughter for the first time after they find each other online

A Douglas, Ga. man met his 47-year old daughter in person for the first time ever after finding her on the genealogy website ancestry.com.

Yevette Matthews, who lives in Rochester, Wash., submitted her DNA to Ancestry.com, who tipped her off about her 75-year-old father John Ellis in Douglas. Ancestry has a service that allows users to submit DNA to search for potential family matches in its database.

“I watched the show “Long Lost Families,” and for years I’ve been trying to find my family. But all I had was a first and last name and where I was born,” Matthews said.

Matthews embarked on the search in April, and discovered her father’s identity about a month later when she was matched with her father’s sister.

“I reached out to her, and said all I had was a name. She took it from there,” Matthews said.

The two spoke on FaceTime, but Ellis’ wife put together Matthews’ face-to-face visit in August as a birthday surprise.

When I saw her I just kind of blanked,” Ellis told WALB. “I couldn’t believe she was standing there because I’d seen her face and I knew who it was, but I couldn’t believe she was there. I was shocked.”

“I just felt like my heart was full, and I knew that I belonged. They were very loving, very welcoming, very accepting,” Matthews said. “I just always dreamed of coming from a big family, or having a close Christian family. To be in church with my dad for the first time on Sunday, that was so special.”

Matthews said she hopes to come back to Georgia and visit for Thanksgiving.

This story was originally published August 17, 2017 at 12:24 PM with the headline "Georgia man meets daughter for the first time after they find each other online."