DNA test brings another startling revelation for two best friends who discovered they are sisters

Two best friends made a startling discovery in 2022, when DNA testing showed they are actually biological sisters.

But the story just keeps evolving for Julia Tinetti and Cassandra Madison. This summer, 23andMe brought another revelation: they also have a brother!

“It's unpredictable with these things,” Tinetti said. “People can do 23andMe and it comes back as nothing. Or, they can come back like something as crazy as this is!” 

Now the family is coming together, but they are also raising questions about the adoptions process.

In 2022, Tinetti experienced once in a lifetime moments, when she met her biological father and her brothers and sisters for the very first time. The emotional meetings happened when she joined her newly discovered sister, Madison, on a trip to the Dominican Republic.

“The first time I experienced being in a room with people who look just like me, it's incredible,” Madison said. “So to have my friend, and my sister, with me so she can experience it, it was awesome.”

Many of the long hugs and festive gatherings from that trip are captured on cell phone video.

“I cried today, yes, I in fact cried!” Tinetti says in one video.

For most of their lives, Tinetti and Madison had no idea they had this large family, or even that they are sisters.

Both were adopted from the Dominican Republic. Both grew up in New Haven. They even worked side-by-side at the same restaurant.

“People always said how much we looked alike, and we were like, ‘yeah, whatever,’ Tinetti said.

Then the joke that they were like sisters, became reality.

“I decided to do the DNA test,” Tinetti said. “And then two and a half weeks later…” 

“We found out we’re sisters!” Madison said.

With the remarkable discovery, they delved into their roots, getting to know their dad and their seven biological brothers and sisters living in the Dominican Republic.

“There's seven there… there's ten now. Plot twist now!” Tinetti said.

That twist, coming this summer.

Tinetti and Madison remember Thomas Buonagurio as a little boy growing up in their New Haven neighborhood. Then in May, the DNA testing kit from 23andMe gave them more startling news, when results confirmed Buonagurio is in fact their brother.

“I'm just so happy that we know now, and like he looks so much like dad,” Madison said.

“I was very shocked,” Buonagurio said on a Zoom call with his sisters. “I just love my sisters. And I had no idea that everybody was out there, you know. I knew I had siblings, but I didn’t know that many.”

A family coming together; but after decades apart.

“It was also kind of sad, because it took so long for us to find out,” Madison said.

While these three siblings are spread across the country now, with Madison living in Virginia Beach, VA, Buonagurio in Austin, TX, and Tinetti in Hesperia, CA, they all group up in New Haven.

The sisters believe they have many family members who ended up in New Haven, including cousins put up for adoption.

“In between, it was 1987 to I think 1992-3, there was numerous adoptions where they actually had to stop the adoptions, because it was too many kids from the same places,” Tinetti said.

They blame the delay in finding one another to errors on their adoption documents.

“We ended up kind of comparing our adoption paperwork to see where each of us was from, and they were totally different,” Madison said.

Tinetti and Madison’s mother, named Julia Collado, passed away in 2015, before they could meet her.

While her name is listed on Madison’s documents, Tinetti points out that her paperwork lists her mother’s name inaccurately.

“We would have known way back in 2013 when we first met,” Madison said. “That’s when we would have figured it out!”

“It kind of brings into question what was kind of going on with adoptions here in Connecticut at the time, and why paperwork was shifted,” Tinetti added.

They are questions that will be tough to answer, according to two Connecticut adoption experts.

“I think it impacts them greatly. I feel like, you know, their whole life was sort of a lie almost,” Amy Twomby, Hello Baby Adoption Consultants Co-Founder, said.

The paperwork errors could be the result of many factors, according to Twombly, as well as Deb Guston with Academy of Adoption & Assisted Reproduction Attorneys.

They explain there could have been confusion on the Dominican side, volunteers on the Connecticut side may have lacked training, or possibly, the mother intentionally concealed her identity.

“I totally understand and I sympathize with them,” Deb Guston, AAAA Adoption Director, said. “The problem is, I think it really is probably impossible to know where errors were made.”

Another challenge the women face is that three decades ago, almost all adoptions were closed, meaning no information was exchanged between families. It is something that has since changed, partially due to DNA testing.

“It's changing the concept of anonymity. It's almost doesn't exist anymore,” Guston said.

The change also came as experts recognized the importance of kids knowing their roots.

“When all of a sudden you learn that you're really not the person either you thought you were, or now you have other family members you never knew you had, I mean, there's so much of life that was missed there,” Twomby said.

Madison is now documenting the family’s story in an upcoming book. The publication date is not yet set, but she hopes it helps adopted children and parents alike understand the many complicated layers of the process.

With a total of ten siblings, Tinetti and Madison say their dad promises no more surprises!

“He says there's no more!” Tinetti said. “So that's what we're going to go with, that there are no more!

“We're hoping it stops at 10. Ten is enough!” Madison said with a laugh.

However, they are ready to embrace every family moment. The first, coming this month, with the upcoming arrival of Buonagurio’s first child.

“I think it's incredible,” Buonagurio said. “I couldn't ask for a better family to share it with.”

A path of milestones, that they are ready to walk.