You can find a lot in an independent bookstore, information, entertainment - your long-lost family.

Adoptee Jackie Garcia, of Smith’s, was born and raised in Canada, but has lived in Bermuda for many years with husband Vic Garcia.

“Both my daughters, Kristi Garcia and Vicki Bruno are living in Canada now,” said Mrs Garcia. “I was visiting Canada and went into a bookstore in Alliston, Ontario. The bookstore was called A Novel Idea. The girl that owned the store and I got chatting about families. She said she did genealogy research. She became interested in it because her sister was adopted.”

Mrs Garcia told the bookstore owner about her adoption. She only knew her birth date, original name, Diane Elizabeth Ginn, and the name of the hospital where she was born.”

The bookstore owner said, ‘oh that will be easy to find’. Mrs Garcia was doubtful and went back to looking for reading material, leaving the bookstore owner to tap away on the computer. Ten minutes later, the bookstore owner called out: “I’ve found her!”

“Found who?” said Mrs Garcia. “She said: ‘your mother’.”

The bookstore owner had found a posting on an adoption registry site from Mrs Garcia’s biological family. Unfortunately, her mother, Maisie Ginn Gallipo, was deceased but she had a half brother Tom Gallipo, half sister Barb Dallard.

“They have been looking for you for several years,” said the bookstore owner.

Mrs Dallard’s daughter, Susan Muto, had made the adoption search posting and only lived ten minutes away from Mrs Garcia’s daughter Vicki Bruno.

“When I got home I asked my grandson, Nick, do you know someone called: Muto,” Mrs Garcia said. “He said: ‘Sue Muto?’”

It turned out that Mrs Garcia’s teenage granddaughter Emily had been dancing with Mrs Dallard’s granddaughter Brianne since they were children and were good friends, never knowing that they were cousins. Mrs Garcia had even attended some of Emily’s dance recitals and had met Brianne.”

“Sue and I had been out together for dinner and drinks,” said Mrs Bruno, “we could have started discussing how my mother had been adopted, but we never did. It just never came up.”

Mrs Garcia quickly set about trying to contact her newly found family. She called the number for her niece Susan Muto, but didn’t get an answer. She tried again later and a woman answered the phone. She said she was Susan’s mother, Barb, and was taking care of Susan’s pets while she was on holiday.

“Are you sitting down?” Mrs Garcia said to her over the phone.

“I was a little scared when she said that,” recalled Mrs Dallard. When she learned that she was talking to her long lost sister the only word she could manage was “wow”.

Mrs Dallard never knew she had a half sister until her mother, Maisie Ginn Gallipo was 92 years old and in a nursing home.

“She came out of the nursing home because she wasn’t happy,” said Mrs Dallard. “She was very depressed. A geriatric doctor came in to sit and talk to her. She broke down crying and told the doctor she had had a child before she got married and gave it up for adoption.”

The doctor urged her to tell her son and daughter before she died. She took his advice although she was terrified that her family would be angry.

Her family was not angry, but rallied around her and tried to no avail to find the adopted daughter. At that time the adoption records in Canada were closed. When rules softened a few years later, Mrs Gallipo had already died. Because Mrs Dallard was a sister and not the birth mother or adoptee, she was only given non identifying information that included a social workers report carried out over the first two years of Mrs Garcia’s life. In Canada, at that time, adoptions were not finalised until a period of two years had passed.

“All we knew was that she had been put into a comfortable middle class home and had been healthy at the age of two,” Mrs Dallard said. “We were also told that the mother was American. We thought if she was taken back to the United States that would make it even harder to find her.”

As it turned out Mrs Garcia’s adopted family raised her in Canada. At one point, long after she had married and moved to Bermuda, her biological family actually moved to the same town as her adopted family, presumably, without knowing it.

After the phone call, Mrs Dallard was in Mrs Garcia’s daughter’s yard within ten minutes. When she saw her for the first time she was stunned by how much Mrs Garcia resembled their mother.

“I always thought that I looked like my mother, said Mrs Dallard, “but Jackie really looks like her.”

Mrs Dallard and Mrs Garcia also look very much alike. They also both had a daughter called Vicki, one called Vicki Lynn and the other Vicki Lee.

Their brother Tom Gallipo, lived in Winnipeg, but immediately jumped in the car and started driving towards Ontario to meet his oldest sister. It took him at least five hours.

This week the whole family is together visiting Mrs Garcia in Bermuda. They spent their time learning about each other and also speculating about the identity of Mrs Garcia’s biological father. It is thought his surname was Brown, he worked in the medical field in some capacity, and died during the Second World War.

“It’s sad that my grandmother couldn’t be here to meet Jackie,” said Mrs Muto. “We started this process for her. She died in 2007 at 95 years old. It just wasn’t meant to be.”