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He spent 60 years looking for his birth family. Shortly before he died, a DNA test reunited them.
Carlo Arco was born Giancarlo Lavi in 1952 in Turin, Italy, where he was abandoned. For the first five years of his life, he lived in a religious institution.
At six years old, he was flown alone to the United States where he was adopted by an American family. Arco grew up knowing very little about his birth family.
But when his health began to deteriorate following a stroke, he embarked on an exhaustive search with the help of his wife Debra to find his biological relatives. The search was successful: after taking a MyHeritage DNA test, he found over 50 family members in Italy—including a sibling—he never knew existed before his death November 2022.
“Carlo’s Italian family showed him extraordinary love, right until his final breath,” his wife Debra tells Upworthy.
Carlo’s passport from Italy.Photo Courtesy: Debra Arco
Carlo searches for his family
Arco met his wife Debra in 1995. She tells Upworthy that he never spoke about his biological mother, particularly not while his adoptive father, Sam, was alive.
“He loved his father deeply and would never have wanted him to feel that he was being replaced or betrayed,” she says.
But after Sam passed away, Debra began thinking more about her husband’s biological family—particularly due to health concerns. Arco had suffered a heart attack at 35 and later experienced a massive stroke that left him paralyzed on his right side.
“I felt it was important for Carlo and his daughters to understand their medical and genetic history,” she shared.
One day, she asked him whether he ever thought about his biological mother.
“He quickly replied, ‘Why should I? She gave me up for adoption.’ I explained that in Italy in 1952, an unmarried pregnant woman might have been sent away until her baby was born. I told him that she may have thought about him every day of her life,” she says.
Debra promised Arco that if he ever wanted to find his biological mother, she would do everything possible to help.
“Two weeks later, he told me, ‘I’ve thought about what you asked, and I want to look for my mother,'” she shares.
MyHeritage DNA test confirms Carlo and Angelo are half brothers.Image Courtesy: Debra Arco
The DNA test
From then on, Debra researched every evening after dinner.
“I located the orphanage in Turin and connected with a researcher who helped us petition the Italian courts. The process was extremely difficult and took almost a year,” she says.
Eventually, she suggested that Arco take a DNA test in 2019. The results were shocking: he learned he had a half-brother, Angelo.
“Carlo was in heaven. I had never seen him so happy,” Debra says. “He had always proudly told everyone that he came from Turin, so when we discovered that his biological family was actually from Sicily, I teased him that he would have to record a new version of the story. We laughed about that together.”
He also learned more about his mother, and how losing him had deeply affected her life.
“She reportedly told her niece that she never had other children because she feared she would not be a good mother,” she shares. “We also discovered that Carlo’s mother and grandmother had held him during his baptism before he was taken to the orphanage. Her signature appeared on his baptism record as a witness. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for her to hold her baby and then have to let him go.”
Reuniting with his brother, Angelo
In Sicily, Arco’s half-brother Angelo had previously taken a MyHeritage DNA test. When Arco took his, he was notified of the results.
My first reaction was complete disbelief,” Angelo tells Upworthy. “It was early in the morning, and I was sitting alone in my kitchen in Sicily with a cup of coffee. I had taken a MyHeritage DNA test simply out of curiosity about my ancestry, expecting to discover something about my distant origins. I never imagined for a second that it would reveal a brother.”
The brothers connected first on a video call.
“In that instant, I forgot every question I had prepared. None of them mattered anymore. I simply looked at him—almost as a mother looks at her newborn child for the first time—with wonder, tenderness and the immediate recognition of a bond that needed no explanation,” Angelo says.
Arco was crying.
“He whispered, ‘I love you… I love you, my brother,’ and something shifted forever inside me. In that precise moment, he became my brother,” he adds. “We simply looked at each other and cried. Although separated by an ocean, it felt as though two lives kept apart for decades were finally touching.”
Due to the COVID19 pandemic, the two were not able to meet in person until 2021. Angelo and his son Marco traveled to Arco’s home in Highland, New York, where they were all able to meet and hug each other.
“That embrace contained everything: the years we had lost, the unanswered questions and the profound joy of having found each other,” Angelo says. “Through Carlo, I also gained Debra, his daughter Dana and his granddaughter Jada. We did not just discover a missing brother; we discovered an entire branch of our family that had been severed from us.”
They were able to have a second reunion in 2022.
Carlo and his wife Debra met Angelo in person for the first time.Photo Courtesy: Debra Arco
Carlo’s legacy
Carlo passed away on November 11, 2022.
“Shortly before Carlo passed away, his daughter held the phone close to him so that we could say goodbye from Italy,” Angelo shares. “He was extremely weak, but when he heard our voices, he seemed to return to us for a moment. He tried to sit up, smiled and whispered, ‘I love you, my brother.'”
Arco was never able to travel to Italy to meet his extended family, but in September 2023, Debra and their daughter Dana went to Sicily for 10 days—and could feel Arco with them the entire time.
“It was incredibly emotional. Angelo and his family could not have been more loving or gracious. Every day, they had something planned for us, from places to visit to family meals,” she says. “Dana learned family recipes, we went out on a boat, and the girls swam in the sea. We visited vineyards and tasted a wine Angelo had named in Carlo’s honor.”
Angelo also published a book about Carlo’s story titled LAVI: Nobody’s child.
“My greatest hope is not simply to share a book, but to ensure that Carlo’s voice, his original name and his truth are never forgotten,” Angelo tells Upworthy.
The post He spent 60 years looking for his birth family. Shortly before he died, a DNA test reunited them. appeared first on Upworthy.
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