A daughter has found her dad after 54 years thanks to a DNA test and a clever family tree investigation
Ever since when she was born, Melissa Kelly's birth certificate read "FATHER UNKNOWN."
She was conceived when her mum was a nursing student at at University of Wisconsin-Madison and met a young sailor one fateful night.
Over the years Melissa made efforts to find her dad after her mum tried to make initial contact whrn Melissa was born, but the searches came to nothing, reports USA Today.
"When I was about a year-and-a-half old, she (my mum) tried to contact him through his family," Melissa said.
"His father gave her the news: He recently married and they had a six-month-old girl."
Melissa's mum decided not to tell her former love about his daughter.
"She decided not to tell him. She didn't want to interfere with his life," Melissa said.
They knew his name - Ronald Lee Burns - but with little else to go on and no internet to speak of back then, they couldn't find him.
Melissa, who was originally from Kenosha, Wisconsin, moved on with her life, marrying a dairy farmer and having four kids.
Her search was put on hold for 30 years but then she learned about 23andMe, a company that specialises in mapping DNA.
She ordered herself a kit and started mapping her family tree.
"I knew when I started asking questions that I had a sister, but I didn't know her name," Melissa said.
"I had nothing to go on with her. I just knew I had a sister who was a year-and-a-half younger than me."
For around 12 years she played around with the service and other DNA testing companies, slowly figuring out the connections she had uncovered.
In 2021 she found a cousin on her dad's side on Ancestry.com by filtering her mother's side, but his last name was itself a discovery.
It wasn't the name she expected, instead it was actually Ron Lee Bures.
He was living in Grand Island, Nebraska.
One look at a picture of him and she saw herself - and for Melissa, this was enough.
She sent a letter to him but he assumed it was a hoax.
That was until the cousin confirmed Melissa's story.
Their first communication was done via Facebook messenger and they quickly realised they had a lot in common.
He invited his daughter out to Nebraska and from there the similarities were all the more obvious.
The two walked around town and Melissa was greeted with open arms.
Before she left town he told her he loved her.
"I'd gone my whole life without my father's hug," she said.
"It was indescribable. It was mind blowing."
After that first visit they regularly visit each other and talk regularly on the phone.
"It's just been awesome," Mr Bures said.
"Melissa's such a sweet gal. She's got a lot of love in her heart.
"I was so happy for her because she finally found me. She'd been looking and looking and looking for quite some time."
