Rod Hudson of Madera was adopted when he was just one. Monday, he turns 56. All he wanted for his birthday was to sit in the same room with the brother and sister he never knew, until now.
Rod Hudson has a lot of catching up to do. "You know, it gives me a sense of where I came from."
The 55-year-old Madera man found out about his half-siblings, after his adoptive father passed away three years ago. Rod Hudson said, "I found some paperwork that had my birth name on it, and so I started looking on ancestry.com for my parents, to kinda ask, why did you give me up?"
But Hudson discovered his birth father had died and his mother was nowhere in sight. After doing more research, he saw his father's name listed as the father on three additional birth certificates.
For 61-year-old Julia, 63-year-old Bill, and Howard -- another half-brother who passed away when he was just a baby.
"It's amazing how much information is really out there if you start looking for it," said Rod Hudson.
The more he looked, the more he found. Hudson finally got in touch with a cousin who sent him the missing link.
"She gave me a Facebook page to look at."
The profile belonged to Julia -- Hudson's half-sister.He sent her a message, as well as one to Bill, who was listed on the page as her brother.
"I get this message back that says, yes this is your brother."
Bill and Julia say, they've always known about Rod but have never been able to track him down. The two were raised by their step-father, and say the real father all three share was hardly around.
Bill York said, "We actually lived, probably within 30 miles of each other for 20 years without even knowing it."
While they now live far away, Julia's in Georgia and Bill's in Los Angeles, the three say from here on out they'll never be apart.
"It's an exciting thing, you know?"
All three were born in Texas. Julia says she now has plans to move to the Central Valley.
