"We were all taken for one reason or another and placed with family for the most part," said Elizabeth Brock, who over twenty years ago was separated from her birth mother.
Brock says her biological mother fell on hard times, leaving her and three older siblings to be raised by grandparents. Meanwhile, another three, born after her, would be adopted out as babies, to two different families.
"I always kind of knew I had younger siblings, but didn’t know their names or ages," said the Lincoln Park mom of two.
But as time progressed, so did Brock's curiosity.
Two younger brothers, she would learn, had been adopted out to the same family. And with them both now over 18 years old, she felt the push to take her search to the next level.
"I need to make something of this. I'll go to the courts, I’ll do whatever I have to do, I want to find them," she said.
So, the Lincoln Park mom got to work with a poster board and Sharpie, posting her plea for help on Facebook.
What happened next, she says, she could have never imagined. The post went viral, shared almost four thousand times in 72 hours, just enough times to make a breakthrough.
"I’m just bawling, I’m like it’s her," she said.
A Facebook user would lead Brock to her little sister first, still just 16, and living in Ohio.
But before she could digest what was happening, she received another message from somebody telling her they knew who her brothers were.
"Now I’m baffled…this is too quick, way way too quick," she said.
But it was real. And even more shocking was the fact that they were living right next to each other for nearly twenty years without knowing it.
"They were really right down the street," she said.
Turns out the two groups of siblings grew up just over a mile apart from each other, even had some mutual friends but never knew.
So today, they're catching up on lost time, impressed by the power of Facebook thankful to the thousands that shared a post, that will now give them the chance at a life long friendship.
