This is a great family reunion story as well as a good search tip for anyone trying to find and reunite with past friends or family members.
Two sisters have found their long-lost brother after 60 years thanks to a post they put up on social networking sites.
The Sisters, Linda Benton McCloskey and Betty Musselman, posted a picture of themselves holding a sign with their brothers name and description on social media sites, asking people to help them find and reunite with their brother.
The sign read:
We are looking for our brother Robert Barwick. He is in his early 60’s. Mother is Dorothy Chaplin Barwick. Father is Robert Barwick. Born with a hearing handicap and in the Charleston area of SC. Possibly raised by two aunts on his father’s side. We love you! and have been searching for you. Everyone please share.
After doing a number of people searches and even going door-to-door in South Carolina to try to find information on their brother, the sisters decided to post their search request on Facebook.
Linda said, “My daughter Amy did it at the spur of the moment because I had spent that entire day in small towns, looking up Barwick families, knocking on doors.”
The photo received nearly a million shares on Facebook in only 3 days and led the family to find their brother in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Their search for Robert ended happily after some detectives located Robert in West Palm Beach, FL.
Linda lives in Pennsylvania and Betty lives in South Carolina, but both made the trip to south Florida with their families, where they met Robert at a reunion party given by his employer
Robert was separated from his sisters when he was only a year old and believed that he had no family left.
The last time the siblings saw each other, Linda was 11 years old, Betty Jean was 6 years old and Robert was only 1. The siblings were separated when they were removed from the custody of their alcoholic mother in South Carolina and sent to live with different relatives.
The two sisters reunited as adults, but no one in the family knew where Robert was.
A forensic historian from North Carolina saw the Facebook post and decided to help the sisters with their search.
He contacted West Palm Beach police after he thought he had found Robert’s location in that area of Florida.
A police department worker found Robert Barwick living in the Bluegrass Mobile Home Park in West Palm Beach.
Robert has lived in West Palm Beach since 1974.
Sister Linda said she was afraid after all these years that Robert was deceased or thought they had abandoned him.