BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. – At 83-years-old, not a whole lot surprises Rudolph “Hoot” Gibson of Moncks Corner. However, that all changed when he took a simple at-home DNA test last year from 23andMe and got the shock of a lifetime. He learned he had a 56-year-old biological son named Zane Stokes living in Maryland.
“I can’t explain the feeling that I had, but it was absolutely the thing that came into my life that I never expected,” Gibson, a U.S. Navy veteran and retired trooper with the South Carolina Highway Patrol, said.
On Thursday, Gibson’s son traveled to the Lowcountry from Maryland to meet him for the first time at a hotel lobby in Summerville. While some DNA results can reveal secrets that tear families apart, this had the complete opposite effect. From their big smiles to their long embrace, neither father nor son could contain their excitement after laying eyes on one another for the very first time in person.
“There’s a sense of love already in this family. He’s a blessing sent to this family,” Gibson said.
“I just feel like now there is a chapter in my life that is complete. I’ve been missing something in my life,” Stokes added.
Likes his dad, Stokes had also taken a 23andMe DNA test last year to learn more about his ancestry. Finding Gibson, his biological father, however, wasn’t even on his radar.
“I did it [took a DNA test] to find out how much Irish I had in me, and I was shocked,” he said. “I wasn’t looking. I wasn’t searching. I was not expecting it. Am I glad? Yes.”
According to Stokes and his family, he wasn’t looking for his real dad because he thought he knew the answer to that: it was supposedly his mom’s first husband, a man with the last name “Flannigan.” However, the two eventually divorced when he was young. When Stokes’ mom remarried, her new husband, who had the last name “Stokes,” adopted him as his own.
The man who Stokes had always believed to be his real father died in 1985. Meanwhile, his mother, who is still alive, has Alzheimer’s and is unable to answer any questions he might have regarding this long-held family secret.
Stokes is hoping to eventually learn more about his new family and how Gibson met his mother. That’s a conversation the pair intend to have in private.
Meanwhile, Thursday’s encounter between father and son would have never been possible if it hadn’t been for Stokes’ half-sister, Pam Gibson, who took a 23andMe DNA test that showed a sibling connection. That was the catalyst that ultimately prompted her father to take the test as well and for Pam to initiate contact with her new half-brother.
“At Christmas, my children gave me a 23andMe DNA Kit because I’ve been into some family genealogy through the years,” she said. “We have had a sense that there was another sibling. I mean, we just have felt this. And I even shared that information with my children, and they said, ‘well, we hope that when you get your test results everything comes out the way you want it, too.”
And, boy, did it. Gibson’s family has grown in size, and he couldn’t be happier.
“I’ve never been prouder in my life to have Zane as my son. I am proud to death of him,” Gibson said. “I’m going to strive every day of my life that I have left to make him proud of his dad.”
Nothing can separate father and son now.
“Oh, Absolutely [going to keep in touch]. Can’t keep us apart now,” Stokes said.
“I ain’t losing my son,” Gibson laughed.
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