He thought his father had abandoned him. Then he took a DNA test

Akihiko Yamamoto and Sharon Lovell met for the first time in 2023. Yamamoto visits Lovell in California every summer. Photo / Sharon Lovell

For most of his life, Akihiko Yamamoto believed his American father had abandoned him in Japan.

Raised by his Japanese mother, his classmates and neighbours called him “gaijin” – meaning foreigner – and told him to “go back to your country”.

“My childhood was terrible,” said Yamamoto, 73. “Everybody was so mean to me.”

He knew nothing about his father, except that he was American.

“I had no way to look for my father. There were no clues, no information,” said Yamamoto, explaining that he had a strained relationship with his mother, who eventually married a Japanese man and had another son.

Yamamoto has not spoken to his mother in more than 30 years.

Siblings Akihiko Yamamoto and Sharon Lovell. The brother and sister met in 2023, after more than seven decades apart. Photo / Sharon Lovell

Meanwhile, Sharon Lovell grew up on the other side of the Pacific Ocean in California in a loving home.

She watched as her father wept over a lost child he had fathered overseas while serving in the United States military in Japan during the early 1950s, before Lovell was born.

“I saw my Dad cry so many times,” said Lovell, 71. “Most of the time, I knew it was about that.”

Lovell’s father, John Vierra, fell in love with a Japanese woman when he was stationed in Japan shortly after the end of World War II.

The woman became pregnant, and they planned to marry, Lovell said, but Vierra was shipped out before the baby was born.

Their relationship ended, and the woman told him the baby was a girl who had been placed for adoption.

A recent photo of Yamamoto and Lovell. Photo / Sharon Lovell

Vierra – who went on to become an engineer and part-time mechanic – tried to track down the child but never succeeded, his daughter said.

“It really broke my heart,” Lovell said. “No kid wants to see their parent crying.”

Vierra carried that pain, his daughter said, until he died in 2003. He never knew his long-lost child was actually a son – Yamamoto – and that his two children would one day find each other.

Indeed, in 2022, Lovell and Yamamoto were brought together through an unexpected chain of DNA matches, which neither of them initiated.

John Vierra in an undated photo. Photo / Sharon Lovell

The connection began when Yamamoto’s daughter in Japan and Lovell’s cousin’s daughter in Southern California both separately submitted DNA samples to MyHeritage, the genealogy platform.

The two women were notified of a genetic connection they couldn’t explain, and eventually, they connected the dots that Yamamoto was Vierra’s missing child in Japan.

“That’s how we found each other,” said Lovell, adding that they corresponded over email and began getting to know one another. “I was ecstatic.”

“I was very, very surprised that I had a sister,” Yamamoto said. “I didn’t know anything about my American family.”

Yamamoto was devastated to learn, though, that his father had died before they had the chance to meet.

“I’ve never seen him, and I’ve never heard his voice,” Yamamoto said. “It’s very, very sad for me.”

Sharon Lovell as a child in California. Photo / Sharon Lovell

It was painful for Lovell, too, knowing how desperately her father had wanted to meet his first child.

“I was so sad that our Dad is no longer here, because he wanted to see him so badly,” Lovell said.

They decided to do an additional DNA test to confirm they are true half-siblings, and it came back positive, as they expected.

“It was already obvious that we were brother and sister because Akihiko looks so much like Dad,” Lovell said. “It’s amazing.”

Akihiko Yamamoto as a child growing up in Japan. Photo / Akihiko Yamamoto

Yamamoto was relieved to learn his father – whom he had long felt neglected by – had been yearning for him all his life.

“I’m so happy that my Dad, our Dad, loved me,” he said. “That makes me very happy.”

Despite growing up in different environments and cultures, the siblings said they felt an immediate bond. Fortunately, they said, Yamamoto speaks English, which made it easier to communicate.

Yamamoto calls Lovell “my Sharona”, and Lovell calls Yamamoto “my big brother”.

“We grew very close very fast,” said Lovell, a retired nurse who lives in Visalia, California.

She has two daughters, aged 49 and 48, as well as 14 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Lovell is a widow.

Yamamoto has three daughters, aged 45, 40 and 35, and three grandchildren. He lives in Sapporo, Japan, with his wife and is a retired professor.

He and Lovell began corresponding regularly, and they both agreed that they wanted to meet in person.

Since 2023, Yamamoto has flown to California to visit Lovell in the summer. On each visit, he stays for three months at her home. He is there currently, his third summer.

“I’m very happy when he comes, and then I cry a lot when he leaves,” Lovell said. “He has his own room here.”

Having been estranged from much of his Japanese family, Yamamoto said he is grateful to feel accepted by his American family. He said he hopes to bring his daughters to the US to meet them.

“I am so glad we found each other,” Yamamoto said.

Yamamoto with Lovell's mother, Shirley Marcussen. Photo / MyHeritage

On each of his trips to California, Lovell takes him to spend time with various family members – including Lovell’s 93-year-old mother.

“She loves Akihiko like he is her own son,” Lovell said.

They also visit the places Lovell grew up, and they’ve taken several short trips to national parks and other sites.

“We went to see Dad where he is buried,” Lovell said, adding that their father’s grave is at San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery, about two hours away from where she lives.

Although their father never got to meet Yamamoto, Lovell said, she feels confident that he can see them together now and is filled with pride.

“I feel like, in some way, he knows his son now,” she said. “And he’s happy. I know he is.”