It was a moment for which Dan Farrer hadn’t prepared himself.
In the days leading up to finding his birth mother, the 53-year-old Buckeye resident didn’t expect to feel the wave of emotions that would overcome him while knocking on her door last fall.
“The second we walked up to that door, I think both of us had tears,” recalled his niece, 36-year-old Kayli DeBernardi of Tolleson. “It was just so emotional, so beautiful and probably a moment that I'll remember for the rest of my life.”
The West Valley twosome had teamed up to find some of their long-lost relatives through BYU TV’s reality show “Relative Race.” The network sent four teams from around the U.S. on a journey to find relatives through DNA testing and genealogical research.
The pair initially steeled themselves for the worst news — that Farrer’s mother had died. It was a plausible suspicion considering she would be in her 70s.
But when his sister uncovered a recent photograph of their mom, it sent Farrer into an emotional loop that still has him reeling.
“Meeting her was probably the highlight of the whole thing,” he said through tears in March. “It was very special. I really think she needed to meet me and know that I, you know, turned out all right.”
‘I didn’t realize I was missing something’
Farrer, who lives with his wife in a little house by the banks of the Gila River, near Airport and Elliott Roads, said his own attempts to find his birth mother were futile. His adoptive parents took the little redheaded boy home at just 3 weeks old and raised him in a tiny town called The Dalles along the Columbia River in Oregon.
The 6-foot-8 Buckeye resident with a ginger goatee said he knew at a young age he was adopted — his parents Tom and Marilyn told him. And even if they didn’t, it would have been very apparent once he hit puberty.
“My mom was only 5 feet tall, and my dad was 5-foot-8. So, it was like, ‘OK, I know I don’t look like them,’” he said. “I always wondered where I came from.”
Internet searches were no use.
“I looked into it a couple times, but I just never really took any steps forward because I didn’t know the next step to take,” Farrer said. “I was also just kind of scared.”
But when he watched his wife recently encounter a relative she had never met before, it ignited something in him though.
“I just wanted to be a part of something like that,” he said. “I have a great adopted family, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. But I didn’t realize I was missing something until I actually met [my biological family].”
Through the first few episodes, Farrer finds his bio niece and sister, Genia Bastion Teitler, in Tampa, Fla. The whole journey culminates in an emotional reunion with his mother.
“Meeting his mom caught us so off guard,” DeBernardi said, recalling the wave of emotions both felt in the moments before knocking on the door.
“We walked around, fed some horses and walked around the property. It was just a great time,” he said. “We just held hands and hugged, and it was wonderful.”
A new start
DeBernardi’s journey began several years ago during an Ancestry.com search for her father.
“My whole life, I grew up thinking my dad was one man, but the names didn’t match up,” she said. “I asked my mom and that’s when she let me know it could be between a couple of different men who might be my father.”
That led DeBernardi back to Ancestry.com to figure it out. But she encountered a dead end. The genealogical website gave hints about DeBernardi’s father, but did not provide his contact information. Attempts to reach out to his relatives also proved fruitless.
“That was kind of the end of it,” she said.
That is, until “Relative Race” reached out to her.
She initially learned about the show in 2023 when her cousins participated in season 13 to find their relatives. During that time, DeBernardi told producers about her attempts to locate her father and that led to an opportunity for her to expand her family tree as well.
Farrer said the solidarity with DeBernardi pushed him to begin looking for his bio family.
Filling a hole
Season 15 premiered March 16 and will air over the coming weeks. While the rest of us have to wait to learn how many more relatives will be tracked down and which team ultimately wins the race, DeBernardi and Farrer said they feel they’ve won their own personal races against time.
“I think a couple of years ago, it would have been really difficult because I wasn’t in a place to quite understand the answers and the gravity of what finding those answers would mean,” DeBernardi said. “I held a lot of anger and resentment toward who I thought my dad was at the time.”
She added that since the show, she speaks with her newly discovered family members about once a week, saying it’s been “fun to really build a relationship.”
For Farrer of Buckeye, it led to healing he didn’t know he needed.
“I didn’t realize how big of a hole I had in my heart until meeting them,” he said. “It was just a great blessing.”
Ultimately, the race also strengthened the West Valley pair’s relationship.
Added Farrer: “We really had to rely on each other and trust the process. We had the same mission and the same goal, which was to find these relatives. I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
“Relative Race” airs Sundays. Watch the show for free on the BYU TV app.
One Response
I LOVE this story!! Thank you for it