Walter McFarland and Alan Robinson met in the sixth grade and quickly became good friends. Each boy had his own “family mystery” about his past, which helped the two pre-teens form a lifelong bond. Walter had never met his father while Alan was adopted and never knew his biological parents.
As teenagers, Alan was a bit of a party animal while Walter was more of a quiet scholar. Despite their differences, the young men remained close and stayed friends into adulthood.
By the 1990s, Walter and Alan each turned to the ever-growing internet to search for their families, but every lead went cold.
As technology advanced, Walter decided to take a DNA test to see if that could help fill in some blanks. He was amazed to find out that he had a brother out there somewhere. Even better, this person had already used the same DNA testing service.
To Walter’s surprise, the results showed that his brother was Alan, his best friend of over 60 years.
“It was a shock, yeah, definitely a shock. But then we thought about it, compared forearms,” Alan said in an interview with KHON2 News. Between the DNA test and the equally hairy forearms, Walter and Alan felt they had enough evidence and agreed they had to be brothers.
They decided to host a huge party to announce their discovery to friends and family. Even after the party Alan still felt overwhelmed that his best friend had always been his brother.
Approaching retirement together, Walter and Alan decided to start planning the next phase of their lives as family. They made plans to travel the world together and spend the rest of their lives as true brothers.
