I first met Wanda Carolina Santos, a human services worker, in 2019 when one of her then-clients went missing for a short time.
After some news coverage and a short journey away, her client was returned to his Lawrence group home unharmed.
Then early this month Santos and I reconnected about a much more jubilant missing person case.
This time, the story centered around her own family — specifically her father, who left her life when she was a baby.
After years of Google and social media searches, DNA testing and even hiring private detectives, Santos found out where her father was and also discovered three half siblings.
And it all happened because she made the trip to the Newburyport Public Library one afternoon.
“You name it, we’ve done it,” she said, when asked about the search for her dad.
Santos’ mother, Nelsida Montero, is now 79. In the 1980s, she came to the United States. from the Dominican Republic on a diplomatic visa. She worked in Washington, D.C. as a maid for a wealthy Brazilian family.
There, Nelsida met Oscar Gomez. Together they had two daughters, Valerie, now 40 and living in Andover, and Wanda, 38, who lives in Methuen.
By the time Wanda was 6 months old, her father was out of the picture.
In 1985, Nelsida, with two young girls and little support system in D.C., decided to move to Lawrence to be closer to relatives.
“Many years went by, but I always felt like I looked different from people in my family,” Santos explained.
As they grew older, she and her sister grew more and more interested in finding their father and learning about that side of their heritage.
“We started off doing our own detective work,” she explained. “One of the biggest reasons for finding him was to see if we had any siblings out there.”
Their interest coincided with the spark of home ancestry testing, including AncestryDNA and 23andMe tests.
Genealogy, the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages, is now believed to be one of the top hobbies in the country.
Santos said they did have some tips about their father, who had ties to El Salvador and was previously married in Canada.
A co-worker had recently suggested they hire a genealogist to research their case.
Then they saw the flier advertising a Jan. 28 genealogy workshop at the Newburyport Public Library’s archival center.
“I just had a really good feeling about it,” Santos said.
The day of the workshop arrived and Santos said while she had worked an overnight shift and was exhausted, she was also excited.
At the Newburyport library, Jeanne Lundell, a member of the New Hampshire Society of Genealogists and American-Canadian Geological Society, was available to help them.
In 20 minutes Lundell found a Canadian marriage certificate for Santos’ half sister. Her father, Oscar Gomez, had signed the marriage certificate, in fact.
“His signature was on it,” Santos said. “She said, ‘I think we have a hit.’”
The information contained on the marriage certificate allowed them to do more searches. While she discovered her father died, she soon learned she had two half siblings in Quebec and another in El Salvador.
She and her newfound siblings regularly FaceTime and are working on getting to know one another. They now plan to meet in person in Montreal in June. A trip to El Salvador is planned for next year, she said.
Looking back on all the time she spent searching for her dad, Santos estimates she spent $10,000 on private detectives and other services.
“Then this all just happens one afternoon after I leave work,” she said.
“We’ve been working on this since we were teenagers.”
Jill Harmacinski is a staff reporter at The Eagle-Tribune. Follow her on Twitter @EagleTribJill. You can also email her at jharmacinski@eagletribune.com.