Father meets 32-year-old daughter he didn't know existed



SACRAMENTO, Calif. -– This meeting was three decades in the making.

"I'm exhilarated," James Long told KTXL. "I'm flying high."

Long met his 32-year-old daughter for the first time Friday after she landed at Sacramento International Airport. He had no idea she even existed until just a few months ago.

"Thirty-two years passed and my brother calls and says, 'Hey, your daughter wants you to call her. She's been looking for you for years and years,'" Long said.

Long's daughter, Samantha Wells, appeared as he told us the story. Both began crying.

"I had a DNA test done through Ancestry and when I got the results I went online and there was a Steve Long that I matched with and I wrote him a message," Wells said.

Steve is Long's half-brother.

"My half-brother Steve Long called me and said, 'Hey I'm on Ancestry.com and I have my DNA out there and there's a Samantha Wells that's an almost perfect match to my DNA," Long said.

Long says Wells' mother is a woman he dated briefly in the 1980s, and lost touch. He never knew she got pregnant.

But once Long found out he had a daughter, he had to contact her.

"He's like, 'Is this Samantha?' I'm like, 'Yeah,'" Wells told KTXL. "He's like, 'This is your dad!' I'm like, 'Oh my god!'"

And Long's family has suddenly gotten bigger. Wells is Long's fifth child. She also has five children of her own.

"I have five new grandchildren," he said.

Thanks to DNA technology, these two will catch up on the past and create their new future.

Wells says she tried searching for her father in the past but had no luck. She encourages others to get DNA tests if they are curious about their family tree.