LYNN — Growing up in the Bronx, Darell Joseph thought there were two men who could possibly have been his father, both of whom wanted “nothing to do with him.”
“It was always bothering me because I never had a father figure,” said Joseph, 29, who now lives in Lynn. “I see my friends’ parents together, and I was always missing that one key element.”
That all changed this past December when he decided to take a DNA test through 23andMe, a privately-held company that performs genetic testing and analysis via an at-home kit. He got his results back in February and was surprised to see a name he didn’t recognize among his list of relatives: Natasha Inniss, who was listed as his half-sister.
“I was bugging out,” said Joseph, who works at a homeless shelter in Lynn. “I was like, ‘Who’s Natasha Inniss?’”
He sent out a text to Inniss, who responded with an equal amount of surprise.
“She was like, ‘Are you serious? I have a brother out there I didn’t know about?’” Joseph said.
Joseph and Inniss began to message and call one another, exchanging pictures of themselves and of the rest of Joseph’s newly-discovered family.“When she sent me those pictures, I got a little emotional,” said Joseph of his new relatives. “I really look like them. Whether it’s me and my brother taking the same pose in a picture, or me taking my glasses off and looking just like my sister.”
Inniss put him in contact with his three other half-siblings, who were all thrilled to meet him.
That same day, his father, Roger Inniss, reached out to him for the first time in his life.
While Joseph was initially cautious about meeting Roger, he warmed up when his father expressed how much he wanted Joseph in his life.
“He started crying a little and said that if he knew of me he would have never cast me out like that,” Joseph said. “What got me really emotional was that there were two possibilities of dudes who didn’t want nothing to do with me. Then here’s a guy that’s reaching out to me and wants everything to do with me.”
As it turned out, Joseph’s mother had met Roger at a party in the Bronx before she encountered either of the men Joseph believed to be his father. The two hit it off, spending a couple days together, but Roger had to leave for Tennessee shortly afterwards.
“My mom went her way. He went his way,” said Joseph. “He never knew of me and I never knew of him.”
After talking with his family, Joseph decided that he needed to meet them in person. On Feb. 25, the day before his birthday, he traveled to Knoxville, Tenn. to meet his new family.
With the help of his brother’s wife, he set up a scavenger hunt for his family members.
To maintain the surprise, he told the family that he wouldn’t be able to make it down there because he had work.
The family made their way through a church where his father’s current wife works, reading cards with clues on them, which eventually led them to the chapel where Joseph was waiting.
“It’s almost my birthday. My dreams are coming true,” Joseph said to them. “But my number one wish was to meet all of you.”
It was there that he hugged his half-siblings for the first time.
“I thought you was at work,” said Joseph’s half-brother, Roger Inniss, Jr. in a video filmed by another family member.
“I lied to you,” Joseph told him. “I came over here today, man.”
Later that night, he finally met his father.
The two men embraced and, in another video, the emotion in his father’s voice was obvious as he finally met his son.
Before Joseph left, he had Sunday dinner with the whole family. He plans to return to Tennessee for a full week later this month in order to spend more time with his relatives.
“I’m trying to spend as much time with them as possible,” said Joseph. “The one thing that caught me was the love. They were so loving.”
