Ann Hunt and Elizabeth Hamel
| Ann Hunt and Elizabeth Hamel | |
|---|---|
| Born |
(A. H.) Patricia Susan Lamb (E. H.) Elizabeth Ann Lamb 28 February 1936 Aldershot, Hampshire |
| Residence | (A. H.) Aldershot, United Kingdom (E. H.) Albany, Oregon, United States |
| Citizenship | (A. H.) United Kingdom (E. H.) United States and United Kingdom |
| Known for | The longest separated twins |
Ann Hunt and Elizabeth Hamel (born 28 February 1936) are twin sisters who were reunited after almost 78 years apart. The period of separation is a Guinness World Record for twins. Both women were born in Aldershot, England, in 1936. Their mother could not afford to keep both of them since she was a domestic servant. Elizabeth was kept because she had curvature of the spine and her mother thought that it would be difficult for her to be adopted. Ann was adopted and raised as an only child. As an adult, Elizabeth met an American and moved to the United States. On 1 May 2014, the sisters were reunited again in Fullerton, California, United States. The women spent the next day undergoing testing at the Twin Studies Center at California State University in Fullerton, which does research into how genes and environment affect development. The research was published in a 2015 paper in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Segal et al.. Genetic and experiential influences on behavior: Twins reunited at seventy-eight years. Personality & Individual Differences, 73, 110-117.). Additional material on twins raised apart is available in Segal, N.L. (2012). Born Together-Reared Apart: The Landmark Minnesota Twin Study, Harvard University Press.
The fraternal twins mother's name was Alice Alexandra Patience Lamb and their father's last name was Peters. They were born Patricia Susan Lamb (Ann Hunt) and Elizabeth Ann Lamb (Elizabeth Hamel). Their mother was unmarried and a domestic cook. Their father was in the Army and stationed in Aldershot, UK, but he never saw his daughters.
Their mother could not afford to raise both of them, so she gave Patricia Susan Lamb up for adoption when she was five months old. She was adopted by Hector and Gladys Wilson who also lived in Aldershot. They renamed her Ann Patricia Wilson. When Ann was 14, her aunt told her that she was adopted. When she asked her mother if she was adopted, her mother told Ann that she was adopted because her birth mother could not care for her and that Ann's birth mother allowed her (Gladys) to care for Ann.
In 2001, Gladys died and Ann went to the register office to get a copy of her own birth certificate. She discovered that her birth mother's name was Alice Lamb and that her occupation was a domestic cook. There was, however, no information about other children, the age of her birth mother, nor the address where she lived. Ann's youngest daughter, Samantha Stacey, was interested in genealogy, so Ann asked her to look into it. It turned out to be a long process because they had so little information to work with and they assumed that Ann's birth mother Alice was very young when she had Ann, when, in fact, she had been 33. Samantha put ads in the local newspaper, searched electoral rolls and online forums. She made little headway.
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