Julia Tinetti, 31, and Cassandra Madison, 32, first met in 2013 while working at The Russian Lady, a bar in New Haven, Connecticut, and the two immediately hit it off.
“We started hanging out together. We went out for drinks, dinner,” Julia told “Good Morning America.” “I thought she was cool. We hit it off right away,” added Cassandra
The two also shared a strong physical resemblance and matching tattoos of the flag of the Dominican Republic. They had a bond that was so unique, even their coworkers thought there must be something more happening.
“I looked at both of them and I was like, ‘You two look alike, like are you guys, sisters?'” their former coworker Courtney Ritchotte told WTIC-TV in Hartford, Connecticut.
Both of the women were adopted from the Dominican Republic so they checked their adoption papers to see if they may be related. After first looking at their papers, they learned they had different parents. But suspicions grew when Julia discovered there was an error on her adoption papers.
Even when Cassandra moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia in 2015, she and Julia stayed in touch.
In 2018, Cassandra traveled to the Dominican Republic where she met her biological father who said that he and her mother gave her and a sister up for adoption so they could care for an older brother who was sick. The couple would go on to have seven more children.
Cassandra called Julia and they took a DNA test to see if it confirmed their suspicions.
On January 28, 2021, the results came back and they discovered they were, in fact, sisters. “It’s exciting. We’ve got one more sister,” Cassandra told ABC News. “Especially since Julia and I were already friends.”
“Still processing the magnitude of the situation,” Julia said. “This is the type of thing you see on TV. Finding my biological family just wasn’t a thing for me. I grew up with a great family, so I just kind of left it to what it was.”
“We started twinning, we wore the same clothes, we actually bought shirts one day that said ‘I’m the big sister/I’m the little sister,'” Julia explained in a TikTok video. “I’m her family, I’m her sister, same mom, same dad.”
The two are also overjoyed to learn they share seven biological siblings. Cassandra shared a video of the whole family on TikTok.
The story is amazing because the two just seemed to know they were related once they met each other. Was it because they had a physical resemblance? Was it their shared history of being adopted? Or was there a deeper understanding — like a sixth sense they shared — that only sisters would understand?
The story is also another example of what can happen when you follow your gut instincts. Sometimes they’re the best path to the truth.