She called the past few weeks “extraordinary.”
“A few weeks ago, using an app, I contacted my fifth cousin biologically on my birth mother’s side,” Gilbert wrote. “His persistent genealogical research helped me find biological brothers and sisters on my mother’s side.”
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“I found out I have three brothers – Matt, Laird, and Mark (unfortunately, Mark has already passed away),” she wrote, calling her older brothers wonderful people.
“Matt and I especially grew close,” Gilbert continued. “Our real adoption story will simply leave you amazed – we will share it soon on the Substack platform. I always said I don’t have a family tree – I have a family bush. Now it looks more like a climbing rose, sprawling over a huge wall and blooming with multicolored flowers.”
Speaking with Page Six, Gilbert revealed that she actually found out about a fourth biological brother, but he has not contacted her yet.
“Everything turned out completely different than I thought I knew,” she said, adding that all these discoveries are simply “incredible.”
The former Dancing With the Stars contestant also shared that many years ago she had already found her biological father’s family, including three older half-brothers and sisters.
“Those relationships were quite complicated,” she admitted. “We weren’t very close, and there were still many secrets. It wasn’t what I expected, but it eventually became an important part of my life story, for which I will always be grateful to them.”
In the post, Gilbert also shared her 66-year-old brother Matt’s thoughts about the unexpected family discovery.
“Well… this definitely wasn’t on my 2026 bingo card,” Matt wrote on his Instagram account, where he shared childhood photos and compared himself to Melissa.
“The past few weeks have been incredible – we discovered our family history, shared memories, asked a million questions, and met a person whose existence we had no idea about. And that little sister – Melissa Gilbert!”
The actress has been trying for many years to learn as much as possible about her origins. Her biological parents – Kathy Wood and David Darlington – gave her up for adoption shortly after her birth in 1964.
Later, Melissa was adopted by comedian Paul Gilbert and his wife Barbara Crane, the daughter of the famous series The Honeymooners creator Harry Crane. Later, Barbara had another daughter – actress Sara Gilbert, best known from the series Roseanne.
Melissa emphasized that both her adoptive mother Barbara and sister Sara have always supported her greatly in searching for her biological family.
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“We are very close,” she said. “I love them immensely.”
