A new year starts with a new sister

Erin Barker began 2018 in an atypical fashion — by talking on the phone to the half-sister she didn’t know she had until this past February, and whose name she heard for the first time earlier that day.

“It was a very special, and memorable, start to the new year,” Barker said in an email.

The Day ran an article in Monday’s paper about the story behind the

“trying to find our sister” ad she had run in the paper the past few Sundays. Calls started pouring in to the number listed for Barker, and about 12:30 p.m. on Monday, one came in with the information she needed.

The caller had her sister’s name, address, telephone number and photo, and Barker thought the “family resemblance was remarkable.”

The heretofore-unknown sister did not wish to be interviewed for this story, and she asked not to be identified at this time. She grew up in New London but moved away decades ago, and is now a wife, mother and grandmother.

While family members still are trying to process this development, Barker said communication with her newfound sister has been positive.

“We are all thrilled and it has been just terrific,” she said on Thursday. “We’ve spoken every day, and exchanged stories, texts, emails and pictures. There have been many questions asked and answered.”

She said her sister has positive memories of their father.

Barker — an attorney living in Georgetown, Mass. — grew up in Framingham with her brother and sister; all are now in their 50s. They have around 20 cousins on the side of their father, Felix Taglianetti.

The cousins, some of whom are a decade or two older than Taglianetti’s children, knew that their uncle Felix had another daughter, and they assumed his children knew.

They didn’t. An out-of-wedlock child was not something that was discussed back then.

But after the topic of the mystery sister came up at a cousin’s funeral in February, Barker and her sister, Tara Taglianetti-Chambers, dove into trying to find her.

Taglianetti-Chambers said last week, “I feel horrible to think that she thinks we knew and never bothered to find her.”

But Barker said that while her newfound sister knew her father married, she didn’t know he had three more children.

They are looking forward to meeting in person soon.