EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah — Thirty some years ago in Utah, the decision to put a baby girl up for adoption was made. Since then, a dad’s search to find his daughter never stopped. Neither did hers.

A couple years before they met, they nearly crossed paths with one another — missing each other by minutes while attending FanX in Salt Lake City. Timing, though, is everything.

Criss Rosenlof said he never expected to meet his child. That makes the small moments he and his biological daughter, Rachael Robertson, share together, that much more special. 

Rosenlof and Robertson found each other 30 years later through DNA testing.

“Curiosity drove me. Anxiety pushed me a little bit, too,” Robertson said.

Adopted when she was a baby, she said she took her first leap of faith back in 2018 when she took the MyHeritage.com at home DNA kit.

At first, no luck.

“Went through, got a lot of distant cousins,” she said.

That changed about a year and a half later when an email popped up.

“Right at the very top,” Rosenlof said.

“You have a match and it’s your father,” Robertson said. “I was like panic, scream, chuck my phone across the room.”

Criss told me he never expected to meet his daughter.

But, life has a funny way of throwing expectations out the🪟.

Some call it nature. Others call it nurture.

Criss & Rachael? They call it adding more love to their family.

Their journey to finding each other on @KSL5TV. pic.twitter.com/fMkLemqlWU

— Karah Brackin (@KB_ON_TV) February 3, 2023

On the other end of the screen, Rosenlof said it took a couple drafts to write that first message to his daughter.

“As I see her walking up the sidewalk, there was just no doubt. This is my genetics. This is my daughter here,” he said.

“We’ve just added my bonus family into my family,” Robertson said.

“They call me Papa Criss. Having two extra grandsons is just awesome, you know?” Rosenlof said.

Rosenlof and Robertson have also found lots of common ground through music and games.

“She’s mentioned that we’re both geeks. It’s not completely true. I’m king of the geeks,” Rosenlof said.

Yes, family may be given, but as Rosenlof and Robertson have found, it’s also a choice taking the road back home. 

“You can’t have enough love. You can’t have enough family. And to be able to find her finally and bring her back into the family is just amazing,” Rosenlof said.