Man adopted as a baby reunites with biological family after 20 years thanks to uncommon name

Iverson Poff had waited his entire life for that message. "Bro, I think I am your brother!!!!" read the Instagram DM that popped up on his phone in July while the 20-year-old was driving down the familiar tree-lined streets of Eugene, Oregon. In a video that has gone viral across social media platforms since being posted a few months ago, Poff revealed that he almost drove off the road when he saw the message. According to Insider, Poff had always known he had at least one biological sibling somewhere else in the world. He'd received a trickle of information about his biological family before the agency that handled his adoption shut down when he was 5. This included an old photograph of his biological brother wearing soccer cleats with Poff's birth name, "Brian," written across them.

Having wondered about his biological mother and brother—and other siblings he might have—all his life, Poff went as far as to buy an Ancestry DNA test in 2021. However, he dragged his feet on actually taking the test. "I just didn't think I was ready enough yet," he admitted. "I don't think I was mature enough. I had no idea if I was talked about, if I was known, if I was a secret. I had no idea." Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, Poff's biological brother, Jaylon Vickers, had also been searching for his long-lost sibling. He'd always known he and his two younger sisters had a brother somewhere out in the world. His mother had been a college student and mother to then-2-year-old Vickers when Poff was born. She'd sought adoption as an opportunity to give her son a better life.

Finally, it was Vickers' wife, Bree, who set out on a mission to track down Poff. She contacted her mother-in-law for any information she might have about him and received a crucial piece of the puzzle: the name his adoptive parents had given him, Iverson, which is far less common than "Brian" and therefore increasing their chances of finding him. Armed with his name, Vickers and Bree turned to social media and searched for Poff's name and location. Poff was one of the first people to pop up in the search and a little breadcrumb—a profile photo of himself as a baby—he'd placed on his Instagram page long ago in the hopes of being discovered by his biological family, confirmed that he was indeed the one they were searching for. 

Not long after the brothers connected, Poff said, his biological mother and sisters also reached out to him. "They asked if they could FaceTime me, and they were like, 'We want to meet you as soon as possible. As soon as you can be here, we want you here,'" he shared. Twenty-four hours later, Poff stepped off a plane in Utah and instantly recognized his biological mother who looked a lot like him. He hugged his family through tears and spent the next two weeks living the life he might have had if he'd never been adopted. The siblings soon discovered that they also shared a lot of personality traits. After a week-and-a-half, Poff and his biological mother got matching tattoos featuring the date and constellation of the night's sky on the day they reconnected, two decades after they parted in an Oregon hospital.

Poff revealed that his adoptive family has been very supportive throughout this experience. "They're very happy for me," he said. "They know it's always been something that I've wanted — to be able to find them. My mom has always taught me just be true to yourself, always do you, never care what anyone has to say. And so I've always done that." Poff's priority right now is making up for lost time. "I'll just be focusing on building the relationships with my family," he said.