Twins Reared Apart

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REPORTER: Did you know as child that you were adopted? How did this play out in your mind? Did it seem exceptional in any way?

ELYSE SCHEIN: In fact, it didn't. And our next door neighbors were adopted. And I also had two cousins who were adopted. So it seemed very normal.

REPORTER: The year was 2003. Elyse Schein found herself in Paris, an aspiring filmmaker working as a receptionist to make ends meet. Then acting on a whim, she opened a door that changed her life.

ELYSE SCHEIN: I was googling information. And I said, well, what's out there? Here I am in Paris, France. What's going on with my old friends in college, who I lost touch with? And I said, what's going on with those biological parents?

REPORTER: It was a casual inquiry, but it brought this letter from the adoption agency.

ELYSE SCHEIN: Well, it said you were born on October 9, 1968 at 12:51 PM, the younger of twin girls.

REPORTER: That's a revelation.

ELYSE SCHEIN: It really is.

REPORTER: Oh my god, I'm a twin.

ELYSE SCHEIN: Oh, my god, I'm a twin. Can you believe this? Is this really happening?

WOMEN: [SINGING] Through many danger—

REPORTER: Researchers have long been intrigued by the ties that bind twins. Just last month, as they do every year, thousands of twins gathered in Twinsburg, Ohio for the annual Twinsday festival, a happy occasion to be sure, but also an opportunity for forensic scientists to explore why it is that twins with identical DNA still have unique fingerprints. But the only twins research that interested Elise Sean was any information that would help her find the sister she never knew she had.

ELYSE SCHEIN: I knew that we were both born in New York and the adoption agency was located in New York. So it seemed like a good place to start.

REPORTER: Despite what you may think not all adopted children want contact with their biological parents. A decade ago, Paula Bernstein wrote this article explaining, "Why I don't want to find my birth mother."

PAULA BERNSTEIN: I always say the people who haphazardly created me are not my real parents. My real parents are the ones who took me in. And I always felt that family is what you make, not necessarily what you're born into.

I grew up in a really kind of a delicate situation. I always did well in school, kind of had it just the way you see in the story books.

REPORTER: But when she began grappling with bouts of depression in college, Paula Bernstein turned to the adoption agency that placed her, hoping biology might help explain her illness.

PAULA BERNSTEIN: And I remember looking in the mirror one day when I was a college sophomore. And it struck me, I bet my birth mother would understand this. So I contacted Louise Wise and asked for non-identifying information, meaning I did not want a name or an address, which they couldn't have given me anyway. I merely wanted the medical records.

REPORTER: That was 1987. Little did Paula Bernstein know that years later that anxious request would result in a fateful phone call.

PAULA BERNSTEIN: I looked at the caller ID, and it said Louise Wise services.

REPORTER: You knew that was the agency?

PAULA BERNSTEIN: I knew it was the agency. And I thought, why would they be calling me now after all these years? And at that point, the woman on the phone said—confirmed, is this Paula Bernstein? Were you adopted from Louise Wise?

And she said, well, I've got some news for you. You've got a twin sister. And she's looking for you.

REPORTER: It was news Paula wasn't quite certain she was prepared to deal with. So she took down her twins phone number, but also asked for the number of a social worker.

PAULA BERNSTEIN: You know, I think in the excitement of the moment and perhaps, it was a Freudian slip, I dialed the Elise's number.

ELYSE SCHEIN: And I picked up the phone, and I heard hello.

PAULA BERNSTEIN: So I heard her voice on the end of the line. And I realized what I did.

ELYSE SCHEIN: And I hear—it's almost like I'm hearing my own voice on a recorder back at me.

REPORTER: What could you say to a person who was instantly your sister, or not your sister, or something—what can you say?

PAULA BERNSTEIN: I think it's funny, because I feel like in a way I was talking to an old close friend I never knew I had, which is very funny that we had an immediate intimacy and yet, we didn't know each other at all.

REPORTER: With each new detail, the reunited twins got to know one another, found out about their differences, and their remarkable similarities. They'd both gone to graduate school in film. They both loved to write. Where to start to become sisters?

PAULA BERNSTEIN: I think when we met, it was undeniable that we were twins, but we weren't sure what our relationship was to one another. And I think it's taken 3 and 1/2 years for us to become sisters.

REPORTER: But then there were questions neither could answer. Why were they separated? Why weren't their families told? Who would do this? Some of the answers came from this man.

LAWRENCE PERLMAN: It was a study of adopted identical twins who were reared by different families without the families having knowledge of their twinship.

REPORTER: Dr. Lawrence Perlman was a researcher in New York in the late 1960s, helping with a project on the psychology of twins. Were their personalities the result of nature, who they were, or nurture, their upbringing?

LAWRENCE PERLMAN: So it was a unique study. It might be able to parcel out nature versus nurture influences, because they were genetically identical, but they were raised in totally different households.

REPORTER: The study was never completed. The files were sealed. And ultimately, they didn't publish.

PAULA BERNSTEIN: They didn't publish. Because by the time it was ready to be published, they realized that the public outcry against them would be too strong.

REPORTER: Do you think they were embarrassed?

PAULA BERNSTEIN: Actually, we've spoken with one of the key researchers in the study who still has absolutely no reservations about what they did.

ELYSE SCHEIN: They expressed no remorse. It's actually shocking.

REPORTER: In all, five pairs of identical twins and one set of triplets were separated. Though it's not clear if that decision was made solely so that could be studied. And Ronny Diamond of New York Spence-Chapin Services who reviewed the records of the now defunct Louise Wise adoption agency doesn't believe this separation was meant to be harmful.

RONNY DIAMOND: I have to believe that their intentions were good. And there are studies that looks at twins reared apart. It's given us so much rich information on genetics versus environment so that the study would have been fabulous.

REPORTER: Nevertheless, this isn't something we do today.

RONNY DIAMOND: No. We never do this today.

REPORTER: Still Diamond expects the questions will keep coming. Questions she may not be able to answer, because of strict privacy regulations.

RONNY DIAMOND: I am aware of certainly, at least one, situation of separate the identical twins who do not know.

REPORTER: And you know they don't know?

RONNY DIAMOND: Yes.

REPORTER: So why don't you tell them?

RONNY DIAMOND: I don't know if I have the right to do that.

REPORTER: Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein began their journey from identical strangers three and a half years ago. They're now confidants. And they're co-authors of a book that chronicles their experience. Are you proud of yourself for having done this?

ELYSE SCHEIN: Well, I'm proud that I found my twin and that we wrote a book together. And we share this journey together.

REPORTER: At the end of the day, did you get a sister out of this? Are you sisters now?

ELYSE SCHEIN: I think we're.