Twins separated at birth stunned to find sister they never knew existed

Twins separated at birth 20 years ago in Mexico had an unexpected reunion after one of the girls enrolled at a university in Long Island. Tamara Rabi had no idea Adriana Scott existed until students began confusing her with the other girl.

The girls were adopted by different sets of parents in the United States. By chance, the families lived in the same region. Tamara grew up with Jewish parents on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Adriana was raised a Catholic in a Long Island suburb of the city. But each girl had no idea she had a twin until Tamara moved to Long Island last autumn.

People she had never met claimed to know her. Confusion gave way to astonishment when a friend told her that he knew someone so similar they had to be sisters. Her name was Adriana and she went to another university not far away on Long Island. The story of discovery that followed, reported in detail by The New York Times yesterday, provided material that behavioural psychologists studying the nature versus nurture debate dream about.

The internet was the venue for the first tentative approaches by Tamara to Adriana. They exchanged snippets of information. It turned out they were both adopted and were exactly the same height, just over 5ft 3in. Finally, one e-mailed the other a picture. Their looks were so similar there was no longer any doubt. "The picture came up and our jaws just dropped," said Christie Lothrop, a friend of Tamara. "We did not know what to do."

The twins arranged a meeting. "I'm just standing there looking at her," said Adriana. "It was a shock. I saw me."

Since then, the girls have become friends. They share verbal traits and an ability to dance. They also both lost their adoptive fathers to cancer. They bonded further when they attended an audition for a DJ company looking for dancers. At the audition the twins were hired, with strict instructions to always dance together.

But the discovery brought discomfort to Adriana's mother, Diane Scott, who had known there was a twin but never told her daughter. She said she did not know how to track her down. Her only information was that the twin was either adopted by a rabbi or had the last name Rabi. "Oh my gosh, this is it!" was all Mrs Scott could think when she learnt the other girl was named Rabi.

As for Tamara's mother, she was sceptical until her daughter came into her apartment with Adriana. "It was just incredible," Judy Rabi said. "You just blink and say 'This can't be real'."