In the middle of a divorce last year, Joelle Rudin was faced with the reality that she didn’t have much family.

Rudin, a resident of Stockton, Calif., was raised on Maui as an only child, and she never knew her father.

"My mom told me that he wasn’t a very good man, and I shouldn’t try to find him," she said.

But when Rudin, 45, complained to a friend in December 2011 about feeling lonely, her friend jumped into action. The two visited ancestry.com and peoplefinder.com, compared the two searches and found a phone number for Dennis Pierson in Arizona.

A woman who answered said Pierson was out of town. Rudin explained who she was and that she suspected Pierson is her father.

"She said, ‘Yes, he is’ with no hesitation — just like that," Rudin said in a telephone interview. "‘Yes, Dennis is your father and he’s been looking for you.’"

Once Rudin got in touch with her father, she found out she also has an older sister, Denise Pierson, living in Pearl City, an older brother, Dennis Pierson, living on Kauai, and a younger brother, Jason Pierson, in San Diego.

"It was a lot to take in all at once," she said.

"I always wanted brothers and sisters," Rudin said. "I always wanted a sister, especially, so it’s just been really comforting, and it’s been so cool that she lives in Hawaii."

Denise Pierson works with the University of Hawaii at Manoa Service Learning Program and graduated Saturday with a master’s degree in higher education administration. Rudin, who has spent the past three weeks in Hawaii visiting her sister and family on Maui, attended the UH winter commencement.

The two first communicated earlier this year via Facebook, and Denise traveled to Rudin’s home, then Seattle, in April so the two could meet.

"She actually knew about me because she and Jason had tried to find me back in 2005," Rudin said. "So when she got the message on Facebook, she wasn’t surprised."

Denise Pierson, 52, and Dennis Pierson, 51, grew up together and share the same mother, while Jason Pierson, 40, and Rudin were each born to different mothers. All of the children were born in San Francisco, Rudin said, so their connection to Hawaii is somewhat of a coincidence.

"I left in ’85 and my sister, Denise, came to Oahu in 1982, so there was like three years there where we were in the same state," she said. "We had this instant connection because we know Hawaii."

Denise Pierson said she connected with Jason Pierson in 2005 and the two attempted to find Rudin, but they didn’t know her married last name or that her name was changed to her mother’s maiden name when she was 7. She said she and her brother didn’t know the identity of their biological father, either, until she went to get her driver’s license when she was 16 and the name on her birth certificate didn’t match the name of the man she grew up calling Dad.

"I just wish, you know, that we had more information about each other, but our mothers just didn’t tell it," Denise Pierson said. "In their era, those were the kinds of things that were taboo."

Rudin said she has yet to meet her father, but she talks to him frequently and plans to drive to Arizona in January to meet him.

As she battles incurable breast cancer and meets her long-unknown family, Rudin said she has learned to live in the moment.

"It just goes to show: if you ever want to do something, go do it," Rudin said. "If you ever want to find someone, go do it. I wish I had done it years ago."

Denise Pierson said, "I always wanted a sister, she always wanted a sister, so here we are. We finally have our sister."