Chaz Varady grew up being told that two different men may be his biological father. Eventually, during the summer of 2023, he decided to look into the realm of genetic genealogy in an attempt to track down any potential family, hopefully his father.
This decision led him and his wife of 27 years, Kristen, down a path they could have never expected.
Varady was born in Rapid City, South Dakota, and grew up with his mother and sister.
After taking some DNA tests, Kristen started piecing together a family tree.
“The results we had for about a month,” Varady began to explain Wednesday morning.
Kristen interrupts, “Two months!”.
“Two months,” Varady corrects himself.
“And every time I looked at it, it made me nervous and sad.”
Eventually he would call a woman named Brook Sharp— he knew that they were likely relatives of some sort.
They decided to meet for coffee at Sweetland in downtown Rockford.
“I see him sitting back there,” Sharp recalled.
“It was like looking at my dad, a younger version of my dad.”