Randy Joubert knew he had a brother out there somewhere, but never realized he would work with him for several months before making the discovery. The search for his long-lost brother began when a new law passed recently allowed him to see his original birth certificate.
The bill for the new law, co-sponsored by former Maine Sen. Paula Benoit, allows those people who had been adopted to obtain their original birth certificates. The law came into effect on Jan. 1 of this year.
“I knew I wasn’t a regular adoption case,” Joubert said.
He and his brother were both taken into custody by the state and were adopted separately. They grew up not far from one another. One attended Lincoln Academy, the other Medomak Valley High School. One grew up in Waldoboro, the other in Bristol.
When Joubert found his birth certificate and made further inquiries with the state regarding his past, he discovered he had a full brother, who was born June 10, 1974.
Joubert was born 11 months earlier, July 26, 1973 to the same parents, Wilfred and Joan Pomroy in Rockport. The name on his birth certificate reads Randy Allen Pomroy.
Joubert gathered the obituary information on his parents, who were from Biddeford. After combing microfiche files in the Biddeford library with the company of his fiancée, Jen, and finding the news articles about his parents’ deaths, Joubert thought his search had come to an end. He said he was seeking his brother whose original name was Gaylord Allen Pomroy and knew his brother’s original name had been changed to the name of the family who adopted him.
Little did he know at the time he would meet his long-lost brother, Gary Nesbit, after accepting a job at Dow’s Furniture in Waldoboro.
“I knew I was dealing with a newbie,” Nesbit said, explaining how he showed Joubert the mechanics of the job.
Nesbit has been working at the furniture company for seven years. Joubert said he started at working Dow’s Furniture on Rt. 1 in Waldoboro on July 7.
They would take the company truck out to deliver furniture and a common question posed to them by customers was, “Are you guys brothers?”
The pair many times waved off the question and had not taken the observations seriously.
They’ve worked side by side since early July. They lived just a few miles apart and yet both furniture company employees acknowledged there was something more to the story, but just couldn’t pin it down.
They have the same build, same facial features, both wear baseball caps and even sport the same style of glasses. Jen said the pair also laugh alike and Joubert later confessed to his fiancée he thought he and Nesbit looked alike.
Joubert said roughly two weeks ago, he asked the guy he was working with some questions.
One day, a woman asked the same question customers had routinely asked the pair. Whether it was her tone, the timing, or the way in which she asked, Joubert said it prompted him to take a leap of faith. Sitting in the truck between deliveries, he asked if his co-worker was adopted.
“He stared at me and said, ‘Yes, I was,” Joubert said, recalling the surprised look on Nesbit’s face as he also recited his brother’s exact birth date and who his biological parents were.
Nesbit had a copy of his original birth certificate, but did not know he had a brother. Nesbit described how he felt out of the loop before meeting Joubert.
“I thought, ‘Everybody else has blood family around’,” he said, “You know, I’m never going to find that.”
Nearly speechless, Nesbit described how he learned the truth.
“I was just amazed,” he said. “I was thinking, ‘Is this guy psychic?'”
Asked how it feels to have a brother, Nesbit said it feels, “wonderful.”
