Rachel Mallon and Suzanne Hadley met 10 years ago when their 4-year-old sons played T-ball together. The mothers instantly bonded. Over the years, the boys and their subsequent siblings shared elementary school classes, celebrated birthdays together and played on the same sports teams. Hadley and Mallon remained dear friends, living mere blocks from each other in Manhattan Beach.

Last month, the two discovered they are long-lost cousins.

When Mallon was in seventh grade, she worked on a family tree project for a class. She learned that her maternal family was from Boonville, Ind., before her grandmother moved to California. After meeting some dead ends in 1980 as she began researching her genealogy, Mallon halted her efforts until four years ago, when her son was assigned a family tree project in fifth grade.

Mallon spent hours and hours researching online, poring over old census records and calling priests, until she had pieced together a vivid picture of her paternal family's days as gentry in Ireland. Then she decided to re-explore the ancestors of her mother, who had died when Mallon was 20. She dug out a letter sent to her 30 years ago by her great-aunt, which mentioned that woman's daughter, Nancy. After tracking down Nancy's Wisconsin phone number, Mallon made the call on Jan. 4. Nancy called back that night.

"I can't believe you found me. We always wondered where you were," Nancy told her.

Nancy's daughter Libby, who was visiting her mom, noticed Mallon's phone number on the caller ID and told Nancy that it had to be a Manhattan Beach number.


"Do you live in Manhattan Beach?" Nancy asked Mallon. "I have a daughter who lives on 31st Street. Her name is Suzanne Hadley."

"It was the first time ever I couldn't talk," Mallon said. "I had just talked to Suzanne the day before. I didn't know if I should cry or fall over."

Mallon now knew that she and Hadley's grandmothers were sisters, making the two friends second cousins.

Mallon immediately yelled down to her son, Riley. "Riley! You and Jack Hadley are cousins," she told him. He immediately got on his cell phone to call Jack, and they started posting updates on Facebook.

"They're like, 'We're cousins!' and their friends were like, 'No way!' " Mallon said, laughing.

A few days after the discovery, Hadley's mother, Nancy, met Mallon for the first time. She was finally able to fill in the missing pieces of Mallon's life. Now Mallon knows her eyes are just like her mother and grandmother's, and she knows her grandmother had a coveted pair of bright red slingbacks.

Hadley said the big quandary in their house now is — "What do we call Mr. and Mrs. Mallon now?"

"I feel blessed to be related to somebody that I already love," Hadley said.

For Mallon, who spent years doing the extensive genealogy research, the puzzle of her beginnings is finally being solved. She plans on visiting Boonville soon and she continues to talk to Nancy and ask questions about her maternal family.

"We need her as much as she needs us," Nancy told Hadley. "We want to know everything about the California side of the family ... We need Rachel."

Meanwhile, the Mallon and Hadley children — Riley and Kate Mallon; Jack, Claire, Ellen and Faith Hadley — continue to do what they've always done, hang out together. Jack has always been a mainstay in the Mallon house for studying after school. One time, after Mallon drove him home, he told Hadley, "You know, Mom, (Rachel's) the nicest mom in the whole world."

"I told my kids the moral is: Be nice to everybody because you might find out you're related to them," Hadley said.