“I’d always wished for a big brother and I found out I have three,” the actress revealed on Instagram
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NEED TO KNOW
- Melissa Gilbert revealed that she has three older brothers she hadn’t met before
- The Little House on the Prairie star announced on Instagram that she found her three siblings on her biological mother’s side
- Gilbert had previously met her birth father’s family decades prior
Melissa Gilbert’s wish for a big brother has come true, threefold.
The Little House on the Prairie alum, 62, revealed on Instagram on Thursday, July 9, that she recently discovered — after “a remarkable few weeks” — that she has three older brothers she previously did not know about from her birth mother’s side of the family.
Gilbert, who was adopted at birth by Barbara Cowan (née Crane) and Paul Gilbert, wrote that she plans to detail the experience on Substack and shared an additional message from one of her newfound siblings.
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“For those who don’t know, I was adopted at birth. For which I will be eternally grateful. Decades ago, I found my birth father’s family. Including my three older half siblings. Those relationships were a bit fraught. Not very close and still full of secrets. Not what I’d hoped but ultimately an important part of my story and one for which I will always be grateful to them for,” Gilbert wrote. “A few weeks ago I connected, trough an app with my fifth biological cousin on my birth mothers side.”
That cousin, Harry, then led Gilbert to her biological siblings on her “birth mother’s side,” as she compared his methods to those of Finding Your Roots host Henry Louis Gates Jr.
“I’d always wished for a big brother and I found out I have three,” Gilbert wrote, tagging the two surviving siblings, Matt and Laird. They also have a late brother named Mark.
Matt wrote in his own message that he’s “looking forward to seeing where this new chapter leads” and that the discovery of Gilbert as his sibling “wasn’t on my 2026 bingo card.”
“After 66 years, I learned that my brothers Laird Steven E. Paine and Mark A. Olson Sr. and I have a biological sister! Unfortunately Mark Is no longer here to share in the excitement, but his son Mark Olson is,” Matt wrote. “Some of you already know this story, but many of you don’t. It’s been an incredible few weeks of discovering family history, sharing stories, asking a million questions, and getting to know someone I never knew existed.”
That “little sister,” Matt added, was indeed Gilbert. “Before anyone asks, the part that means the most to me isn’t that she’s a public figure. It’s that we’ve finally found each other after a lifetime apart,” he wrote. “I also want to point out that my adopted sister, Marianna, who has been my sister my entire life, is my rock! Finding a biological sister doesn’t change that one bit. I’m incredibly fortunate to have both of them in my life.”
He added, “None of this would have happened without our incredible cousin Harry Lee Scott, who connected all the dots. Harry, thank you! You gave us a gift that words can’t fully express.”
Matt concluded that “family has a funny way finding each other, even after 62 years.”
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Gilbert, also sister to Jonathan and Sara Gilbert, is no stranger to diving into her family history. During a July 2025 episode of Patrick Labyorteaux’s podcast The Patrick LabyorScheaux, she said she learned more about her birth parents when she “started searching” for them.
Her birth parents, she explained, had been married to other people, welcomed three children each and “ran off together and conceived me on a motorcycle trip in the desert.”
Ultimately, they decided to place her for adoption. Her birth mother was an exotic dancer and her birth father was a stock car racer and musician, she added. Her birth mother died before they got to meet, while her birth father was already aware of her upon their first interaction.
“I didn’t tell him who I was, and then he asked me, ‘Well, who are you? What do you do?’” she shared, before referring to her character of Laura Ingalls. “And I said, ‘Well, here’s the thing.’ And I said, ‘Did you ever watch Little House on the Prairie?’ And he said, ‘You’re Laura, aren’t you? I knew it.’ He knew it.”
She added, “He could see. And when I met my half siblings, we all look alike. So you could definitely see it. It’s pretty clear.”
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