BBC Elizabeth Hamel lives in Albany, Ore. 
 
 Hunt, on the other hand, had no idea that she even had a sister. "Lizzie, Lizzie, how lovely," said Ann when she finally got to hug her sister. "How lovely to see you in the flesh," said Hamel, hugging her long-lost sister tightly. BBC Elizabeth Hamel (left) meets Ann Hunt, her long-lost twin sister. "I was over the moon, I couldn't speak," Hunt says. "I let Elizabeth speak mostly, I had to pinch myself because I realised, I've got a sibling, a sister. It's so wonderful, I'm not on my own any more. I've got no words to say. I'm so happy - I have Elizabeth." BBC Ann Hunt still lives in Aldershot, England, where she was born. They were separated at birth, and Ann was given up for adoption 
 
 On 1 May 2014, a year after that first conversation and 78 years after they were separated, Ann and Elizabeth were reunited in Fullerton, near Los Angeles, on Thursday - the longest gap on record, Guinness World Records says. Psychologist Dr. Nancy Segal, a prominent twin researcher, will be studying the women to see how their circumstances and the DNA they inherited had an effect on their personalities. "What was it in their life that caused the differences? If they're fraternal, it could be character as well as circumstance," Segal says. “We want to get a comprehensive overview of their lives, their abilities, their interests, and put it all together as an important case study.” 
 
 The twins were born Elizabeth Ann Lamb and Patricia Susan Lamb on February 28, 1936. Their unmarried mother, Alice Alexandra Patience Lamb, was in service as a domestic cook. Their father's name was Peters and he was in the army - Aldershot has had a military base since 1854 - but he never saw his daughters. Hunt was adopted by a Gladys and Hector Wilson, a couple who lived in Aldershot, and given the name Ann. For most of her life, Ann Hunt believed she was an only child, an orphan adopted by a kind mother in Aldershot, UK. Ann doesn't know why she used the word "we" - she doesn't think her adoptive mother had any idea she was a twin. The genealogy enthusiast started looking into Alice Lamb’s history. Image copyright Hunt family Image caption Alice Lamb's profession is listed as Cook (domestic) 
 
 Ann's youngest daughter, Samantha Stacey, enjoyed investigating family trees, so Ann asked her to find out more about her birth family. They knew that Alice had got married, at the age of 49, to a George Burton, in Chester, and had a stepson, Albert. She tracked down Burton’s grandson, who told her “Oh yes, Alice has a daughter in the U.S." 
 
 From then, it wasn’t too hard to locate Hamel in Oregon. She had no idea that thousands of miles away, in Albany, Ore., her twin sister Elizabeth Hamel was waiting to find her. "I had curvature of the spine, which in those days was something which made a person unadoptable," Hamel says. "We were both going to be adopted but when mother found out about the curvature of the spine, she decided to keep me." In 1936, for an unmarried woman in service to keep her child and her job was not easy. "Live-in servants virtually never had children with them - it was another mouth to feed, and might distract the servant from her duties," Gardiner says. "In those days it was a very hush-hush affair," said Hamel, the twin from Albany. When Peters left her, Alice was placed in an incredibly difficult position. The outraged mother decided to bring Hamel home to live in the servant’s quarters. It was very frightening." Elizabeth was then about three or four years old, and was looked after by a woman in Berkhamsted - her mother used to come into town to visit her on her half-day off. One week, she was unable to come on her usual day because of a big dinner party, and when she did arrive - unexpectedly - she was shocked to find her daughter dressed in rags. "She told me: 'I'd made you beautiful dresses and smocked them by hand.'" Elizabeth was then 15, and it was around this time that she remembers her mother telling her she had a twin. She even saw Ann's adoption papers, although they were lost after her mother died in 1980. "One is that grandad, when he found out she was pregnant with twins, said: 'Don't darken my door,' but the other is that he said: 'Go fetch Alice, go and get those twins, get them back.'" Somehow, Hunt was also happily married to a man named Jim, until she became a widow. It seems they also like to act up in front of the camera. They've spoken on Skype many times, and think they share some mannerisms - something else which can be inherited, according to Segal. "I look in the mirror and say 'Hello mother'," says Elizabeth. She met her husband Jim—an American—on a blind date in Malta. They were married in 1964 and stayed together for 48 years, until he died in 2012. After the two days of interviews and tests, the twins will go back to Elizabeth's home in Oregon where she is throwing a party for Ann, her daughter Samantha - and 80 of her closest friends. "I feel like I've known Liz all my life now," Hunt says.
– After nine months together in the womb but a lifetime apart, twins Ann Hunt and Elizabeth Hamel have finally been reunited. The pair—whose reunion after 78 years is a new world record—were born to an unmarried domestic servant in England in 1936 who was going to put both twins up for adoption but decided to keep Elizabeth out of fear that curvature of the spine would make her unadoptable, the BBC finds. Elizabeth learned that she had a twin when she was 15, but didn't know how to find her, while Ann, who moved to the US after marrying an American man, had no idea that she had a twin until her youngest daughter discovered her while researching the family tree. "How lovely to see you in the flesh," Elizabeth said last week when she embraced her sister for the first time. They met in California, where they took part in a study led by prominent twins researcher Dr. Nancy Segal, reports the New York Daily News. The researcher hopes the twins will be able to shed light on the nature versus nurture debate. "We want to get a comprehensive overview of their lives, their abilities, their interests, and put it all together as an important case study," she says. The sisters have found that they share several mannerisms and characteristics—and both of them married men named Jim. (Click to read about another wild reunion.)