MyHeritage DNA discovery stuns Sydney grandmother with a new brother after seven decades

A Sydney woman who grew up as a single child of a Holocaust survivor couldn’t believe it when a MyHeritage DNA test revealed a brother she never suspected she had.

A Sydney grandmother who did a DNA test from a family history website has discovered a long lost brother she never knew existed, seven decades later, living in Canada.

He’s since flown out to Sydney and reunited with his new sister, who had been an only child and “always wanted a sibling”.

The eastern suburbs mother of three and grandmother of seven, Catherine, 76, was trying to find out more about her father when she signed up to MyHeritage and did the simple DNA saliva test.

Born in Hungary in the aftermath of World War 11, in 1947, Catherine had been told her father had died, and she knew nothing more about his family.

Her own mother, Jolan, had survived the horrors of concentrations camps including Auschwitz, and had decided to make a new life for herself and her daughter by moving to Canada when Catherine was four years old.

MyHeritage DNA united Sydney grandmother Catherine with her unknown brother, Michael, from Canada, they met in late in 2022. “He had my mother’s curly hair.”

Little did she know that her mother was pregnant during one point in her childhood - when she was sent to live for several months with great aunts in New York.

It was then Catherine later found out her mother gave up her half brother, Michael, five years younger, for adoption.

Pictured as a child: Catherine, from Sydney’s eastern suburbs, endured time spent in refugee camps in Europe in the aftermath of World War 11, where he mother was a Holocaust survivor.

Later, in 1971, Catherine moved to Sydney and went on to have her own family.

“My mother gave very little details about my father and she said she just didn’t remember, and that he died when I was around nine months or so,” she said.

“I always had it in the back of my mind maybe he’s alive somewhere.

“My search was for my father but out popped a brother.

Michael, Catherine's brother from Canada, as a child, coincidentally also did a MyHeritage DNA test and discovered his sister.

“I was in a state of shock, I couldn’t believe it.

“It never entered my mind. Oddly enough, my eldest daughter said to me, you did once say that you have a feeling that you have somebody out there, but you don’t know what relation. Which was true.”

In Montreal, her brother Michael, now 70, also signed up to MyHeritage and did the DNA test. He knew he had been adopted, and had waited until the passing of his adoptive parents to start searching for his own origins.

Jolan, the mother of Michael and Catherine, had survived Auschwitz and other concentration camps, and took her secrets to her grave.

He too was astonished at the match, knowing nothing about his origins.

After the connection popped up, they corresponded, meet on Zoom, and despite several trips being postponed as a result of the pandemic, they finally meet in person in October last year when Michael flew to Sydney.

“When I saw his picture, I said, well well there’s no doubt whatsoever. The resemblance to my mother is quite notable. He has the same eyes.”

She says “we clicked almost immediately” and she now has a younger brother “I can boss around, to make up for all the years we missed out on”.

They plan to make keep in touch with regular visits. And she also discovered, through Jewish genealogy records in Canada, from notes of a social worker that her father who was a photographer.

“Apparently after surviving the war, the Russians must have noticed he took some pictures that they weren’t happy with and they took him away never to be heard of again,” Catherine said.