Korean Sisters Reunited Thanks to MyHeritage DNA
-
by Esther ·
- March 18, 2020
- · User Stories
In December 2019, an incredible reunion took place. Sisters Kim and Trine met in Copenhagen. Watch their moving reunion here:
Kim Ok Le, 43, was abandoned in a Catholic church in Daegu, South Korea as a baby. After a brief period spent at the White Lily Orphanage in Daegu, she was placed for adoption with an Italian family in September 1976.
Kim was always curious about her biological family, and around 20 years ago, she traveled to Korea to look for information about them. She visited the agency that had placed her for adoption and was able to recover her adoption files — and inside was a huge surprise: a handwritten letter from her mother.
The mother wrote in the letter that the child’s father was killed in a car accident, and that she herself had been seriously injured, and was therefore unable to raise the child by herself. The mother also said that she was considering taking her own life, and begged whoever found her daughter to raise the child well.
Kim naturally assumed that the narrative in the letter was true: her parents were probably dead, and her unfortunate mother had abandoned her because she was unable to care for her due to her injuries.
She still wanted to find out if she had living relatives, though, and at some point did a DNA test with a private agency, but the results were inconclusive. A year and a half ago, she took a MyHeritage DNA test, but got no significant results.
And then, out of the blue, she received an email that turned everything she thought she knew about her story on its head. She had a DNA match through MyHeritage, and the estimated relationship was for a full sister.
Trine Jensen, 40, was born in Busan in 1978, and was abandoned by her mother at the age of 1 year, 3 months. After a while at the NamKwang Orphanage in Busan, she was adopted by a Danish family in 1980. She, too, had tried to find her biological family, and learned from the Korean Social Services that her biological mother had tried to find her a few times during the 80s.
About a year ago, Trine took the MyHeritage DNA test just to learn more about her ethnicity. She never expected to find any of her relatives — let alone a sister!
Kim and Trine are full sisters, which means that what Kim’s mother wrote in her initial letter could not have been true. Kim’s father must have been alive when Kim was abandoned. Was the letter a fake? Or did Kim’s mother invent the story to protect her child from a different narrative?
The matter of adoption is an open wound in South Korean society: the Korean War and the Vietnam War brought 2 decades of American military presence in the region, and many multiracial children were born from relationships between American soldiers and local women. These children were shunned by society — people saw their very existence as being problematic. The nation’s leaders instituted a policy of sending these children abroad for international adoption. But it wasn’t only multiracial children who were placed for adoption: children born out of wedlock, or to families struggling with financial hardship, also placed them for adoption to ensure a better future for them.
By the early 80s, 24 Korean children were adopted by foreigners every day. An estimated 200,000 Korean children have been placed for adoption all over the world since the 1950s.
At the moment, the origins of the letter Kim found in her adoption files remain a mystery. But in the meantime, the sisters are making up for lost time. In December 2019, they met in person when Kim came to visit Trine in Copenhagen.
The sisters are still hoping to find their biological mother in Korea — and wondering if there are any more siblings they haven’t found yet.
“Emotionally, that’s a whole new world,” says Kim. “It was the beginning of a new search that I’d given up on.”
“I found out about my roots, and then I got a sister!” says Trine. “This outcome has been the best present I could ever have imagined.”
Kim and Trine’s story is the third case of Korean adoptees that MyHeritage DNA was able to reunite in the past 2 years. One of those cases involved another pair of full sisters who were both abandoned and placed in the same orphanage as Kim — and was developed into a documentary film called The Missing Piece.
More from User Stories
A Holiday Surprise: Descendants Get 100-Year-Old Holiday Cards From Their Ancestors
Oh the joy of receiving personalized Seasons Greetings from family and friends! This stalwart tradition of connecting with loved ones around the holidays may have evolved over the years, but the sentiment to share holiday cheer has endured. Still looking to spread holiday joy...
MyHeritage Helps Man Track Down a Family’s Descendant to Discuss the Past
MyHeritage enables millions of users to discover their past and empower their future, and we have played a part in many incredible stories. Recently, a German MyHeritage user, Thomas Edelmann, spoke with us and requested help. His motive? To make a long-overdue apology. Today,...
MyHeritage Reunites Daughter with Father Who Didn’t Know She Exists
When Seraine Danner was 7 years old, she learned something earth-shattering: she had a biological father and had no idea who he was. After almost 10 years of searching, a DNA match on MyHeritage finally led her to her birth father, and the two...
Half Siblings Reunite After Over 80 Years Thanks to MyHeritage DNA!
Torsten Simander, 85, from Stockholm was born to a single mom on March 15, 1934. After living for 7 years with his grandparents, he was then raised by his mother Lisa and stepfather. At a young age, Torsten learned that his father was a...
DNA Match Leads Woman to Uncover the Past Her Grandmother Was Too Traumatized to Tell
First-generation Canadian Stephanie Gustys has always had an interest in family history. As the child of a British immigrant mother and a Lithuanian refugee father, she’d always had a natural curiosity about their origins. But finding information about them wasn’t easy: she had no...
Through MyHeritage, Great-Grandmother of 2 is Reunited with Uncles and Aunt She Never Knew Existed
Shona Wise was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and immigrated to Perth, Australia with her family as a young child. She had always been intrigued by her family history — she knew her mother had been born out of wedlock in Scotland in 1937, but...
Newfound in Newfoundland: Thanks to MyHeritage DNA, Daughter Finds Father Who Never Knew She Existed
Linda Brown grew up in Newfoundland, Canada knowing she’d been adopted. In her late 20s, she met her biological mother, but the identity of her birth father remained a mystery… until she took a MyHeritage DNA test. Watch her emotional reunion with her father...
Woman Finds Her Birth Father After 20+ Years of Searching
Thanks to MyHeritage DNA, a woman from Michigan gave the surprise of a lifetime to an army veteran in Florida: she was his daughter, and she had been searching for him for 23 years. Watch their moving reunion here: Melissa Porter, 47, was raised...
75 Years After 2-Year-Old and Mother Separated at Auschwitz, Their Families Find Each Other
When Clare Reay’s son bought her a MyHeritage DNA test, she hoped to discover a little about her mother’s ethnic background. She never imagined that the test would lead her to solve the mystery of her mother’s origins and find the sisters who had...
Share