I Finally Met the Half-Brother I Found Through MyHeritage DNA

By Daniella

July 27, 2022

Anna Sardis grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, in a family of Greek immigrants. She always knew that she was born in Greece, but what she didn’t know — until she was an adult — was that she had been adopted. After finding her biological mother’s family, she took a DNA test and uploaded her data to MyHeritage — and found a half-brother on her biological father’s side!

This is her story:

When I was in my 20s, I moved into my parents’ house and started going through old files in the basement. When I got to the 1960s, I found some information that just didn’t add up. My brother was born in 1965, and I found a medical record indicating that my mother had had a miscarriage in September of that year. That meant it was impossible that my brother could have been born to her 3 months later.

I started digging for more information, and soon learned that my parents had adopted both me and my brother from the same orphanage in Athens.

Still, out of respect for the family that raised me, I decided not to act on this information right away. It was only 30 years later that I started actively searching for my biological family in Greece.

People know everyone in small villages in Greece, so I decided to try searching for my family by traveling there in June of 2019 — I found out that my mother had passed away at age 52, but I had 3 half-sisters, uncles, aunts, and first cousins! I was flabbergasted, thrilled, and grateful that they welcomed me. I went back to meet them in September of that year.

A new discovery with DNA

After I came back to the States, I took a DNA test to see if I could find anything else about my family, but didn’t get any interesting matches. Then I uploaded my results to MyHeritage. To my disbelief, I learned that I had a half-brother in Sweden, but this time from my biological father’s side!

I immediately started writing to him, and the rest is history.

Anna with her half-brother Mats

We planned on meeting in March of 2020, but just a few days before Mats flight, we were on COVID lockdown.

It was quite depressing, but we continued talking, almost every day, getting to know each other more and more. Mats bought another ticket in 2021, only to cancel yet again because of COVID. We thought to ourselves, we can’t die before we meet!

By the grace of God, the third time was the charm and Mats finally came to meet me in May 2022. Here’s a video we took of the moment we finally met in person.

It was an amazing two weeks! He is now back in Sweden and we are planning on another meetup soon! My sisters are coming to America in July for my son’s wedding and I count my blessings each and every day that my family is growing in such wonderful ways!