A 33-year-old woman was looking for her father, who had no idea she existed.

As a teenager, Catherine Benoit-Schwartz learns that she is actually an adopted daughter. No, no, she was a very happy child, she had a wonderful childhood, loving parents and wonderful brothers, but this fact did not give her peace of mind. “I was about 14 years old when I started looking at family photos and wondering why I didn’t look like any of the relatives?

My parents, wonderful people, did not evade the answer and honestly told me that they adopted me in infancy. Of course, I wanted to find out who my biological parents were.” As a rule, in the USA, when adopting new parents, they are given a birth certificate in which they are entered. But in the case of Catherine, for some reason it was different.

Her biological mother’s name was entered there, and “Unknown” was written in the column where the father’s name should have been. It was 1982, and no one had heard of the Internet. Catherine had to sift through a lot of phone books. She eventually tracked down her own grandparents, but there was no reunion. They spoke to her coldly and asked them not to bother them any longer.

Catherine was taken aback by the turn of events. But after a while, her own aunt contacted her, and as it turned out, she revealed her origin story under strict confidentiality. It turned out that mentioning Catherine in her own family is forbidden. The woman spent more than 30 years looking for her father. She was so obsessed with this concept that she infected her children with it as well.

Catherine became aware of DNA — Family Tree DNA, a website where you could search for genealogical research, in 2015. She delivered her DNA samples and waited. Casey Vandenberg was a regular 82-year-old retiree from Florida. Catherine later communicated with her father via Skype before meeting in person. “Now that we’ve found each other, we’re like children reaching for sweets.” I am overjoyed that I did not give up after all these years.”

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