‘Like winning the lottery’: Long-lost brothers reunited by DNA test after nearly 80 years | Canada Voices

Frank McGrath spent the first 76 years of his life believing he was an only child. Last year, his world was forever changed by the discovery that he had a half-brother.

It was a keen interest in genealogy that led to the revelation. McGrath, who lives in Longueuil, Que., had spent several years delving into the history of his family. He decided to take a DNA test as part of his research, and in September, 2024, he received a notice from MyHeritage: The company had found a connection to his half-brother, Frans Bannink, a 79-year-old living in Almelo, a city in the Netherlands.

“This surprise was completely out of nowhere, with a very precise and strong match,” McGrath said. “I don’t think our father ever knew he had another child.”

Bannink, who grew up without any knowledge of who his father was, had been persuaded by his granddaughter, Amber Hogervorst, to take the DNA test.

The men’s father, Staff Sergeant Dermot L. McGrath, passed away in 1999. During the Second World War, he was part of the army’s 4th Canadian Division, which continued to supply food to the starving Dutch people after the fighting ended.

“We’ve concluded that he was stationed on one of those humanitarian missions in the same area where Frans’ mother was,” said Frank McGrath, who has been slowly putting the pieces of the story together by studying his father’s file from Library and Archives Canada. “We assume that he met Frans’s mother in June or July of 1945.”

Months later, the soldier was redeployed to Belgium, where one of the few functional ports in Europe was located, to lead the distribution of foodstuffs. There, he met McGrath’s mother, who was also Dutch – she was on holiday – in September 1945. They married with special dispensation from the Canadian Army on Dec. 14; he was repatriated in January and she got her immigration papers as a Canadian war bride that October.

Bannink was born on May 26, 1946 in Wierdan, the Netherlands, presumably unbeknownst to his father. McGrath was born in Shawinigan Falls, Que., on Feb. 29, 1948.

“I was very touched, happy, emotional to know that I had a half-brother who, for my whole life, I didn’t know I had,” McGrath said. “I received photographs of him when I first heard the news and he’s the spitting image of our father.”

In April, McGrath and his wife travelled to Almelo to meet Bannink in person. He described the reunion as “tearful,” but “in a joyful sense.”

“We both were awkward at first, but the minute we embraced, the floodgates opened and it was the start of a beautiful relationship,” he said. Bannink described the meeting as “emotional” and “unreal.”

For Hogervorst, the discovery of her great-grandfather’s identity and the existence of her great-uncle was a welcome surprise.

“When we heard he was Canadian, there was a little spark of joy,” she said.

Bannink, who is nearing 80, initially insisted that his flying years were behind him, but he had a change of heart and travelled to Canada with Hogervorst in early December to celebrate St. Nicholas Day with McGrath.

“Even though I had a Dutch mother, we never celebrated St. Nicholas Day here in Canada,” McGrath said. “It was special for them to come here and for me to celebrate that with my children and grandchildren.”

During the visit, McGrath and his wife gave Bannink and Hogervorst “an intense family education,” including a tour of Saint-Henri and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, the Montreal neighbourhoods where the men’s father once lived, as well as a visit to the home in St. Lambert where McGrath spent much of his childhood.

While the families don’t know when they’ll see each other in person again, they keep in touch over WhatsApp and FaceTime. Bannink is working on his English and McGrath is practising his Dutch. Hogervorst, who is bilingual, serves as a translator when necessary.

McGrath is still researching his family tree and provides updates to his brother any time he discovers something new about their shared history.

“It’s important at our ages, late in our lives, to fill in the blanks because our parents never really talked about it,” he said. “Learning this news has been like winning the lottery.”