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Vancouver Islander Finally Finds the Answers About Her Lost Family She Always Wanted
A DNA test and MyHeritage match led to contact with Dutch relatives who found family albums and poetry books preserved for nearly a century.
- On Sept. 12, Comox Valley resident Kim Brands will welcome Dutch relatives Chantal Heus and Menno Neuwhoeven, reuniting families separated by decades following a March 8 MyHeritage DNA match.
- Heus's parents discovered two preserved albums while cleaning the room of the late Maria Nieuwhof-De Rooij in Spanbroek, Netherlands, containing poetry by Sonja Solomons and photos of Dora Ihle and Joel Solomons.
- While her grandfather, Joel Solomons, survived the war, many relatives were sent to concentration camps and did not return, a topic Brands said was "too depressing" to explore growing up.
- The families have maintained daily contact via email and video calls, with Heus and Neuwhoeven planning to hand over the recovered artifacts to Brands, restoring items lost for nearly a century.
- Before their departure on Sept. 22, Brands plans to show the visitors around the Island, fulfilling a family history that Brands previously only possessed through fragmented "breadcrumbs" of information.
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Total News Sources3
Leaning Left3Leaning Right0Center0Last UpdatedBias Distribution100% Left
Bias Distribution
- 100% of the sources lean Left
100% Left
L 100%
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