Family history website makes 3 siblings meet after 70 years

After discovering each other through a DNA match on a family history website, three half-siblings in their 70s have met for the first time.

A genealogy kit for Christmas was given to Josie Morey, 76, from the Isle of Wight by her granddaughter to find out more about her mixed-race heritage, reported BBC.

It resulted in the two matches with 77-year-old Jim McLoughlin in Liverpool and Lorraine Williams, 74, in Canada.

The trio share the same father and were all born in Liverpool. At a Southhampton hotel, they hugged and laughed as they met.

With her parents, Lorraine emigrated to Canada when she was two years old. She said that she had no idea her half-siblings existed.

Then, she joined the MyHeritage site and found Josie, who had been put in a Barnardo's home as a child and the Isle of Wight woman eventually fostered her.

Josie said: "I was unplaceable because I was sort of in-between. I wasn't one or the other, black or white and nobody wanted me."

She said that her heritage was jokingly discussed by her family in later life which prompted her granddaughter to buy the DNA kit.

The retired magistrate and health worker said: "It's been such an experience to find out we came from St Kitts originally."

On the other hand, Jim, who is a former amateur boxer and nightclub manager and was raised in convents, said he used to think that he had no other relatives.

He said: "I didn't have any heritage [and] I've gone full circle, from nothing to finding out what my background is.”