Two women adopted from India and raised by Dutch families discovered they are biological sisters following a DNA test notification, leading to an emotional reunion decades after their initial friendship.

Meena Geltink, 43, received a Facebook message this spring from her childhood friend, Minali Tijssen, 44, who asked if she had also been notified of a DNA match on the genealogy platform MyHeritage. Both women, adopted from India in the 1980s and brought up in different Dutch families less than 100 miles apart, had earlier taken DNA tests in search of biological relatives. Geltink had initially deleted the app due to a lack of results but reinstalled it after Tijssen’s message, confirming that they shared the same parents.

The two first met as teenagers during an event for adopted children and quickly became friends, recognizing physical resemblances in each other. Despite growing up in loving adoptive families with siblings, both expressed a long-standing sense of loneliness and a searching for identity in predominantly white Dutch communities.

“I burst into tears” upon seeing the DNA match, Geltink said in a phone interview. When they were younger, a chance encounter at an Austrian campsite had already hinted at their connection when Geltink was mistaken for Tijssen by a close friend of Tijssen’s. Over the years, however, their contact waned until their recent reunion in a park in ‘s-Hertogenbosch with their partners and children.

The discovery of close biological relatives through consumer DNA testing is not uncommon worldwide, but experts note that locating family members within the adoptive country is rare. Jorge de Boer, a therapist in the Netherlands who supports adoptees, explained that cultural and linguistic differences often complicate relationships between biological relatives raised in separate countries.

The Netherlands had a significant number of international adoptions throughout the 20th century, including tens of thousands of children from abroad. However, adoption from other countries has declined in recent years amid concerns about past abuses. In 2021, Dutch authorities temporarily suspended all international adoptions after investigations revealed failures to address child trafficking and theft between 1967 and 1998. Subsequently, Dutch lawmakers voted in 2024 to phase out intercountry adoption over six years, citing the approach as unsustainable for safeguarding children’s best interests.

Melissa Houben, coordinator at INEA, a Dutch center supporting internationally adopted individuals, described this case as extraordinary. “Recognizing yourself in another person is something surreal and indescribable,” she said, adding that reunions can evoke a broad spectrum of emotions, from joy to intensity.

While Geltink felt that finding her sister completed a longstanding personal puzzle, she also mourned the years lost. “A sister is something really wonderful to have,” she said. “We both had that feeling [of loneliness] for years — like you’re always looking for something, but you don’t know what.” The sisters now hope to build a relationship, overcoming the decades of separation that had left a quiet void in both their lives.