Sisters reunited after 60 years apart
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Teresa Scharf has lived in central Ohio for decades, but was born in Athens, Greece. She was adopted as a 7-month-old from Madera Baby Center in Athens. Her adoptive parents were both in the US Navy at the time, so she grew up moving all over the world.
It wasn't until she was grown and ready to start her own family that she became curious about her ancestry.
"The first time I really felt an interest was when I got… when my husband and I were expecting our first child, and I was like, ‘How, how could you give this baby away?’" she said.
Scharf said that her adoptive parents would not have been receptive to many questions about her biological parents. She felt as if it would have been insulting to ask them. After her adoptive parents died, she began to wonder more seriously.
Scharf contacted the Efthichia Project, an organization that helps Greek adoptees find their families.
“The first thing she said was, ‘You need to do a DNA test,’" she said.
To her surprise, Scharf was met with positive results. She matched with a first cousin who lived in Chicago, and traveled to meet him and his family.
"It was the first time I'd ever met a blood relative ever, and at that point, I was 63 years old,” Scharf said. “This proved that they exist and there was a way to find them. I said to a very dear friend of mine later, ‘I wish I had started this process 30 years ago.’”
Scharf’s story wasn't finished there. She found through the work of the Efthichia Project that she had about a dozen first cousins living in Greece. She traveled there and met her cousins who welcomed her with open arms.
"They were all talking and trying to figure out which one of her uncle's is her father or which one of our dads is her father," she said.
Then she received the call she thought may never come.
"She said, ‘The results are in. Angie is your sister,’” Scharf said. “And so I called Angie then and it was, I don't know, two in the morning in Greece when I called her. And, we just… she said, ‘Do you have results?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I do, and they confirmed that you and I are sisters.’ And I felt like we were two 10-year-old little girls. Just we just giggled and laughed the whole time. It was just so joyful.”
Scharf called her sister right away and planned another visit to Greece to meet in person.
On March 17 of this year, she flew into Athens, Greece where she met her sister Angie for the first time.
"I saw her, and I knew who she was and all I could do was walk up to her, wrap my arms around her, and just hug her, and she me, and we did that for a long time,” Scharf said. “We talked about everything, mostly about our father. She let me know what he was like as a person. And some of his characteristics and how I reminded her of him. I felt like I was a sponge trying to absorb 60 years' worth of information in a short span of time. But I… we immediately seemed to connect with one another. And, I mean, I could look in her eyes and just feel like we were we were part of each other. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing.”
“It was unbelievable. It is still unbelievable to me," said Scharf’s sister Angeliki (Angie) Palaeologou, via Zoom with the Efthichia Project.
Scharf was learning about her birth father, and spending every waking moment with her sister Palaeologou, who joked about their father, "Father, someday someone will knock my door and say, 'Hello sis.' This was a joke going on for years and years," Scharf said.
The journey isn't over yet for Scharf. She plans on visiting her sister and cousins again later this year. Then she wants to find out more about her biological mother's family as well.
"Everything that we've found so far is on my father's side, so we still don't know about my mother,” Scharf said. “Now there is a name on my birth. Oh, my birth certificate. So we have a name. I may have other half siblings, you know, all over Greece or maybe elsewhere in the world, maybe here in the U.S.”
The key to the life-changing discovery is the ability to submit a DNA test through MyHeritage or other ancestry and genealogy platforms. Technological advancements have connected people across the world who never would have otherwise found each other.
"I have an identity that I never had before. Having the access to be able to do the DNA testing is and it's such a simple process that that's made all the difference. There's always hope and there's always a way to try to find, especially now with the DNA that is that is the key. And if you if you just start looking, you may find something," Scharf said.