Adopted daughter finds mother again at 83 with DNA test
https://tribunatreviso.gelocal.itegione/2023/08/27ews/figlia_adottiva_ritrova_mamma_a_83_anni_con_la_prova_del_dna-13013685/?fbclid=IwAR3TL6DQ4A6Q7ZWDNiyCC94a03tpmoweVV7coON52endThdFjD6FLvuSyPw_aem_AVQSDS92DVgqchqdqJPAzVA-VyuUZxpaRxmHZsdb-EpWvQ-I2C5S5OnfqfJPRsVk0Rc&mibextid=Zxz2cZ
A former janitor from Castelfranco, she was able to visit the tomb of the woman who gave birth to her and then left her in an orphanage. Thanks to genetic research in the USA she has embraced her relatives
He searches for his real mother all his life and finds her again - when his daughter is 83 years old - on Mother's Day, last May. And all this thanks to a DNA that bounces from Italy, to the USA, to Germany and then lands again in Italy, between Veneto and Friuli.
The story of Dina Zulian, now 85, from Sant'Andrea Oltre Muson , where she is well known, having been the janitor of that school for many years, is nothing short of incredible. But also for her children Marisa, Claudio, Lucia and Raffaella Bellon who managed to fulfill her mother's dream.
It all begins in 1938, when a young obstetrics student in Padua, Vincenza Traverso , born in 1916, originally from the Asiago plateau, finds herself pregnant. The father of the unborn child is a man a little older than her.
Everything could be resolved with a "repair" marriage. But here Vincenza's mother intervenes and changes the course of her daughter's life and of the one she is carrying in her womb, saying a categorical "no" to the wedding.
All that remains for Vincenza is to entrust the little girl to the Esposti of the Ognissanti church in Padua , where the little girl is registered with the name of Bianca Dina Dinestri. Here the little girl remained until 1941 when she was adopted by the Zulian family of Sant'Andrea Oltre Muson.
In the meantime, the years go by, Vincenza gets married and has two more children: he tries in every way to recover even the eldest daughter, but he can't do it. Whenever she goes to the orphanage with one excuse or another she can't see her. And she understands that it will be impossible.
Dina's life continues peacefully at Sant'Andrea, she knows she was adopted, she has an excellent relationship with her adoptive parents. Someone in the country seems to know something more, even though they don't know the name of the real mother. But more than a few times someone tells her that she has the hands of a midwife.
In 1960 Dina married Fortunato Bellon: but at that time she wanted to go back to her roots. Unfortunately, she comes up against a wall of silence from both the civil and religious sides: in addition to the fact that she was adopted, she is unable to go. "It has always been a worry for her," emphasize her children. "Every year, on her birthday, she said 'remember my mum that it's my birthday today? '".
The turning point came in 2018, thanks to his children, in particular Claudio who has lived and worked in California, in the USA, for years. He knows that, unlike in Italy, DNA research can be easily done through databases in the public domain at an international level. In one of his frequent visits to his mother, he takes some saliva from her and takes the test tube to America. But no particular findings emerge.
In 2022, the unexpected happens: a young woman from Pordenone, who is looking for relatives scattered around the world, does the same operation, sending a sample from her father to Germany . And this time a result arrives: the DNA is perfectly compatible with that of Dina.
The young woman from Pordenone then gets in touch with the person who gave her DNA in the USA. And it turns out that the father is Claudio's first cousin, ergo Dina is his aunt. And he is the nephew of Vincenza, the aspiring midwife. At this point, thanks to his children, contacts with this family begin and the man almost faints when he notices the great resemblance between the two. They too knew of a child Vincenza had had, but nothing more. They thought she died in infancy.
«We immediately found great availability», say the Bellon brothers, «in reconstructing this whole story after more than eighty years. Now that we had a name we were able to trace many relatives that we obviously didn't know we had.
The key moment was recorded last May, precisely on Mother's Day, when Dina and her children went to the cemetery of Pradipozzo, a hamlet of Portogruaro. Here, for the first time. Dina can finally see the face of her real mother. But not only that: not far away, she also discovers her two brothers that she has never met, both recently disappeared, one in 2019 and one in 2020. And who had tried to track down her sister in Padua. From her mouth in front of her tombstone only one sentence: "I've finally found you."
«It was an indescribable moment for everyone», say the Bellon brothers, «For their mother, a radical change. And even though she is her age, she wanted to deepen all family relationships." Even towards Dina's grandmother, or Vincenza's mother, who with her no, changed her destiny: «Dear grandmother, look, you were mean towards me, he told her when we found her tomb in Costabissara» , the children remember.
The story will have an epilogue today with a reunion of the Bellon family because Claudio has returned from the USA. And for mother Dina there is a special gift given by a family friend, the well-known illustrator Alessandro Gatto: a portrait of her and her real mother, very similar. Finally together.