A Frenchman who spent his whole adult life searching for his American father, a soldier who fought in Europe during World War II, said he was “bowled over” after coming face-to-face on Monday with a previously unknown half-brother thanks to a chance DNA breakthrough.
Andre Gantois, now aged 72, was told he was asking for the impossible when he began his search for his dad aged 20 at the US embassy in Paris, knowing only that his mother had fallen pregnant shortly after the end of the war.
She had revealed the existence of her American lover on her deathbed, when Gantois was 15, but did not share his name or any other details.
Photo: AFP
“They told me that what I was asking for was like looking for a needle in a haystack,” the retired postal worker from the Lorraine region said.
Undeterred, Andre continued to research US military and legal documents, but the breakthrough only came when his sister-in-law suggested he try a popular US DNA company MyHeritage, which specializes in family research.
“I didn’t expect anything. I’d come to the conclusion that I’d die without knowing my father,” he said.
Instead, after sending off a couple of swabs from his mouth, the group informed him that he had a match: a half-brother from South Carolina called Allen Henderson, who was seven years younger.
Henderson had also approached MyHeritage weeks before “on a whim just to see where I’m from” after seeing the company advertise its services on the Fox News channel.
“He had no idea that we were here and, of course, I wasn’t looking for him, because I had no idea that he was there,” Henderson told US television channel 7News at the end of last month.
The discovery of his half-brother softened what was a blow for Gantois: His father had died in 1997, apparently without ever knowing he had a son in France, because Gantois’ mother, Irene, had never told him she was pregnant.
On Monday, having already exchanged photographs by mail, they came face-to-face on the same windswept beach in northern France where their father landed along with hundreds of thousands of Allied forces in June 1944 to liberate France from its Nazi occupiers.
The two men share a clear resemblance, each have a black cat and both like plaid shirts.
“People around me say it’s incredible how much we look like each other. You’d really say we are brothers,” Gantois said.
“I’ll need to start studying English now,” said Gantois, who has also gained a half-sister, Judy, 70.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in