Bath woman's 50-year search to find half-sister in DNA programme

Janet Dabbs (right), her sister Liz George (left) and their new-found Austrian half sister Renate (middle)

A woman has tracked down her half sister after living with the rumour of her existence for half a century.

When Janet Dabbs' father returned as a British prisoner of war during World War Two, she heard that he possibly fathered a child while in Austria.

Ms Dabbs, from Bath, said he never spoke about it and she "never asked".

When they were finally brought together in a BBC Two television programme, Ms Dabb's said: "You've been in our hearts and in our minds for 50 years."

Janet Dabbs (left) and her sister Liz George (right) spent 50 years wondering whether they had a half sister

Her story featured in episode one of the second series of DNA Family Secrets.

Ms Dabbs, 62, and her sister, Liz George, both agreed to take a DNA test to help unlock the genetic mystery.

Results confirmed a paternal match with a 76-year-old Austrian woman named Renate, whose daughter was on a DNA database.

On meeting her sisters, Renate told them she was "so happy", adding: "It's so lovely".

Renate said it was "so lovely" to meet her sisters

Ms Dabbs said she had been about nine or 10-years-old when her parents had friends around to the house and the secret was accidentally revealed.

"One of the guests said [to my dad], 'what's this I hear that you've got a daughter in Austria?'," she said.

"My ears just kind of pricked up and I was like 'What? Wow, really?'"

Janet Dabbs’ mother Jean, 21, and father Danny, 31, on their wedding day in December 1946

She said the guests were "almost ejected" from the house following the conversation and although she told her sister Liz, they "never mentioned it to either of my parents".

Describing her father, Mrs Dabbs said he "was always quite open" and used to talk about experiences in the past, including the war.

"But [he] never touched on the fact that he had a child in Austria," she added.

Genealogist Professor Turi King helped the sisters through the DNA process

She said it was only when her mother was in her 80s and her dad had died that she asked about what she had heard.

She said her mother "went quite rigid and didn't want to discuss it at all".

Ms Dabbs said her mother's response was "enough confirmation" that she felt it was true, but that without the DNA test she could have spent her whole life with the possibility of "never knowing she had another sibling".

The six-part television series, fronted by Stacey Dooley, can be watched on BBC Two and iPlayer.