DNA match connects man in Surrey to Canadian soldier's family in Ontario
Rod Anderson discovered his father was a Canadian soldier after an 18-year search by a family in Canada.
Rod Anderson, who was born in Farnham in 1945, has discovered that his father was a Canadian soldier through a DNA match, according to the Times of India.
The search for the identity of his father was concluded after Bethany Allen, the granddaughter of Canadian soldier Charles Blakney, took an Ancestry DNA test in spring 2026.
Blakney, a soldier from New Brunswick who served with the New Brunswick Rangers, had a family rumour that he fathered a child in Britain during the Second World War.
Allen requested divorce records in 2008 which confirmed a child was born in Britain during the war, though the records did not reveal the child's identity.
The DNA results identified Anderson, who lives in Surrey, as Allen's half-uncle.
Anderson now has a 77-year-old half-sister, Barb Lowe, in St. Thomas, Ontario, and the two speak every week.