Family Tree Tracker Website Reunites Cousins After 70 Years

December 18, 2007 10:18 p.m. EST

Coconut Creek, FL (AHN) - A web search reunited two South Florida sisters with their Russian cousin, after being separated for 70 years. The three were pulled apart back in 1937, when the Soviet Union forced their parents to flee to the United States, taking them along.

Ossie Rasher, 81, and Sophia Altfield, 78, were reunited with their cousin Rosalie Berkovich, 80, after Berkovich's son scoured Google and found Rasher and Altfield's names on a genealogy website earlier this month. The three met up only a few weeks after.

"It's like an impossible dream," claimed Atfield, whose Coconut Creek, Fla. home served as the meeting place of the cousins after being separated for decades. Berkovich flew to Florida from Action, Mass., where she resided, according to the AP.

Berkovich explained that strained situations in the country had also prevented them from contacting each other after the sisters were taken to the United States.

"Our country was a closed country," the Boston Herald quoted her. "If you have some contact with foreign people it was dangerous."

Rasher described the reunion's atmosphere: "It's like we'd known each other and seen each other almost everyday since (1937)... There's no strangeness between us at all. And we can't wait to get together again."

"My dad dreamed to find them," recalled Berkovich. "And all the time when he was alive he asked me to do something to find them. It's something magic; it's a feeling that couldn't be described."

The three revealed plans of getting their whole families together for a full family reunion.

"Everybody is really excited about meeting each other. They've heard about each other all their lives," Atfield said.