A British adoptee has been reunited with her Hong Kong birth family 60 years after her mother gave her up and abandoned her on a hillside believing she was “a bad omen”.
Rachel Rollinson, 61, was found by a policeman on the outskirts of Hong Kong when she was 10 months old, with no indication of who her parents were.
After years wondering why she had been left there, Rachel decided to undergo a DNA test with MyHeritage, eventually helping her to reconnect with her lost parents and eight siblings, who she does not wish to name, decades later.
She discovered her birth parents had consulted a Taoist priest as she was unwell as a baby, who told them as the first girl born after three sons she was a “bad omen for the family”, so advised them to give her up.
Although her father had died, she was able to spend precious time with her mother before her death in October 2023, just six months after Rachel was reunited with her.
“(My abandonment was) all to do with religious reasons and superstition,” Rachel, who now lives in Boston, Lincolnshire, told PA Real Life.
“It’s been a rollercoaster.
“I knew that there could be rejection… so I had tried not to keep my hopes too high – but my mum’s eyes lit up seeing us.”
The early 1960s had seen a mass exodus of Chinese refugees to Hong Kong and at the time, Rachel said, it was not uncommon for struggling refugees to leave their babies in busy places where they knew they would be found and cared for.
After her discovery on a hillside in 1964, Rachel left Hong Kong when she was two-and-a-half years old with little more than a jacket and bag and was adopted by Kenneth and Pamela Goldsmith – an English couple living in London.
“It was a strict family but a good upbringing,” she said.
Knowing she had been adopted, Rachel added: “You have times when you’re thinking, ‘Did I see my birth parents? Have I got family?'”
Her adoptive father Kenneth had “always wanted” to go to Hong Kong with Rachel and her sister, who was adopted from the same children’s home in Hong Kong.
Unfortunately, Kenneth died from a brain tumour in 1976, leaving Rachel’s mum to take the pair to Hong Kong in 1979.
After training and working as a nurse in Brighton, Rachel met her husband Pete through a “holiday romance in Ibiza” – and after four years of travelling they settled down with their three children, Zoe, Katie and Lucy, in Lincolnshire.
In 2012, Rachel and her sister decided to take part in a study by Julia Feast, a renowned adoption scholar and social worker, on Chinese adoptees from Hong Kong – joining a group of Hong Kong-born adoptees who would meet twice a year.
Eventually, after trips to Hong Kong and conversations with international social services, Rachel was able to obtain her Hong Kong adoption files and learned how she was found.
However, since the file had “no names, no addresses, nothing”, Rachel was no closer to finding her birth parents so tried DNA testing.
“I got loads of fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh cousins, which obviously didn’t mean anything to me,” she said.
Then, in 2022, she had a breakthrough – finding a first cousin after uploading third-party DNA data to MyHeritage.
Her cousin, Chris, was looking for his aunt and Rachel agreed to help him through contacts she had made in Hong Kong.
When she showed her family a young photo of the aunt they mistook it for a photo of Rachel herself and “the cogs started to go”.
Rachel realised this really could be her mother, proven conclusively once one of the woman’s sons took a DNA test that confirmed he and Rachel were full siblings in January 2023.
“It was just one excitement after the other, with all my siblings contacting me,” Rachel said.
“They were sending pictures of my nieces and nephews, and then I did a FaceTime with them in March, and saw my mum for the first time, and she was like a kid in a candy shop.
“We’re the same height, same hair, same nose.”
In April 2023, Rachel flew out to meet her family, along with her husband and children.
“We met them near to where my mum lived and had a massive meal,” she said.
“They all welcomed us just like that. No malice, no anger – it was just a brilliant week. It went so quickly.”
Rachel learned her mother had worked on a farm before moving to Hong Kong and becoming a plasterer.
Her father, who died in 2014, had been an engineer and her parents met on the building site of the University of Hong Kong.
Not long after Rachel was born, she became ill.
As a result a Taoist priest advised them to give Rachel up, both for their sake and her own.
“From the start I said I was not angry, there’s no resentment, it’s just the way life is,” Rachel said.
“Whatever comes, you just take it on the chin.”
She was able to visit her birth parents’ Hong Kong flat, where they had lived for 60 years.
“That was amazing, just to see where I could have been brought up,” she said.
“I think it would be completely different to the lifestyle I have now – I don’t know what I would have done, if I had been out there.”
Unfortunately, on the way home, Rachel’s younger sister informed her that their mother was unwell – and she passed away that October at the age of 87.
“It was almost as if she was waiting to see me,” Rachel said.
“We went over in November for her Taoist-style ceremony.
“It lasted two days, it was lovely to be asked to come.”
Moving forward, Rachel plans to continue visit her Hong Kong family once a year.
“I’ve got two lots of different lives now,” she said.
Naama Lanski, a researcher at MyHeritage, said: “We rejoice in Rachel’s joy at the closure she received after decades of unsuccessful efforts to find her family.”
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