Brenda Blethyn was thrilled after hunting down her long-lost brother in Canada - insisting the reunion was like "solving a puzzle".
The Oscar-nominated star is the youngest of nine children, and most of her older siblings had left home by the time she was born in 1946.
However, the whole family lost contact with one of her siblings, and she decided to search for him after 10 years without communication.
Blethyn went "door to door" to locate her brother, and eventually traced him to British Columbia - and admits she has no regrets about bringing the family back together.
She tells the Daily Express, "We hadn’t heard from him for something like 10 years. So I literally went knocking door to door.
"None of us knew what had happened to him or where he was living. It was just like solving a puzzle. He was married and had a daughter.
"So I wrote him a long letter telling him about each of us. I sent it and he was overjoyed.
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