Reuniting Families Thru DNA
What's new 325Kamra ?
325Kamra Korea has achieved NPO status
Korean Veterans Outreach
More DNA connections made!

Want to make a difference? Interested in a DNA match but frustrated with not having found one? Come May 2018 (Family Month in South Korea), 325Kamra will travel to different regions in Korea to present birth search stories and DNA successes. We will also distribute DNA kits to any willing participants. Our goal is to grow the Korean DNA database. Please help support this project by donating today!
325Kamra Korea Updates
NPO Status!!!! It's taken time and paperwork but 325Kamra is now a registered NPO in Korea. This will give 325Kamra greater credibility in the media and will help us reach out and fundraise. If anyone is interested in volunteering in Korea, please contact our South Korean staff: 325kamramj@gmail.com or 325kamrajc@gmail.com
May Road Trip!! May is family month in Korea. 325Kamra is planning a series of city visits to attend local festivals, share birth search stories and DNA match successes. If you will be in South Korea during the month of May and would like to participate in one of these city visits to help 325Kamra spread the work, please be in touch with our team there!

City Visits:
Wonju
Busan
Gwangju
Daejeon

(If you are in Korea in May and would like to travel with 325Kamra to one of these destinations please be in touch with Maria: 325kamramj@gmail.com)
Korea NPO Launch Party!
When:
Saturday, March 10 at 6:30 PM - 9 PM UTC+09
Where:
5-84 yongsan dong 2 ga, yongsan gu, Seoul, Korea 04338

325Kamra has achieved non-profit status in Korea, and we would love for you to celebrate with us! Come learn more about what we plan to achieve in Korea and enjoy a cozy night out with the community. The evening will include an introduction to the Korean team, as well as space for some performances and discussion.

We will be having a bake sale with items donated by some talented bakers, as well as a raffle for some great prizes. 

Donations are graciously accepted and will be used for funding future campaigns and operating costs.

Donations accepted at the door &
For Bank Transfers:
KOOKMIN BANK, 5th FL. Kookmin Bank Bldg.
Account: 852501-04-174604
(From overseas, SWIFT: CZNBKRSEXXX)

From Noksapyeong exit 2, walk down the hill and pass the kimchi pots. After 200m on your right you will see PSA academy and on your left you will see The Workshop/Hidden Cellar. Follow the signs and see you there!
Korean Vet Outreach
On Dec 31, 2017, Kim Gamel of Stars and Stripes wrote an article about Matthew Scherer, a mixed-race Korean adoptee who is currently living in Korea. The story told of his adoption, his parents failure to complete his naturalization and how he ended up in Korea. Matthew DNA tested at the end of 2016, courtesy of 325Kamra in Korea. At that time, he did not have any close matches. But in October 2017 325Kamra reviewed his matches, as we do for all of our searching members, and was shocked and ecstatic to see that he had a "close" family match. This match turned out to be his father! Matthew's story drew an international audience of service men and women. As of today, over 55 kits have been shipped to military members and the families who are either trying to find a child, or sibling, and emails are still arriving. The men who served are trying to see if they left anyone behind, even providing names of the women they were with, or just "making sure." Family members are checking for a child that they think their fathers, brothers, Uncles or grand fathers left. This has been one of the most successful media stories that we have had. It takes great courage to share a personal story, but it helps our community in so many ways. If you are a Korean vet or related to one and are interested in obtaining a DNA kit to test, please contact Bella: 325kamrabsd@gmail.com
Remember our visit to Peace Village?
Last September 2017 325Kamra board member Tia Legoski traveled to St. Louis, Missouri to attend a gathering for Korean women married to American men. She collected twenty-eight DNA kits from participants on that trip. Out of those, two were close matches to Korean adoptees, one in the U.S. and one in Germany. 325Kamra is investigating those matches and trying to locate the birth family for the adoptees. This example proves the point of how important it is to get more Koreans into the DNA database. If you attend a Korean church in your community and would like to host a presentation, please contact Tia at: mikait@aol.com
325Kamra DNA Matches to Date
  • 44 Matches made with 325Kamra membership
  • 31 on-going DNA searches with 325Kamra membership, with 3 near completion
  • At least 33 automatic matches made using various DNA kits (23andme, FTDNA and ancestry)

Do you have a DNA Match that is 200cMs or more?
Don't know what to do? HELP
Meeting my birth family! by Nena Adams Benhoff
Meeting my Birth Mother’s half sister, Yung Suk, was a bittersweet moment. My aunt and my mother shared a father but were born ten years apart, brought up by different mothers. From their earlier photos they were so similar in looks - I know they must still look alike. I imagine Yung Suk looks the way my mother should look now. My aunt was so welcoming to me, sitting close, stroking my hair, my arms, my hands. Her daughter asked her to stop several times, thinking it was making me uncomfortable but it brought tears to my eyes, pretending she was my mother. She had only met my mother one time when was about twelve and my mother Soon Ja was twenty-two. Yung Sook and her mother had heard about me and invited my mother and I to live with them, but my mother declined. My adoption had been finalized and I was headed to the US. Yung Sook and Soon Ja never saw each other again. Yung Sook and her son, Jack came to the US in 1976 and she married Jack's father and had a daughter a year later. I found them via a DNA match with Jack using an ancestry DNA kit. It was wonderful to meet them all, along with their children.

Meeting my birth father after a long search was different. I was nervous and he and his family were nervous. My husband and I flew to Baltimore in August 2017. I had confirmed he was my father via DNA the year before but circumstances stood in our way of meeting. He never knew about me, he had only met my mother a few times and left Korea five months before my birth. We met at his home with his wife of sixty-one years and two daughters. The first ten minutes were a bit strained but as we all talked the strangeness subsided and comfort took its place. It’s amazing how my sisters and I are alike. They had made a Shutterfly book for me of early pictures of my father and family pictures. The visit was far too short.
Distributing DNA Kits Internationally
South Korea:
Maria Savage : 325kamramj@gmail.com or
JooEun Cho: 325kamrajc@gmail.com.
You can also contact KoRoot .

Europe:
click on this link: DNA kit
KADS in the Netherlands contact Maria van den Bosse: maria@arierang.nl

Germany:
contact Jayme Hansen at hansenarmy@yahoo.com

Australia:
contact Jayme Hansen who is planning a distribution event, end of 2018.
Special thanks to 325Kamra donors Calvin Hom (James Irvine Foundation), Dr. Estelle Cook-Sampson, Aimee Belser, Eileen Thompson, Vivian Louie, Richard Bridges, Robin Anderson and many others who donated in recent months! Thank you for your incredible generosity! Thanks also to all the new KAD members!
All FTDNA kits used by 325Kamra, Inc. are donated by Thomas Park Clement and his T&W Foundation. Thanks as always to him for his generosity to the KAD community and to our organization.