Exclusive: Generation game that brought me whole new family

The story began in 1912 when her grandfather Giuseppe's older brother Antonio left the historic Italian village of Monteforte Irpino, Avellino, about 45 minutes from Naples for a new life in the US. Accompanying him was his father Domenico.

Antonio prospered and had seven children, three of whom are still alive and several grandchildren, including Frank Coppola. Last month Mr Coppola, now 73, who had never been to Italy, tried to contact surviving relatives in the village before making a visit and wrote to her grandfather, Giuseppe Valentino.

But he had died in 1972 and Mrs Condon, a 42-year-old mother-of-three, of Clayton, Bradford, said it was delivered to another man of the same name.

He realised it was not intended for him but his wife contacted a close relative of Mrs Condon, her uncle Domenico, who lives at the bottom of the village.

"He was aware there were relatives in the US but he didn't know who as contact had been lost years and years ago. But he is very close to our family in England and phoned me and said 'I have received this letter' and emailed it to me.

"I couldn't believe it. As a 16-year-old girl I had made an attempt to trace the family in the US but had no address to begin with as all the addresses were lost in an earthquake in 1980.

"Suddenly, at the age of 42 I found I had this whole network of American relatives who I never knew existed, stretching from New York to Florida and New Jersey.

"Frank, who is my second cousin, said he was on this trip to Italy in June and would I like to meet up with him and his wife, Sharon, his daughter and his new son-in-law, Chris in Positano, ninety minutes from Monteforte Irpino.

"It was a wonderful meeting. Walking down into the crowded square I heard this voice shout 'Hello' in a broad New York accent and it was Frank.

"He was stood on the hotel balcony and had instantly recognised me he said because of my striking resemblance to

his mother, Rose Valentino Coppola.

"We visit Italy at least once a year – Domenico and his family still live in the family village and in the summer we all descend on the ancestral village and have a ball – so Domenico and I agreed to show them around what was the old family home.

"It was quite special for them to see the old family home though it is now a damaged wreck. They were all quite speechless and it obviously meant a lot to them to be in a place where Antonio was brought up. The tobacconists is still a tobacconist and the shops there will have been there when he was growing up.

"Unfortunately we didn't have time to call on the neighbour, Giuseppe Valentino, who had helped start the whole reunion ball rolling, but there's always next year."

The reunited relatives have also been enjoying catching up on family gossip such as the time Daniela's mother managed to obtain her Uncle Antonio's address from her Aunt Rosa's drawer after climbing up the outside of her house and stealing the house key from the secret hiding place.

With the confidence of youth she wrote to him asking for money for shoes and received a few dollars, but being a teenager never wrote to say thank you – something that to this day she regrets.

Mrs Condon adds: "As a coroners' officer for West Yorkshire Police I spend quite a lot of time trying to help track other people's relatives down so it was strange to turn detective and tracemy own family's history."