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An estranged brother and sister were reunited - after reportedly matching with each other on Tinder.

Erik de Vries and Josephine Egberts had not seen each other since their parents split up in 1999, when Erik and his twin brother moved to Belgium with their father and Josephine remained in Holland where she had grown up with their mother.

Erik had tried to track his sister down in the intervening years without success.

But their paths would cross again when Erik, who had returned to Holland to study, joined dating app Tinder and swiped through looking for matches.

The 24-year-old matched with a 22-year-old woman on the app in early April and the pair began tentatively chatting and flirting in direct messages.

"The first time I swiped her profile I had absolutely no idea," de Vries told Mic.com. "In our first conversation I was actually flirting with her so the conversation was very superficial."

Josephine told the Datingsite Kiezen blog: "We had no idea. It's not surprising you provoke each other a little bit [after] a match on a dating app."

As the conversation progressed, Erik said the pair began to notice similarities in their childhoods.

"In our next conversation, I started to get some clues and figured she might actually be my sister. This kind of shocked me, so I decided not to contact her for a few days," Erik said.

But his curiosity became overwhelming and within days he asked her more about her background.

They realised both of their parents had been through rocky divorces, as well as having been separated from their siblings during their childhoods, and soon confirmed their suspicions about their true relationship.

Within a week, the pair had arranged to meet in Tilburg, Holland for an emotional reunion.

"When I saw him, it was suddenly very clear," Josephine told Datingsite Kiezen. "It was so special to see my own blood brother again after 16 years."

Erik's brother Maarten added: "It's too crazy for words that you like this again comes into contact with each other, but that also makes it very special. I am very happy that I can still get to know my sister."

The three siblings have since posed for their first family photograph for over a decade alongside Sjoerd Zwart, a writer for the Datingsite Kiezen blog who discovered their incredible story, and now plan to rekindle their relationship as brothers and sister.