Tamara Milograd went to the Royal Melbourne Show when she was 15 and never returned, leading two families to search for the truth.
One was her Newport family, who never stopped searching for their daughter after she disappeared in 1971.
The other was Tamara's daughter Corrina Russell, who wanted to find out more about her mother Pauline, who died in 1976.
In March, Ms Russell saw Tamara's photo on the National Missing Persons Coordination Centre website.
"She instantaneously got a hunch that that could be her mum," acting detective sergeant Peter Tasiopoulos said on Saturday.
Cold case detectives used a family DNA matching technique used to identify Black Saturday victims to match Ms Russell with her uncle Nick Milograd.
"This was a family mystery for 44 years of not knowing where Tamara was," Det Sgt Tasiopoulos said.
Tamara moved to country Victoria, added three years to her birth date, and became Pauline Tammy Russell.
She had two children before dying in a car accident.
Tamara's 90-year-old mother was able to find out the truth about her daughter after years of searching.
Although confronted with the tragic fact that her daughter had passed away, she was also excited at the fact she now had a granddaughter and a grandson, and great grandchildren, Det Sgt Tasiopoulos said.
The families issued a joint statement expressing their sadness and relief at the end of their long search.
"The Russell family are excited to finally meet Tamara's (Pauline's) family and look forward to learning more about Tamara's early life and getting to know their new family members," they said.
The two families had a reunion recently after the DNA tests were confirmed.
Dr Dadna Hartman from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine said the establishment of the Victorian Missing Persons DNA database helped link the two families.
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