Episode 10 Family Finders

Families can be driven apart for all manner of reasons.

My mum went away and didn't come back.

And when you do lose touch with your loved ones...

I never saw Kathleen again.

..finding them can take a lifetime...

I wonder where he is. I wonder what he's doing.

You don't even know where to begin.

..especially when they could be anywhere - at home or abroad.

That's where the family finders come in.

Hi, it's the Salvation Army Family Tracing Service.

From international organisations...

There's never been a day when we have never had new enquiries.

..to genealogy detective agencies...

When was it you last had contact with him?

..and dedicated one-man bands.

I like to do the searches that other people can't get,

because it makes me feel good.

They hunt through history...

to bring families back together again.

You are my biological dad.

In this series, we follow the work of the family finders...

This case came from our Australian colleagues.

..learning the tricks they use

to track missing relatives through time...

I'm 68 years of age, she is 75 years of age and we're just starting off.

..and meeting the people whose lives they change along the way.

I said, well, this is your younger sister.

It's a miracle.

I was struck speechless. And I couldn't stop crying.

Proud moment. For Dad.

That was the start of finding my family.

Our identity is what makes us unique.

And knowing where we came from is an important part of knowing

who we are.

For many people, this knowledge is hard to come by

and can mean a lifetime of searching for answers.

But chance, timing and a bit of luck can play

a big part in connecting a person with their past.

When Eric Morgan arrived at the recruiting office in 1952,

to sign up for his National Service,

little did he know his life was about to be turned upside down.

I went down to the recruiting office.

And you had to take your birth certificate.

And me mother gave me me birth certificate...

I put it in me pocket and went to the recruiting office. I give them it.

He took some details. Gave me it back.

I folded it up, put it in me pocket and I went back to see me mum.

And I said, "Oh, here you are," and she started crying.

And I said...

I said, "What's the matter?"

She said, "Have you read it?"

I said, "No."

She said, "Well, if you look, it's an adoption paper."

And I said, "Well, it don't matter, that."

I said, "You'll always be my mother, no matter what.

"You'll always be my mother. So forget it."

The news that he was adopted came as a massive shock for Eric,

and he yearned to know more about his true origins.

I wanted to know, to fill a vacant part in my life.

But there was an even bigger bombshell to come.

Took me adoption paper and I went down to the registrar in Bradford.

I said, "From this, can I have a birth certificate?"

They said, "No problem." So he went round t'back, and he came back then,

and said to me, he said, "Oh, I'm sorry, lad, I can't find anything."

I said, "Why?" He said, "Well, there's nothing there about you."

I said, "Well, how many boys were

"born in St Luke's on the 17th of the sixth, 1934?"

He said, "Four. But you weren't one of them."

On top of everything else, Eric was now being told that,

as far as the records were concerned, he didn't exist.

With this monumental blow, he had no choice

but to leave the past where it was and get on with his life.

After completing National Service, he met his wife, Valerie,

and they went on to have a family of their own.

Eric Morgan never stopped wondering about his true identity

but he'd have to wait a lifetime before the secret

of his origins would become clear.

60 years later, in the Yorkshire town of Halifax,

another man was carrying out his own family search,

a search that would hold the key to the mystery.

I'd love to know who my real father was.

Brian Frith was born in a little village

near Bradford, to a single mother in 1935.

She later married and Brian was brought up by her

and his stepfather.

I knew he were my stepdad.

To me... In them days, he was my dad, but in name only.

It was things what people used to say. Why is your name different?

This, that and the other and called you a basket, all things like that.

Them things come out then. It didn't...

I wasn't worried about it because, like I say,

I had other brothers and sisters and a mother.

That was the main thing in them days. The mother was most important.

Brian grew up with his half-sister, May, and her brothers and sisters

around the textile mills of Bradford where their parents both worked.

I knew they weren't my full brothers and sisters,

but as far as I was concerned, they was.

It was a happy house, put it that way.

We were no different to any other kids in that time, were we?

No, no.

Our mother was really hard-working and she loved all her kids.

-She did.

-She did everything she could for us and it were happy.

In an evening when she'd finished her work,

she'd sit in an armchair near the fire

and we'd all sit on the arms round my mum and joke and talk.

Singing and that.

Since retirement, May has been trying to help Brian

find out the identity of his biological father.

Brian never knew who his father was and he was always wanting to know.

Every time I went to see him, he'd say,

"Have you found my dad yet?"

Brian's birth certificate stated no named father,

so all May had to go on was Brian's surname, Frith.

I thought, what about if I just put the surname and put Bradford

and put what year I wanted.

Would I find anything else?

May's search failed to come up with any Friths who were

the right age to be Brian's father,

but she did find a younger man listed with the same name.

I found E Frith, next to my brother who was B Frith.

E stood for Eric, and this Eric Frith's mother

had the same name as theirs, Elizabeth.

Had May stumbled across a family secret?

I haven't found another Elizabeth in Bradford at that age.

It suddenly seemed that Brian and May's mum could have had

another child, a half-brother they never knew existed.

I thought, could he really be our brother?

I went to the Bradford register office and I told them

Elizabeth Frith was my mum and they supplied me

with a birth certificate for Eric.

And there it was in black and white.

May nearly decided not to make contact with Eric,

but speaking to her son made her think again.

He said, "Do you want to find out if he's your brother?"

I said, "Yes, I'd like to." And he says, "Well, go for it." So I did.

She got in contact with the adoption agency

to get the ball rolling and they revealed their new-found brother

was now going by the name of Eric Morgan,

the same Eric Morgan, who, 60 years ago, had given up

all hope of ever finding his birth mother.

I got a letter from the adoption society and they said,

"We've had a lady who's claiming to be your stepsister."

I thought, "Oh, right."

After a lifetime of waiting, 81-year-old Eric had finally

found some birth relatives, or at least they had found him,

but there were still a few more bumps to come

on the road to reunion.

I said to our May, "He's a con merchant."

He could be any Tom, Dick or Harry, couldn't he?

There are many professional agencies you can use to help you

at different stages of the family finding process.

One of them is FinderMonkey in Leeds.

A lot of people that come to us

tell us that they've been really frustrated,

sometimes for years on end,

trying to find the person that they're looking for.

What we're able to do is find an exact match

because we have access to systems that are far more detailed than

they can access themselves.

30-year-old Stephen Hills was only a baby

when his dad lived at home and he has no memories of him.

I have always had questions in my mind. What does he look like?

What does he do? Where does he live?

Why it all broke down between him and my mum.

Stephen grew up with his mum and stepdad in Balby, Doncaster.

He was good to me.

When I was growing up, I had a brother and a sister,

both younger than me.

His family was always open

and honest with Stephen about his background.

When I was about ten, my mum and stepdad sat me down

in the back garden and told me that

he wasn't my real dad and asked me how I felt about it and whatnot.

If I'm honest, it was on my mind all the time

but I sort of put it to the back of my mind and got on with things.

As soon as I turned 16, 17, I joined the army and left.

Stephen was hoping to join the Coldstream Guards,

but, sadly, was unable to complete his training.

I had an accident in the army which made me medically discharged,

so I moved out and started a family of my own.

But now, having children of his own,

made Stephen think again about finding his dad.

Because me and Stephen are now getting married

and obviously he's got children, we've got a child together, I think

he wants his dad to be there for the children growing up.

He wants him to be there on his wedding day and things like that.

It really means a lot to him, so...

All Stephen had to start his search was his birth certificate.

On the birth certificate, I've got his full name, where he was born,

what job he actually did.

His occupation was a coalface worker,

so he would've been a miner at the time.

With me being born, they were actually on strike,

so that might have been a big key to why him and my mum split up.

When I typed his name up on the social media site,

quite a few names came up -

70 different people with the same name.

So I did think about messaging people but I didn't know what to write,

if I'm honest.

Frustrated, Stephen turned to the professionals.

I got in touch with the company FinderMonkey.

I didn't think I were going to get anywhere.

Basically, I thought,

"It's been 30 years, he's probably moved on with his life."

Stephen had been looking for his dad for 15 years, that's the

information that he gave us, but he'd been unable to locate a match.

Stephen gave the researchers what information he had.

His name, his age, where he was born. I gave them all that.

From that information, we went away

and looked for his marriage to Stephen's mum,

which we found, in 1982, and then we also, from then,

went back and looked for a birth record.

And we found somebody that we believed was the right one,

who was born in Kent in 1956.

We'd then wanted to try and trace him to a current address

so that we could contact him to find out

and confirm it was the right person.

They told Stephen they'd write to the man they believed to be

his father on his behalf, saying he would like to get in touch.

"Dear Mr Woodcock, we are people that find lost families.

"We are trying to contact a Mr Alan John Woodcock, born in Kent,

"lived in Doncaster in the '80s."

Rang the phone number on the letter and...

..they told me that my son has been trying to contact me,

and I went silent.

Alan was born into a mining family in Kent in the 1950s.

I was born in 1956, in Dover.

Went to a boarding school...

And then...

When I left school at 15, I went down the pit.

Alan lived with Stephen's mother in the village next to the colliery.

We were courting and got married.

Bought my own... we'd bought our own house,

and then the strike came...

..and it just fell apart from then onwards,

cos of... basically because of the strike.

The last time I saw Stephen, he was a bit more than a babe in arms.

I think he was walking, but every time I went up,

there was an argument, and I didn't want to go up and argue.

I was going up to see Stephen.

So I just said, in the end, "I'll stay away..."

..and lost touch.

30 years later, and Alan now had Stephen's phone number,

but making contact was never going to be easy,

and meeting face-to-face even harder.

What will happen when this father meets the son he's never known?

As a young man, Eric Morgan discovered he was adopted but was

told that as far as the records were concerned, he didn't actually exist.

His identity remained a mystery until 60 years later

when May and Brian Frith tracked him down.

It appeared from May's research

that all three of them shared the same mother.

May believed Eric was born Eric Frith,

and he'd been searching under the wrong name all along.

The adoption agency told him the ball was now in his court.

They said, "You don't have to see this lady.

"If you say forget it, we'll forget it now."

After all this time, did he want to revisit his past?

They said, "Would you mind if I gave May your address?"

I said, "Well, yeah, go on, then."

With nothing to lose and everything to gain,

Eric waited for May to write him a letter.

When I wrote the letter, I just said,

"Hello, Eric, I think you might be my brother, half-brother."

"Erm, your mother has the same name as my mother,

"and would you be interested in meeting?"

She said, "Eric, you don't have to answer this, if you don't want.

"But if you do, ring this number."

So I rang the number and it was May.

I said, "How have you done all this?"

And she said, "I've done it on t'computer."

It turned out the family were practically neighbours.

When we found Eric,

he lived five minutes away from my sister Margaret.

They probably walked past one another on the street.

She said, "Do you think we could meet up?"

And I said, "Yeah, we can do."

For May, there was an instant connection.

It wasn't as if we were meeting strangers.

We just walked in and says, "Hello"

and talked about different things from the past.

But when Brian met Eric, he was suspicious.

Was this man REALLY related to them?

I said to our May, "He's a con merchant."

Because he evaded saying when I asked him things.

So, I thought, well...

is he really

my brother?

Even now, Brian remained unconvinced.

At the moment, he could be any Tom, Dick or Harry, couldn't he?

May suggested they do a DNA test to find out once and for all

if Eric really was their half-brother.

The three of them sent their swab samples to a testing company,

who carried out a test much like the one DNA scientist Chris Jones

is carrying out here.

The results usually take around two days to come through.

Will science rewrite history for Brian, May and Eric?

Tomorrow Alan and Stephen are going

to meet face-to-face for the first time in 30 years.

And not only that,

Alan will also meet his granddaughter, Lily Grace,

and Stephen's fiancee, Steph.

I think he's really nervous to meet him,

but at the same time he's really excited.

Obviously, he wants to meet his dad, he wants to see what he's like,

if they like each other...

Because I've said he does look like him, so, yeah.

I am a bit nervous...

but I don't know what to expect.

I think he will just... go with the flow.

I'm more nervous, I would say.

As Alan makes the 100-mile journey from his home in Stoke,

Stephen drives to the arranged meeting place,

close to his home in Pontefract.

I didn't get a good night's sleep. A bit of...

Kept waking up.

I think it's to do with nerves for today.

So...

It's been 30 years since I've seen him.

I'm very anx...apprehensious.

Can't even pronounce it!

Stephen is the first to arrive, but steps outside

in nervous anticipation of his father's arrival.

-Hiya. You all right?

-I am now.

-Are you?

-Aye.

-Come on then.

Stepping into the role of dad after 30 years

isn't necessarily going to be easy for Alan.

I can see you properly, now.

-Hiya. You all right?

-I am now.

Good, good.

It all starts off well, with Alan having made the effort

to get a present for his young granddaughter.

Who's that?

-Peppa Pig!

-Peppa Pig, yeah!

-What do you say?

-Thank you.

-How's it going?

-Spot-on.

-Good.

I brought some photos and that.

There's a lot of ground to be covered after 30 years apart,

so to get things started,

Stephen's brought along some photos of him as a boy.

-That you?

-It doesn't look like him, I say.

-It doesn't.

And Alan's also brought photos, including one of him as a child.

Me and my sister Maureen.

So when was this?

I was about ten.

And that's your grandad.

He died... He's been dead...

eight years this coming February.

Then it's time for a photo for the new family album.

-Are you going to cheese? ALL:

-Cheese.

-Who's that?

-Erm...

-STEPH WHISPERS:

-Grandad Alan.

-Ga...

-Grandad Alan.

-Grandad Alan!

-STEPH CHUCKLES

Off to a good, if tentative start,

Alan is keen for Stephen to know more about his life.

The last time Alan saw Stephen, 30 years ago,

he was still working as a miner.

And today he wants to show him the site of the coalmine

where he used to work.

When was the last time you was here?

Um...

'87, I think it was. '88.

By 1985 the strikers were defeated,

and by the '90s, most pits in the country had closed.

Bentley colliery was demolished in 1984

and is now woodland.

Parts of the old rock-cutting works now mark the site

where the mine once stood.

What was it like around here, then?

Before the strike, it was a completely different place.

And then the strike...

And, erm...

..the men didn't have so much say

in the matter...

how the job was done.

It was, "We're the managers, and you will do as we say."

That's what killed it.

They wanted the average working man

under the thumb.

And the miners, we weren't going to stand for it.

So, that's what basically killed it.

Not a question of closing it, it ruined people's lives, didn't it?

And they had no work.

Area's died off.

The nerves and the tension leading up to their meeting

have now subsided.

-It's a lot more calmer, less nervous now.

-Yeah.

I want to get to know you better.

If that all goes well, I'd like you to probably come to my wedding

and be a part of that day.

Well, as I said about coming down here,

wild horses wouldn't keep me away.

Shown him a bit about my life...

..and he's told me what I've missed out on.

And I've been invited to the wedding

and we are going to go and have a few beers.

Today's gone well,

and obviously today is the first step of many.

He seems proud of me, so...

see how the future comes.

In Warrington, the DNA results are in.

Do Brian, May and Eric share the same mother?

The result of the analysis shows,

with a probability of 99.9067%

that Eric is the half-sibling of May Gray,

sharing the same biological mother.

So Eric and May are definitely related.

But there was more.

Brian's hunch had been right - Eric isn't his half-brother, at all.

Eric is the full sibling of Brian Frith,

sharing both the biological mother and a biological father.

Instead, remarkably, it turned out Brian and Eric

are actually full brothers.

When we got the results, we were all over the moon.

It came through that he was full brother.

And I would've give you 1,000-to-1, that I wasn't their stepbrother...

but when I found out I were Brian's proper brother...

-That were a shock, wasn't it?

-That were a real shock.

-Yeah, yeah.

As you're getting older,

something like that that comes out of the blue...

-Yeah, yeah.

-It's so good, isn't it?

-Yeah.

And now the three siblings are wasting no time,

making up for the years they've missed out on.

Hiya, love! How you going on?

Fine, thank you. How are you?

I'm very well. And how are you, Brian?

-Are you all right, our kid?

-I am, lad, aye. Up!

-Can you manage?

-Glad to see you.

But there's one mystery that remains unsolved.

Brian's always wondered who his father was.

-If you're brothers...

-Yeah.

So if he were my father, he's got to be yours.

As full brothers,

Brian and Eric have the same dad,

but as neither of them have details

of a father listed on their birth certificates,

neither can be sure who that man was.

What they do know is all three of them -

Brian, Eric and May - share the same mother.

-You'd have loved mother.

-Yeah.

-You would.

-Yeah, yeah.

-It's like putting your last piece of jigsaw in.

-Yeah.

And it's...

But, in the other hand, it's made me a bit sorrowful...

because I think I've missed out on a family.

Well, we've missed out on having...

I have, in one sense, having another brother.

And you can't blame your brothers and sisters...

-No.

-No.

-No.

-..for what's happened.

And you can't blame anybody, right?

-It's just circumstances.

-That's right.

In those days, women went through

what they shouldn't have gone through.

They'd no choice.

They had to work, they had to bring the kids up.

Today, Brian, May and Eric are visiting the final resting place

of the mother they all share

and it's made them wish they'd all met sooner.

May's brought something to me

that I never would've had

and I'd have probably died

wondering who my mother was.

Well, it's been a revelation for me.

At last I've got some reference to my younger days, you know.

I've come with both of my brothers

who have just found one another.

Both my mother's sons.

And it's been a brilliant day.