Episode 6 Family Finders

Families can be driven apart for all manner of reasons.

I had no information at all about where my mum went.

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

You don't know who you are. Where have you come from?

..finding them can take a lifetime...

I might have a brother that's still living here.

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

And that's where the Family Finders come in.

From international organisations...

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

..to genealogy detective agencies...

For them to say that it's changed their life,

it makes coming to work, you know, really, really special.

..and dedicated one-man bands.

It's a matter of how much effort do you really want to put into it,

how badly you want to solve the problem.

They hunt through history to bring families back together again.

Finding new family is wonderful.

In this series, we follow the work of the Family Finders...

Suddenly, you get one spark of breakthrough, and there they are.

..learning the tricks they use to track missing relatives

through time...

I didn't think I'd ever find sisters, but I have.

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

I've been waiting to meet John my whole life.

Since we've met, I feel part of a family again.

You've just completed my life for me.

In the United Kingdom, there are hundreds of organisations

that specialise in reuniting long-lost families.

But many people decide to turn Family Finders themselves.

Today, we follow the story of one woman's search that turns up

not one, but two surprising results.

Do I want to really open this Pandora's box, really?

THEY SQUEAL HAPPILY

And in Weston-super-Mare, car enthusiast Nick Morgan

is on a mission to uncover the truth about his birth family.

And five minutes later, she rang me back and said,

"I think you may have a sister."

THEY LAUGH

Lovely to meet you!

Jean Heathcote lives in Burton upon Trent, in Staffordshire.

She was born in 1949 and enjoyed a happy childhood,

raised by a loving family.

I was very, very lucky. I was spoilt rotten.

I had fantastic parents.

And they...they couldn't do enough for me.

But certain characteristics seemed at odds

with the rest of the family.

I did look very different to my family.

And I had a very different nature to my family as well.

I was much more outgoing and noisy.

It wasn't until much later that Jean realised there was more to

these differences than she'd originally thought.

When I was 36, I had to apply for a new passport, and it all came

through attached together with my adopted birth certificate on there.

Much to my surprise!

I realised I had no blood relatives then -

I had only my children who were my blood relatives -

and started to research everything that I could about the family.

From her birth certificate, returned alongside her passport,

Jean found the name of her biological mother -

Sheila Mary Kelly.

She then placed an appeal on Teletext and waited for a response.

I was going through and I found someone

who was looking for the same person that I was.

The message contained too many correct facts to be a coincidence.

Someone else was searching for Jean's mum, Sheila, but she was hesitant to respond.

"Do I want to really open this Pandora's box, really?"

I decided that I wanted to open the box and see what happened.

Subsequently, I had a phone call from her.

And she said, "I've been looking for you for 25 years."

The two women shared a mother,

Sheila Mary Kelly, making them half-sisters.

Unbeknownst to Jean, Marie Simmons had also been searching for Sheila.

It was amazing. It really was.

I thought, "At last, I've actually managed to find her."

Marie's adoptive family were always open about her parentage.

I always knew that I had been adopted because I was

told at a very early age.

I wanted to find my birth mother,

It didn't matter to me what she was like,

I just wanted to know her and know about her.

Over the course of many years,

Marie searched records and organisations

for any trace of her biological mother,

until finally, someone replied to one of her messages.

I had a phone call from a lady saying that she was her sister.

It was her mother's sister who had spotted the posting and responded.

Unbelievable! I couldn't believe that somebody had actually replied to me. It was marvellous.

Anyway, she chatted and told me that my mother was alive,

but she was living in America.

And I thought, "Well, does she want to know me?"

And that was all I kept thinking, "Does she want to know me?"

It had taken her 15 years to track down her mother, Sheila.

Well, my aunt and uncle, and myself, we did go to the States...

It wasn't what I was expecting.

She was quite withdrawn.

And it wasn't a particularly successful meeting at all.

In fact, it was quite sad.

But not long after she got back from America, Marie received another

response to her research. It was her sister, Jean.

It was lovely.

It was really lovely to get that first touch with somebody who

actually was related to you.

That was it. It was marvellous. We've got each other.

But Jean still had questions about her early life, so turned to

the wealth of genealogical resources now available on the internet.

It wasn't long before she got a response.

I had a message from a lady called Diana Kelly,

who said, "Hello, I'd like to ask you a few questions

"cos I think I could be related to you."

Jean had discovered one new sister, Marie,

but could there be MORE relatives out there?

Hello! Hello.

Motor enthusiast Nick Morgan lives in Weston-super-Mare.

I was adopted when I was three months old.

I grew up in a very loving household. Only child.

It was caring...

And, yeah, I did all the things a little boy should do, I suppose.

And I always knew that I was adopted, right from the very start.

I mean, my parents did a great job with that.

They told me ever since I can remember that I was adopted,

that I was chosen, that I was special.

Nick left home, met and married his wife, Jan,

and in 1997 had a son.

and it was this that inspired him to trace his family lineage.

A conversation with a friend

added fuel to the fire.

I became inspired by someone that I'd met through work

who'd actually decided that he wanted to find his birth mother.

And I went, "Oh, OK, that's interesting. How do you do that?"

And he said, "Well, first of all,

"you need to get your birth certificate."

And I said, "Well, I've got a birth certificate."

And he said, "No, you need to get your ORIGINAL birth certificate."

I said, "OK, yeah, fine." And he said,

"That will give you then the details of your birth parents,

"and then you need to contact social services once you've got that

"certificate, and they will help you then to track that person down."

That was when I found out that I was John Francis Lowe,

having been Nicholas John Morgan for 40-odd years.

And then social services stepped in and gave me the red file that had

all the details in about my birth and where I'd been, etc.

He had a name for his birth mother - Norah Lowe.

Once I got the file from social services,

it then became apparent that my mother was born in Ireland.

One of the things that I used to say to people was that it would be

really nice to have a photo of my mum,

but I never thought that was going to be possible.

Nick was able to get his biological mother's birth

certificate from the record offices in Ireland.

So we actually then found that my birth mother had lived

in Coventry, got married to a guy in Coventry in 1968

and became Boulding.

A chance encounter at a business networking event

changed his life forever.

I sat down next to this lady I'd never met before,

so I asked the question, you know, "What's your name?

"Where do you come from? What do you do?"

And she said, "My name is Kirsty Gray.

"I find people for various reasons,

"whether people are looking for inheritances or

"whether they are trying to trace their family."

I first of all had a look to see if I could find a death for his mother

in her married name, and I couldn't.

So I then looked to see if potentially she'd married again.

And she did.

So I then had a new married name to look at

and then managed to locate a death record.

I e-mailed Nick to say, "When you have a quiet five minutes,

"you might want to ring me."

So I rang her up and she said, "I found your mum."

I went, "Whoa!" And she went, "Hang on, she has died."

"OK, not unexpected."

But the story didn't end there.

Knowing Nick was desperate to see that elusive

photograph of his mum, Kirsty had another lead on Norah's life.

The second married name of Norah, Nick's mum,

was actually quite unusual.

So once we'd found out her husband's name, we actually

had found that he was still living and we had an address for him.

Kirsty drafted a contact letter to Norah's widower.

Basically, the letter is just explaining a little bit

about who we are, but asking him to contact us.

Kirsty sent off the letter and we had no response for over a week.

Nick was determined not to give up his search for his long-lost

relatives and decided to take matters into his own hands.

Having not received a reply to the letter that we'd sent,

I had a Friday afternoon call from Nick to say that he was

actually travelling to Coventry the following day.

And he said he was just going to pop by and see if he might be

able to meet the gentleman we'd written the letter to.

Kirsty had said, "It's not normal to go and do these things,

"but if we're not getting any joy,

"then I guess we don't probably have a lot of choice.

"So see how you get on."

So I built up my courage, rang the doorbell.

A gentleman came to the doorbell and said, "Who are you?"

And I said, "Well, my name's Nick Morgan.

"You may have had a letter from Kirsty Gray."

And he said, "Yes."

And he invited me in.

And then we chatted for an hour about, um...Norah,

or Noreen as she had then become.

Having had the conversation, I said,

"I don't suppose that you've got a photo of Noreen?"

And he said, "Yes, there's a photo behind you."

So I said, "Oh, that's fantastic."

It was just that moment of going...

I'd finally achieved that goal that when I thought that the doors

were closed, the wall was built and I was never going to see it.

And there it was in front of me.

So it was, yeah, just getting to that point and going,

"Yeah, finally got there."

And Noreen's widower had more news about his mother.

Could Nick's search for his family be about to reveal more than

just a photo?

He thought Noreen had had another child.

So when I came out, I rang Kirsty and said, "He said that there's

"another child, but I don't think there's anything in it."

And she said, "OK, well, I'll just check it out."

And five minutes later, she rang me back and said,

"I think you may have a sister."

Jean Heathcote's search for her birth mother had also

revealed an unexpected discovery - a half sister, Marie.

But when both sisters had made contact with their mother,

their advances had been rejected.

So Jean's quest for details about her early life continued.

I had a message from a lady called Diana Kelly, who said,

"Hello, I'd like to ask you a few questions

"cos I think I could be related to you."

Diana Kelly, from Bristol, had been browsing a family finding

website in the hope of finding out about her birth mother.

I was just going through this site, and suddenly,

up came my mum's name, Sheila Mary Kelly.

It turned out that Jean and Marie had yet another half-sister.

Well, I was born in 1951 in St Mary's,

in Paddington, London.

Within six weeks, I was handed over to a foster family.

Diana stayed in care until she was old enough to rent

a flat of her own.

Now she felt independent enough to begin to trace her family.

You know, I wanted to know a bit of who I belonged to.

I think you need...you want a sense of...

..a sense of belonging, really.

Diana applied to the General Register Office to find out

more information about her mother.

The only information I actually had on my mother

was her birth certificate.

I knew her name was Sheila Mary Kelly,

where she was living while she was expecting me,

her date of birth, and that was it.

Hampered by a lack of information and self-doubt,

Diana went through years of unsuccessful searching.

In 2009, came a glimmer of hope

when she was browsing a family finding website.

I was just sat there one day, going through it,

and my mum's name popped up on there.

So I kept reading it,

kept reading it, and I'm thinking,

"Oh, well.

"As you do, Diana, you know what you're like."

Picked up the phone, didn't I?

And I rang her.

Diana had come across one of the adverts posted by Jean,

and it seemed they shared a mother who would make them half-sisters.

Jean told Diana that she had already found their other half-sister,

so Diana looked her up too.

I was on Facebook

and a message came up asking me

if my mother was called Sheila Mary Kelly.

And I thought, "Well, yes." So I replied yes.

And up popped an answer saying,

"Well, I think that I could be your sister."

And I thought, "Oh, my, not another one!"

We chatted for ages.

Yeah. And the next day. And the next day.

I feel like I've known her all my life.

We did meet quite quickly after we spoke on the phone,

and it was wonderful to see her.

Today, the three sisters -

Jean, Marie and Diana -

are getting together for the first time.

For decades, they all had been searching for their shared

mother, unaware of each other's existence.

Sisterhood is what I aim to get from today.

I think it's... It will be nice to have that closeness.

I'm determined now

because I really do need to have contact with my sisters.

I am nervous, yeah.

And excited.

-Hello.

-Hello, you!

THEY SQUEAL HAPPILY

It's lovely! It's wonderful.

-Have a seat, darling.

-Thank you.

-All right?

-Yeah. You all right?

Yeah, I'm fine, thank you.

-How long is it since we've seen each other?

-Way overdue.

Way, way overdue for both of us.

But I think it would be nice to actually be able to

-include Diana as well now.

-Yes.

Finally, the sister who was most recently found, Diana.

Oh, my goodness me!

Hello! Hello!

Good to see you. And this is your sister.

I know!

-Are you all right?

-Don't cry, darling.

Aw.

Aw. Don't cry.

This is fabulous. Come on, darling, come and sit down. Come on.

Oh! Girls together.

-Nice to see you.

-And you too.

-At last.

-At last. I know.

Are you all right? Oh, dear.

I've got so much stuff here to show you...

Fantastic.

This is Mother.

She was quite attractive, wasn't she?

Yeah, she was quite a glamorous lady, wasn't she?

And here she is with a baby.

-Now...

-THEY LAUGH

-It's

-a

-baby girl. Now, who it is, I haven't got a clue.

-Look at her hair!

-I know, she had fantastic hair.

Amazing. Amazing.

-That's 1947, that one, we think.

-Got to be your father.

-You think so?

-I think so.

Yeah. OK. Well, I think he's a very handsome man, actually.

-Yeah, I'm quite happy with that.

-Got nice eyes.

-This is her on her wedding day.

-Which one?

-She only had one.

-Oh, right.

And how do you feel about seeing

these photographs of your mum, girls?

-Well...

-Well...

-Such a dainty little thing.

-She was a stunner.

-To be fair.

-An absolute stunner.

It's incredible, isn't it?

These three sisters may never know much about their mother

and the truth behind their adoptions, but it

seems their relationship is reward enough for having found each other.

Well, girls, together after all this time.

-Well, it's about time, I think.

-I know, but amazing.

Absolutely amazing.

Today is a day I never thought would happen.

I never ever thought it would happen.

And I am so happy.

It's taken me over 20 years to get to this stage, you know?

-Just...

-SHE SIGHS

..the relief to see those two together, it's fantastic.

It's been amazing. It's been truly amazing.

I've loved every minute of it.

Part of it is closure, I think,

knowing that you are part of...someone.

Nick Morgan's search for his birth mother had also produced

a remarkable result.

Family finder Kirsty Gray had discovered he too had a sister.

She said, "There's a girl called Deborah Marie Lowe,

"born in Coventry."

And then she said, "She was adopted.

"And therefore, I can't find out any more."

Desperate to trace his sister, Nick returned to visit his mum

Noreen's widower, who, in the interim,

had remembered more details.

He was able to tell me exactly what her surname was,

which was now Wright, and approximately where she lived,

which was on the outskirts of Coventry.

I was absolutely astounded.

The fact that there was a person out there,

having been an only child for so long, for...

I couldn't believe that there was anyone that actually existed.

I was shocked,

just shocked to the point of not knowing almost what to do next.

Kirsty, the Family Finder, was called into action again.

She did the records, got the...went on the computer and said,

"Yeah, I've got the address."

So over the course of that week, we composed a letter which

we felt would get her attention.

I didn't want to be rejected again.

But I was really, really excited about the thought that

I might find somebody.

In Coventry, an unsuspecting Deborah Wright was about to

have her world turned upside down.

It was July 5th and I emptied the postbox and there was a letter.

And then the first thing that I spotted in bold

was my natural mother's name.

Deborah got in touch with Kirsty.

She said, "I'm working for a client who's trying to trace you."

And I went, "Me?"

And she said, "Yes, you've got a brother."

And I just said, "No, I haven't got a brother, I think

"you've got the wrong person because I'm an only child."

Deborah was born in 1958 to Norah Lowe,

but as an unmarried mother, Norah felt unable to care for her.

She then knew that she couldn't look after me, so she advertised me

in the local newspaper

and my adoptive parents answered the advert.

Deborah was fostered by Mr and Mrs Priest,

who nurtured and cared for her.

When I was 14, I met Denis.

And then when I was 17, we knew that we wanted to get married.

Even at that early age, I think that we

knew we were right for each other.

So I wanted my name in church to be said Deborah Priest.

Desperate to use her beloved parents' name

on her wedding day, she needed them to legally adopt her.

But that involved getting back in touch with her birth mother

so that she could sign the papers.

The social worker managed to trace Norah,

who was living in Coventry,

and Norah said that she would like to meet me.

And so the social worker returned to tell me this

and asked me if I would like to meet Norah, which I di...

I wasn't interested in.

What Deborah did agree to was swapping photos.

It was the first time she'd seen an image of her birth mother.

I do regret that I didn't meet Norah at 17.

When she was 39, after the death of her adoptive mother, Deborah

decided she wanted to trace Norah,

so a friend of Deborah's offered to help.

And it wasn't long before she found a record of Norah,

but she had died five years previously.

I grieved for Norah the same as I grieved my adoptive mum.

It really, really upset me.

And I couldn't understand those feelings

because I had never known her.

But it was because I knew then that I had no chance of ever,

ever seeing her.

I was told by the social worker that there weren't any other children,

Norah had only ever had me, at 39.

But that all changed

when Deborah was contacted by a Family Finder called Kirsty Gray.

She said, "You have got a brother."

And I was just shell-shocked. I couldn't speak, I was so shocked.

Because it was everything I'd ever wanted. But it was like a dream.

Nick and Deborah couldn't wait to meet.

From having only found out 24 hours earlier that she had a brother,

and now 24 hours after that, she was actually going to meet me.

She walked towards me, I walked towards her,

and we hugged and then we went and sat down

for about an hour and a half and did 60 years' worth of life.

-We got on so well, didn't we?

-Yeah, we did.

-As well as can be.

-Yeah.

It was great. It was a great meeting.

Since July 2015, the siblings have only met once more.

So today, Nick is going back to Coventry to spend the day

with his sister and her family.

Deborah's children, Daniel and Gemma,

have never met their uncle Nick.

Never ever considered that Mum would ever have any siblings.

It just didn't seem like a possibility.

I know that Mum's always wanted a big brother,

so it's perfect that this has happened.

I think it feels like quite a big moment now!

Yeah, I'm really happy that we've got an uncle.

And a whole other family.

Really excited to meet uncle Nick. Yeah, really am.

I'm going to give him a big hug.

And I feel very excited that I'm going to finally meet them,

having spoken about them and talked about them for so long.

It really finishes off the circle. It's...

Meeting Gemma and Daniel are the final parts of the puzzle.

Five months after meeting Deborah for the first time,

Nick has arrived at her home to meet the rest of his family.

-Hello, nice to meet you.

-Long time no see.

Lovely to see you.

At last, uncle Nick!

This is Gemma.

-NICK:

-Lovely to meet you! Hello.

-Let's... Oh, yes.

-This is Daniel.

-Uncle Nick.

Lovely to s... Lovely to meet you. How are you doing?

Great to see you again.

-Has it been worth waiting for?

-Do you think we're alike?

I think you have quite similar eyes. I can see it.

-DANIEL:

-I can definitely see it.

'It was just really, really lovely to see him and meet him.'

-Give him a big hug, both of us.

-It was like meeting Mum again.

It was really strange.

-It didn't feel...

-It felt like we'd known him for years.

-It didn't feel forced, did it?

-No, not at all.

Did you expect me to be small and petite?

-I expected you to be smaller, yeah.

-Smaller.

-I expected you to be bigger.

-Yeah!

-THEY LAUGH

Yeah, we got rid of the big sister...

big brother little sister thing, didn't we, quite quickly?

Straight to older and younger.

Older!

It's really nice to see the rapport that uncle Nick and Mum have got.

You know, that kind of good banter.

-Yeah, you can just tell they're brother and sister, can't you?

-Yeah.

And his expressions are a lot like Mum's as well, which obviously...

-He's got twinkly eyes, and Mum's got twinkly eyes.

-Really similar.

-Yeah.

-Just the way they smile as well.

-Our lives have changed for the better.

-They have.

It's a new family, but we still live our own lives,

the lives that we've lived for all the time. Now we've just got

an additional bit on the top, it's like having the cream.

Yeah, like you say, you're just a little bit of cream.

-Yeah.

-On the top.

THEY LAUGH

Having been an only child for 60 years,

and my son David's an only child and my mate across the road,

Andy, is an only child, so we're part of the only child club.

And I'm not any more. I'm out.

It's brought joy to our lives, hasn't it?

I've got all these years to look forward to,

to keep having the banter.

-Keep having fun together.

-Keep practising my jokes.

-And having fun together with our families.

-Having fun together, yeah.

-Cheers.

-To all the family.

It's fantastic, yeah.