Episode 7 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 you've 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 someone to say that it's changed their life,

it makes coming to work really, really special.

..and dedicated one-man bands.

It's a matter of how much effort 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.

For some, finding long-lost family members

is as simple as picking up a phone or sending an email.

For others, the search can take a little longer.

Today, we follow one woman's 31-year hunt for her mother and for answers.

It's not a nice feeling when you don't who you are,

where you are, why you're there, where you've come from.

And Janet's search for the mother she hadn't seen for 50 years.

I went off the idea altogether cos I thought I was just getting nowhere.

I knew that she would just have so many regrets if she didn't

and her regrets would be my regrets as well.

Denise Wilson was born in April, 1958.

She was raised in a small village near Newcastle upon Tyne.

We didn't have a lot but we were always happy.

As kids, we were always happy

and I've got some really good memories of living in the village.

We had nowt, really, but we had good times, you know.

But at the age of 12 came a bombshell.

I'll never forget the time I found out that I was adopted.

I was at school.

Some of the kids were saying, "You haven't got your mam and dad,

"you haven't got your real mam and dad."

When I went in, I just said to me mam,

"They were saying at school that you're not my real mam.

"Is that right?"

And my mam really got upset about it, as she would.

And we sat in the kitchen and she told us that I was adopted.

I can remember going upstairs

and staring out of the window in the bedroom and feeling lost.

It's not a nice feeling when you don't know who you are,

where you are, why you're there, where you've come from.

You think that, you know, I was Denise Maguire,

living my life normal and then all of a sudden, I'm not.

I wanted to know who I was.

Denise's adoptive parents, Peter and Pearl,

couldn't have children of their own and were overjoyed

to welcome five-month-old Denise into their family.

But when she found out she had been adopted,

Denise felt unable to ask her parents

for information about her birth mother.

I was all that my mam had and I just thought

I couldn't hurt her feelings by asking her questions,

so I never, ever did.

I wanted somebody that was, like, related to me.

I couldn't wait to, sort of, be the age

where I could get married and have kids

and so I got married really young, 17,

and my son was born before I was 18.

I can remember looking at him and he looked like me

and I was looking, staring at him,

and he was just the double of me

and I thought, "Ey...he's my only blood relative, you know."

I had another two girls after that. I had what I wanted.

I had a family and we were all related.

It was only after her adoptive parents had died

that Denise felt able to begin searching for her birth mother

and any other family members in earnest.

I was only 32 when my mam died. My dad had died ten months before her.

Even though I was married with three kids, I was,

I felt like I was on my own still, you know.

And then I think that gave us the drive to think,

"Well, I've got to have a family out there.

"My mam might have had more kids."

So, I just thought, "I'm going to search.

"I'm definitely not going to give up."

At first, all social services were able to provide

was a single document and this was the only thing Denise had to go on.

All I had was my original birth certificate with my name on

and the name of my birth mother.

No father mentioned on the birth certificate,

just that was the basic thing I had.

And I was actually called Anne Beryl Walker.

Her birth certificate gave Denise the starting point she needed

to begin the search for her mother, Elsie.

First of all, I started with looking through birth records,

like at the library, the microfilm and that, but it was quite hard.

I had an ad in the Manchester Evening News.

I've been to Manchester County Court to see if I could get records there.

Social services I've rang and I've wrote to.

Anybody that could help us, you know.

People who have been adopted, I've asked them how they've done it.

I've even rang up Manchester radio

and they've done a shoutout on there for us.

Once the internet was up and running,

I got onto some sites, some social media things, and I got help there.

Denise was advised to get back in touch with social services.

This time, they WERE able to turn up some more information,

which gave Denise a vital clue.

I finally got hold of my birth records from after adoption

and it said there was no information about the reasons for the adoption,

apart from the fact that I was illegitimate,

which is a bit daft these days.

"It's likely to be one of the reasons why your birth mother

"was unable to keep you."

It's says, "You had a sister, Josephine Walker,

"who was around two years old."

I just thought, "I've got a sister."

It's like, I've got a sister and I was thinking,

"God, I'm not an only one," you know.

And so I set about looking for her.

She may have had no luck finding her mum,

but Denise now had a lead on a sister she'd never known existed.

Denise found several Josephine Walkers in Manchester

and the surrounding area, but none were the right Josephine.

So I searched and searched again and a few more came up

and then I started going a little bit further afield.

Denise found one marriage record of a Josephine Walker in Peterborough

but could find no contact details. She did, however, find someone

who sounded like she could be Josephine's daughter.

I sent a message to her.

Quite a while went by, about six weeks,

and there was a message and it said, "Hi, Denise...

"..Mam's been looking through your profile."

She said, "My mam was called Josephine but she's now called Sue."

I still wasn't convinced.

I said, "The Josephine that I'm looking for,

"she would have been born in Manchester,

"she would have had a mam called Elsie."

She said, "Yes, that's my mam."

It had taken years but at last, Denise had tracked down her sister.

She wasted no time in calling her.

Well, we didn't really have much conversation

cos it was all, like, tears down the phone, you know,

and it was definitely... She says,

"Denise, we've been waiting for you to get in touch with us, you know."

They hadn't...

They didn't really know where to start with the search.

They didn't have a clue where to...you know.

But, um, I'd been doing it for that long,

I thought I'm not going to stop until I find something, you know.

Denise's sister, Josephine, had two huge revelations for her.

Firstly, Denise's birth mother, Elsie, was, in fact, still alive.

She said, "If you look through my pictures,

"you'll see a picture of your mam."

And there was a picture of my birth mother,

sitting holding her 80th birthday cake.

I had a good cry because it was, like, I didn't know who I was.

And then I thought, "Ye God, I should be happy,

"because I've found everybody, I should be happy."

And I was, but it was just, sort of, overwhelming,

after all these years, you know.

45 years after discovering she was adopted,

Denise had finally found her birth mother.

But there was more.

After that, she said, "Are you sitting down?" And I said, "Yes."

She says, "Um, there's not just me and you."

She said, "There was five of us girls." And it was, like...

It was weird. I'll never forget it. And I goes, "Five?"

And then she started rhyming them off.

The four sisters Denise didn't know she had

were Marie, Josephine, Carol, who died at the age of 32,

and Katherine, who had also been adopted as a baby,

but was yet to be traced.

After making contact with her birth family,

Denise made the 200-mile journey south to Peterborough

to be reunited with two of her sisters and her mother, Elsie.

In the '50s, she would have been called a scarlet woman

and everything, in them days, wouldn't she?

But nowadays, it's just normal.

Sad, really, to think that she had to do that and give us away,

but, obviously, she had her reasons.

I don't feel any bad feelings at all towards her.

I don't think there'll ever be the closeness

of a real mam and daughter.

I don't think you'd ever get that closeness

when you haven't been brought up by someone,

but there's something there, you know,

and I've always... I've never hated her.

I've always had, like, a soft spot for my real mother,

because I wouldn't be here without her.

Denise now visits her mum, Elsie, regularly,

but she wasn't well enough to take part in filming.

One piece of the family jigsaw was still missing though -

the whereabouts of Denise's sister Katherine,

who had also been adopted.

She was still out there, so I thought,

"Right, I'm not going to be happy until I find Katherine."

After 31 years of searching, Denise had found her mother.

Now she turned her attention to her missing sister.

Would she prove to be as elusive?

In Dagenham, Essex,

76-year-old Janet Emery was also looking for HER missing mother.

Janet was born just before the outbreak of the Second World War,

the only child of Madeline and William Oakes.

I was born in 1939

and my father left for the war in the September,

so I was really still a baby when he left.

Janet's mum continued to care for her but in 1943,

her little world was turned upside down.

When I was about four years old,

my mother took me to my auntie and uncle's

and all I can remember her saying

is, "Mummy's going to leave you with Auntie Jean and Uncle Charlie

"and they'll look after you for me."

Her mother Madeline had met a Canadian soldier

and began a new life with him,

leaving her daughter to be cared for by her sister.

Still very young, Janet was happy enough with her aunt and uncle

for a time, but her mother was never far from her mind.

I did ask once or twice what my mum was like,

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

We didn't really discuss it.

I don't think my father allowed them to talk to me about it.

He was very, very hurt about what happened.

Janet was reunited with her father as soon as he returned from war.

During his time away, he had remarried.

Janet was then raised by her dad and new step-mum

and went on to marry and start a family of her own.

She never imagined she'd see her birth mother again

but, one day, when she was 25 years old,

a surprise visitor turned up at Janet's home.

I was in the sitting room doing my ironing

and my daughter was nine months old.

She was on the floor, playing with her toys,

and there was a knock at the door. This lady said to me, "Janet?"

And I said, "Yes." She said, "Do you know me?"

And I looked at her and I said, "You're my mum."

Despite 19 years having passed since she'd last seen her mother,

Janet invited her in.

My mum looked at my daughter and she said, "Is that my grandchild?"

And for some reason or other, that really upset me.

I said, "I don't think you've got any right to claim them

"as your grandchildren. You left me when I was young.

"They've got a grandma now that loves them very, very dearly."

I resented her for what she said.

She'd expected to walk in and just carry on as if nothing had happened.

I think, if she'd apologised and said, "I'm really, really sorry,"

and told me why she'd left me in the first place,

it might have been better,

but she didn't say anything at all about the past.

She never told me whether she loved me or she had to leave me

and I still don't know.

Her mum, Madeline, had another bombshell

to drop on an unsuspecting Janet.

She now had two more daughters by her second husband,

the Canadian serviceman.

She said I've got two sisters, two younger sisters,

who are really longing to meet me and to know all about me

and she's going to go home and she's going to tell them about me,

she's going to send photos

and I thought, "Oh, this sounds like it could be really, really nice."

And then she went and I never heard from her again,

so that was a second rejection, really.

Then I started to blame myself because I'd been unwelcoming to her

and I thought to myself, "If I walked into somebody's house

"and was spoken to like that,

"I probably wouldn't want to know them again.

As the years went by, Janet couldn't stop thinking about her mum

and the two sisters she had never met,

but it wasn't until half a century later,

she decided to take action.

I realised that my mother should be well into her 90s,

so the most likelihood would be that she'd passed away,

but I started thinking, "What if I try to trace my sisters?"

But Janet swiftly realised

that 50 years after her mother's surprise visit,

the trail had gone very cold.

What I really regret most of all is that I didn't even ask my mum

what my sisters' names were, so I had no names, no births, nothing,

and I didn't even ask where she came from,

so I had no information at all to go on to even start looking for them.

But there was one person who wasn't going to let Janet give up -

her own daughter, Deborah.

I knew this is a dream of hers and I'd really like her to fulfil that.

Um, it's like there's something missing and it would be...

it would be wonderful if she finds her step-sisters.

Deborah's really helped to encourage me with this search.

She knows it's something that I really wanted to do

and it's my heart's desire to find my sisters.

Deborah helped her mum sign up to a genealogy website.

I posted a message on it, asking if anybody knew my mother's name.

But disheartened by the lack of results,

Janet gave up the search and turned her back on tracing her family.

She's always wanted to find her sisters but I think the fear,

the fear that they may be not interested

and they might reject her, that's got in the way.

I went off the idea altogether

because I thought I was getting nowhere

and nobody would really know anything this long time gone past.

Little did Janet know that the search she thought had gone cold

was about to hot up.

-'Isn't that wonderful?'

-Oh, my God, I can't believe it.

You've just completed my life for me.

After her 31-year quest for answers,

Denise Wilson's search was finally coming to fruition.

Adopted as a baby,

she had discovered that not only was her birth mother still alive,

but that she also had sisters, one of whom had never been traced,

so Denise set out to find her, 50 years after she'd been adopted.

My birth mother, Elsie, I asked her about Katherine and she said,

"Oh, she went to somebody that had a son

"and she went and adopted Katherine

"and Katherine was brought up in Manchester."

And I thought, "Well, how can I trace her?"

Denise was desperate to track down the final missing sister,

so employed the services of a family finder who specialised in adoption.

I couldn't believe it.

Within a few weeks, he'd found a brother, he knew her name,

he got us her birth certificate.

We knew where she was born and then he actually located her.

There was a picture and I just knew.

I looked at the picture and I thought, "That is a young Elsie,

"that's my sister, I know it is." And it was.

Denise had, at last, found her sister Katherine.

I rang her about 11 o'clock in the morning and I goes, "Hi, Katherine."

Um...

I says, "You don't know me but I'm your sister." She goes, "What?!"

I just told her I was her sister and, um...

She goes, "I can't believe it."

She was like, "I can't believe it," she's going.

I jumped around and screamed a lot

and couldn't control myself for excitement, basically,

but I was getting all this info all in the spate of about 20 minutes.

She was telling me this and telling me that

and it was just madness but brilliant, absolute brilliant.

I was so ecstatic.

And then I was able to tell her that we had other sisters

and that our mam was still alive, um...

And she just...she just loved it.

When Denise was adopted, she'd been taken to the northeast.

The couple who adopted Katherine remained in the northwest.

I had a terrifically happy childhood.

I grew up in Urmston, in Manchester, and just basically had fun

and did what kids did in those days.

It was lovely, absolutely lovely.

My mum did an awful lot for me.

My mother actually told me I was adopted

when I was about five, five or six.

Somebody in my class at school was adopted,

so I asked my mother what "adopted" is

and I think she must have chose her opportunity to tell me then,

and I was quite chuffed about it, actually, cos I felt quite chosen.

So, I was quite happy with the whole situation.

It makes you feel special, I think, at that age.

My mum told me that I'd had an older sister

and that my natural mother couldn't look after us,

and that was that, basically.

"She was on her own, she had two young children,

"that's why you were adopted."

There was nothing mentioned about anything, really, like that.

And I just took it as that was it

and never really pursued the matter until later.

Denise and Katherine may never know the details

of why their mum gave them up for adoption,

but there's no doubt that life for single mothers

in the 1950s was far from easy.

Historically, having children out of wedlock was really frowned upon.

The term for it was "socially fallen".

Your family might be ashamed of it,

the local community would talk about it

and it was something that needed to be hidden away.

The creation of the welfare state in 1948

meant that these so-called "fallen women" were now eligible

for child benefits, known at the time as national assistance,

and the Adoption of Children Act,

which came into force the following year,

was designed to safeguard both single mothers and their babies.

However, even by the late 1950s, society still viewed marriage

as the only real acceptable qualification for parenthood

and mothers of children born out of wedlock

would have still come under pressure from doctors, parents and the church

to give up their babies for adoption.

Charities would have got involved and facilitated adoption.

Doctors might have found a place for a baby

in the local or wider community

because they knew the baby was coming along,

so it was just a very different outlook on life.

Denise and Kathy's mother would not have been alone

in giving her children up.

In 1958, there were over 13,000 adoption orders,

the majority of which were babies of unwed mothers.

Now the final piece of the jigsaw had been found.

After 31 years of searching,

it was time for Elsie and all of her daughters

to meet for the first time.

When I actually met them all, it was like I'd never been away,

if you know what I mean.

I walked into a room and I felt like I belonged.

I didn't know what to say to my mother, actually, I really didn't.

And...

We just sat and smiled a lot, basically.

I gave her a hug, wished her well and everything.

But she's a frail little thing.

I was scared of breaking her, to be honest.

It was an emotional reunion, but amongst all the celebrating,

Katherine and Denise didn't get much of a chance to talk properly.

We haven't been together and had a good conversation,

like I have with the others, because we've been separate.

It would be nice to have a bit of conversation

or spend a little bit of time with Katherine.

So, the sisters have arranged to spend an entire day together.

This is an opportunity for me to have a nice little chin chat

with her on our own and find out all our bits and bobs about each other,

so I only know the outside bits at the minute.

I don't know all the details.

Janet and Denise are meeting in Manchester

to get more of a feel for their family roots

and the area where they were both born.

I'm getting quite giddy, actually.

I'm getting quite sort of fluttery cos this is quite a... Yeah...

It's quite an event.

I've never, ever visited the area

where my mam actually gave birth to me.

I've never been there, never visited, um...

So it will be really nice if we can get to do that.

After years of being totally oblivious to each other's existence,

the two sisters can finally begin making up for lost time.

THEY LAUGH

How are you?

Ooh, ooh.

-You all right?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Are you looking forward to this?

-Yeah.

So, we'll go and find out where we come from.

The girls were born within a few miles of each other,

just two years apart, before being adopted.

I was five months old.

-And I was 18 months.

-And you were 18 months old.

-It's sad, isn't it?

-Yeah.

Well, we just don't know what the circumstances were, really.

-Remember when I first rang you?

-Yeah.

THEY LAUGH

-That must have been a bit of a shock!

-Yeah, it was!

-Well, you heard me, didn't you?

-Yeah.

I sort of went leaping about the kitchen like a loony. Oh, dear.

-"Hello, Kathy."

-"I'm your sister."

-"I'm your sister."

THEY LAUGH

That was funny.

The house where Denise was born has since been demolished,

so they've come to see the place where Kathy was taken to live

when she was newly adopted.

Lived here till I was, oh, 17.

Urmston, oh, we're here. Oh, my God.

So, you recognise it?

-Highfield Primary School!

-Yeah?

-Oh, here we go.

-There we are, ladies.

-Oh, it's got scaffolding up.

-Is this your old house?

-This is my old house, yeah. Oh, my God!

Were you brought here when you were just a baby, to this house?

-Yeah, this is where I came. This is where I came.

-Yeah.

I used to climb onto the porch

and get in the bathroom window when I couldn't get in.

-Underneath there, there's a bag of pennies that we buried.

-Where?

THEY LAUGH

Underneath there. He used to play the guitar...

..that one used to play the drums,

I used to play the trumpet, the cornet,

my brother played the guitar.

KATHY CHUCKLES

-I had lovely memories here, absolutely lovely memories.

-Mmm-hmm.

I can't believe it.

Kathy's still got a photograph of her with her parents

in front of this very house,

taken a few years after they adopted her.

Oh, is that the photograph of the house?

-We were stood over there, right in between the windows.

-Oh, right.

-Oh, my God.

-Yeah, how weird.

We definitely get me in between the windows again.

-Right.

-Before and after.

I think we've been quite lucky, really, that...

-We've been lucky, yeah.

-You know, cos... I don't know.

I think it's where you grow up as well and where,

-circumstances of where you grow up as well.

-Yeah, I think we went to...

..good homes, basically.

It's a shame mum had to give us up but she must have had her reasons

-and I think it gave us, maybe, a better life.

-Oh, definitely.

-Yeah.

-Definitely.

-So...

-I mean, it's been...

-I've got no, sort of, misgivings about anything.

-No.

-I just feel sad that we weren't all together, the sisters.

-Yeah.

To grow up together, that would have been nice.

It would have been harder in those days.

It wouldn't have been a nice...

It wouldn't have been nice to do it but... Other circumstances.

-It would have been nice if things had been different.

-Yeah.

I wouldn't ask my natural mother to explain why she did things

because, like, it's in the past, that's past.

It's...

It's not the past we have to worry about now, it's the future, so...

It's a shame the girls never grew up together

but this is just one of those things that's happened.

We can make up for it now.

For Denise, it's the end of a search for answers that began 31 years ago.

There's questions that are still unanswered but...

..I don't think they're going to be answered now.

I think it's about time we sort of call it a day, really,

and just be thankful, really, for what I HAVE found

and the answers that I HAVE got,

because I could go on another 31 years

and maybe not have any more answers,

so I think now it's about time to call it a day.

Thanks to Denise, all this happened anyway,

so I can only thank her from the bottom of my heart, basically,

because it's been a totally, totally brilliant experience.

I was found and I'm so glad I was found.

I think it's nice to know where you come from,

who you are, you know, and just your blood relatives, really.

I didn't think I'd ever...

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

In Essex, Janet had spent 50 years

wondering what had happened to her mother, Madeline.

Janet finally began looking, but after a message she posted

on a family tracing website went unanswered, she gave up.

However, unbeknownst to Janet, just 70 miles away,

some distant family members had, in fact, spotted her message.

I sent an email to Janet saying how thrilled I was

that we'd come into contact and I heard absolutely nothing at all.

Brother and sister Tony and Jane had reason to believe

that Janet's mum could be their aunt but their email went unanswered.

I was very confused. I didn't know...

You wonder whether you'd maybe put something in the email

that perhaps wasn't to her liking, was too upsetting,

or perhaps something had happened to her.

You just didn't know what to think.

And there, fate may have ended the search.

Jane's email had arrived

at the point when Janet had given up looking.

But fate hadn't reckoned with Janet's daughter, Deborah.

I knew that she would just have so many regrets if she didn't,

and her regrets would be my regrets as well.

My daughter said, "Mum, you ought to go on the site,

"cos you never know. Just go on it and see. You might have a message."

So, a couple of days later, I thought, "I'll have a nose round,

"see what's going on," and I couldn't believe it.

I had two messages from my first cousin, Jane,

and it was, like, I couldn't believe it.

They'd been sitting there for months.

She was like a big kid when she found out.

She was like, "You'll never guess, never guess!"

And then we got an email from her which was lovely,

with all her news and what she'd been doing

and all about her children and it was wonderful, absolutely wonderful.

Janet's mum had had a brother called Maurice.

Tony and Jane are his children and, therefore, Janet's cousins.

They knew her mother, Madeline, as their Aunt Madge.

My father was one of seven siblings.

Madge was the eldest and they had quite a poor upbringing,

I think, um, in the East End of London.

They met the mysterious Aunt Madge a couple of times

during their childhood when she came over from Canada to visit.

What I recall of Madge whilst I was growing up

was she was a very warm, pleasant, ever-smiling,

light-hearted person who enjoyed dancing a great deal

and was exceptionally pleasant and friendly.

-She was quite an exotic creature, really.

-She was.

I remember her, cos she was always dressed to the nines

and had the most perfect hair.

Beautiful figure and she had this wonderful Canadian twang.

But they knew very little else about Madge.

We knew that she'd had two daughters but, other than that,

absolutely nothing, really nothing. Didn't know where she lived.

I don't remember seeing any pictures or ever having a conversation

with, I suppose, my cousins, um, at all.

It was only years later that they found out

that Madge had been married before.

I can't really even remember when, um...when I found out

that Madge had had, um...a daughter

with her first husband, um, until much later.

I must have been in my 20s, I think, if not later than that.

But, of course, there was no way of contacting her at all.

Didn't know the surname, didn't know anything about her whatsoever,

even her name, actually.

And Janet had had absolutely no idea

about the existence of Jane and Tony.

Before I'd made contact with Jane, I didn't know anything.

I didn't know I had any cousins or anything at all. I was so excited.

I just couldn't believe my eyes.

I really, really got very, very emotional

and I just felt that, even if I don't find my sisters,

I have found family.

If, like Janet, you want to find family who have moved abroad,

tracing them can prove more challenging.

As well as potential language barriers,

many countries don't have online archives.

A good place to start is with immigration records,

which are stored at the National Archive.

These will provide useful information,

like names, occupations and exact dates of arrival in a country -

a good starting point for any search.

And countries with strong ties to the UK, like Australia and Canada,

have dedicated genealogy centres that can assist you in your search.

Janet exchanged several emails with Tony and Jane

and they arranged to meet, taking their mother, Ann, along too.

Janet was hoping that they might have some information

about HER mum and sisters.

In the summer, we arranged that they would come here to see me.

There was my Auntie Ann, my cousin Tony and my cousin Jane.

It was like I'd always known them. It was really, really terrific.

It's really exciting to have found Janet.

She's a wonderful person

and it's great to have another member of the family.

At the meeting,

her newfound relatives had some sad news for Janet.

She said, "Your mum died when she was 68."

And I realised that was only four years after I'd met her.

She couldn't remember my sisters' names.

She thought one was called Joy but she wasn't that sure.

But it was a real breakthrough that she did actually know

where my mother settled, because it pinpointed where to look for them,

and she said that she came from Nottawa.

It was exactly the sort of extra detail Janet needed

to progress the search and today, four months after they first met up,

Janet's seeing Tony, Jane and their mother, Ann, again.

Today's meeting also marks another milestone.

Janet's daughter, Deborah, is meeting

her mum's long-lost cousins for the first time.

How are you feeling about meeting them today?

I'm really excited, yeah, really excited.

Yeah, it's, um, it's been a long time waiting for this,

for this moment. And I'm going to treasure this moment.

Ah, that's lovely. I can't wait for them to meet you.

-She's coming with her daughter, Deborah.

-Yes.

So that will be lovely to meet her.

-Here we are.

-Yes.

-Lovely.

Janet, hello, darling!

Good to see you.

THEY ALL LAUGH AND TALK OVER EACH OTHER

Introductions over, cousin Tony has a surprise for Janet.

-A family member has discovered some photographs.

-Oh!

Let me just show you.

There's a photograph of your mother,

which we believe was taken in Canada.

-In Canada?

-Indeed.

-In Canada? Oh!

-Oh, wow. Oh, look, Deborah.

It's the first time Janet's seen this image of her mother

and there's more to come.

One here of Madge, your mum, and your sisters.

-Oh, look! Oh, my sisters!

-That's a lovely photograph.

-Oh, my gosh!

It was the fall, September, 1954. She'd only just got there then.

-Aren't they like her?

-So that's...

-Oh, my goodness.

-So that's Joy?

-That's Joy. Oh, look.

-And that's Glenda.

She looks so happy there as well.

-Oh, gosh, you look like her!

-Yeah.

-Wow, you really look like her.

-Oh, my God.

JANET SNIFFLES

Oh, that's... Oh, I can't believe it.

Thank you so much. Oh, I, I...

I can't begin to say how wonderful that is of you.

Janet is one step closer to knowing the family

that's taken her decades to find.

I can't believe that I've actually seen my sisters on photo

and my mum in Canada with them. I'm just overwhelmed.

Today was absolutely fantastic, to meet everyone.

Today went brilliantly. It was magnificent.

It's made the family whole.

Not only has Janet discovered family she never knew about,

the cousins have also helped fill in some crucial gaps

in her family history.

Janet had already enlisted the help of a family finding company

to trace her sisters.

Now armed with the information on a possible location in Canada

and their own extensive research, Janet was relying on them.

Although I didn't have very much information to go on,

this company felt that they would be able to help me

and they were willing to take on the search.

They have been able to trace the whereabouts, through certificates,

of where my sisters might be,

that they're still living,

and the search seems to be getting quite close

and I'm beginning to be very, very excited

and yet trying not to be too excited

in case it just, somehow, doesn't come to fruition.

I think, with Janet's case, this had been a long time.

Janet had not heard from them,

had not had any contact for about 50 years.

When it's like this, where there's good information in one respect,

but little information on another side,

it may not go as quickly or as smoothly as you hope it will.

But today, three weeks after Janet found a possible location,

there's some news from the family tracing company.

-'Hello, Janet, how are you?'

-I'm fine, thank you.

I'm just ringing to see if you've got any news about them yet.

'We've been able to find contact details for Joy,

'who was the older of the two sisters.

'And, very excitingly, last night, I placed a call to Joy

'and gave her the news that you had been trying to find her.

'And her first reaction was,

'"Oh, my goodness, that's my half-sister, isn't it?"'

JANET GASPS AND LAUGHS

-Oh, wow!

-'Which was incredible.'

-Oh, my gosh!

'And she straightaway said,

'"Yes, we've always known about Janet,

'"we've always thought about her

'"and wondered where she was and how she was getting on."'

-Thank you.

-'Isn't that wonderful?'

-Oh, my God, I can't believe it.

'She's really keen to get in contact.

'She still sees your other half-sister, Glenda,

'so I'm quite sure by now that Glenda will also know the good news

'and she's keen to hear from you, Janet.'

Oh, Jennifer, I don't know how to thank you.

-You've just completed my life for me.

-'Oh, you're so, so welcome.

-'It really genuinely was our pleasure.'

-Thank you so much.

-Bye. I'll be in touch.

-'Bye-bye.'

-Bye. Thank you.

I told you. I knew you would find them.

Janet's 50-year search for her family is finally over.

I just want to tell everybody, I just want to ring up everybody

and tell them I've found my sisters. It's so wonderful.

I don't know whether to cry or laugh or... Just so emotional.

I can't wait to see them now. I can't wait to be with them.

For someone like Janet who, for 50 years,

has wanted to just meet these sisters or speak to these sisters,

and now she can have that, I'm absolutely thrilled for her.

To play a part in that is wonderful.

It makes coming to work really, really special.

And Janet can make contact with the sisters she's never known.

"Dear Joy, I'm so excited to find you.

"I really can't believe it and I'm longing to get to know you.

"We have got so much to share together.

"I have been searching for you both for many years

"but everything I tried came to no avail.

"I'm so looking forward to you emailing me back

"and making contact with Glenda too. Take...care."