Would you try to find your Long Lost Family?

I'm not in your situation, but I would say give it a go, providing you can be ready to accept rejection. I was estranged from my maternal grandfather( my mother's choice) and after the death of my beloved paternal grandfather (when I was 19), I often thought of him. He lived fairly locally, I knew people who knew him. I thought about getting in touch but feared rejection from him or his wife, and disapproval from my mother.
When I was in my early 30s he had a heart attack and one of my mother's aunts suggested she visit before it was too late. Mum did and then suggested I went, so I did, accompanied by my husband and 3 small children.
It was an odd experience, but not unpleasant and I mentioned visiting when he got out of hospital. He was very happy for me to do that. Unfortunately he died before I could visit again, but I was told that he had really enjoyed my visit and was proud of his granddaughter and great granddaughters.
I try not to regret the wasted years before I met him because I believe in his earlier years he was not a good husband or father, but I will always be grateful for the visit. At least I cannot say, If only.....

yes go for it. you have to find out where you came from.my mum was adopted. although she was happy with her adoptive parents and had no wish to trace her birth family. she did give us permission to find out after her terminal illness. we waited 2 years then got curious.so we started with her birthdate .and on may 3rd 1933 was two boys and one girl.(my mum)..so now we had her birth names . family record centre for nearly 5 years. but we traced most siblings and her birth mother and grandparents.we actually met her real sister and one brother,another brother in scotland ,another in australia .aunt in south africa......sister lives in banstead ,looks so much like my mum its eerie....the brother would rather that we left things alone.. but we did go for the weekend and cleared the air.seems my mums birth mother was a bit of a wild girl. kids every where and all adopted out..only brother in scotland was living with her. birth family died mid 1970's...birth great grandfather died april 1918 had 4 children while in india in the army.....poor bugger was 40 yrs old when killed on the somme./flanders.good job he had children when in india or i wouldnt be sititng here now,. so yes yes yes. do look .you need to know where you come from. my other side we (relatives in australia) have traced back to 1400's.

My cousin was happily adopted and at 18 decided to try to find his birth mother. He found her and contacted her, and she visited him at his adoptive parents home. They were very alike to look at, but sadly they just did not get on, and the relationship petered out. I don't think she had had further children either.

booklady, as someone who is adopted, “does it matter” is said kindly, not trying to hurt you. For some of us it really doesn’t matter. We might not have the same genetic history as our family, but we have a shared history.

I loath people who refer to me as adopted daughter, or my siblings as my adopted siblings. Its so narrow minded on how families are made.

I’m sorry you received such a shock and lies though, that truly is terrible.

Our adopted daughter’s 17 year old birth mother was forced to give her up, we were told, but DD has never expressed any interest in finding her. I am the one who wonders if she has waited for many years, hoping that her lost child would get in touch.
DD had two miscarriages, then they found that she had a certain blood condition, possibly genetic. Perhaps tracing her family might have brought it to light sooner. Thankfully, with treatment, she went on to have two successful pregnancies.
I hope that you trace your family, and have a happy outcome.

My heart goes out to you Blzzle, I am wishing you a positive outcome in your search and look forward to hearing how you get on. It's amazing that a little information could go a long way and I hope you find a living relative or more, it doesn't matter how distant, family is family. Lots of luck.

I can only trace my mother's side of the family back so far, as a great aunt of hers was a foundling.

Good luck in your search!

Big big hugs Booklady54, I wish there were words to comfort you.
Perhaps a very slight comfort would be to love & praise yourself for the person you are , despite having your world turned upside down , but knowing that you were very much loved.

I was a donor conceived baby back in the 1950s when it was borderline illegal. My mother never told me and my aunt, sworn to secrecy, decided to tell me when I was 50. It was devastating to find the lovely man who I thought was my father was no biological relation. Worse was the massive lie my life had been. I have little hope of ever tracing any relatives as all the paperwork for the clinic mysteriously went up in flames. Only knowing half your identity is awful. Many well meaning (maybe) people say why does it matter? It matters when you don't know who you are or why this happened. My mother took her secret to her grave.

Quite by chance, my brother discovered our DGF had fathered a child before he married DGM. Thus our father, long deceased, had a half sister. Did he know? He and his brother never mentioned it.
We have since met these new cousins and there are strong family likenesses but we are not in daily contact.
I think my cousin still harbours some hurt through her mother - the daughter of the woman he, GF, didn't marry.

Knowing one’s origins is fundamentally important to humans, if one is lucky, happy enough not to want or need that knowledge then that is brilliant, but for many ( possibly more so for those who were adopted as children rather than babies ) it is a niggle that doesn’t ever go away.
I believe every adopted child should be given their birth details.
Also Let’s not forget that there are also people walking around who aren’t aware that they may have been fathered by someone other than the person they call Dad .Sadly for some they only find out when they hear rumours throughout their community .

Tillybelle good luck with your new hobby

Shesanana. That is so helpful! How kind of you to give me all that information. It sounds so interesting. My mother was adopted and stupidly I kind of was put off because it seemed like a dead-end! But my father's surname side has been researched and is quite interesting.
Thank you again. I think next Winter I have a hobby at the ready. I am going to keep your message with your permission.
??(you)

Tillybelle I subscribe to Ancestry to use their search function and have access to the member Family Trees. I have downloaded my raw data from Ancestry and uploaded it to My Heritage, ftdna and GEDmatch. As I said I’ve also had my DNA tested by 23andme. All of these sites have lots of information. Good old Google can also point you in the right direction! If you use Facebook there are many help groups with information ranging from beginners to advanced. Some groups have ‘search angels’ who can help with searches free of charge.

Thank you for your kind words

Our foster daughter wanted to find her mother after we bumped into her in the local market. I didn't know her but she and our daughter recognised one another immediately and frightened everyone else out of the aisle as they stood and looked at each other.

It has been an up and down experience for all of us but our daughter is glad she knows about her family and gets on well with her aunts.

Do look for your birth family. I think you will be sorry if you haven't tried and if you can take an objective view till you know how things stand, you could find it has been worth the effort.

Good luck!

As I said I wish you luck blzzle but never forget you are your own person and you don't need others to validate you.

Dharmacat. You are truly compassionate and caring. I think you have said some very important things.

I do know of a person born in similar circumstances to yours, her father being a WW2 Soldier, but her mother, then unmarried, kept her. The mother married later.

However, the mother made up a variety of stories about the Soldier father and some were clearly strange and hard to place with the dates of the birth and the war. She also gave her husband, who adopted her child, a terrible time during the marriage.

The child grew up to become very difficult with ways like her mother and coincidentally had a baby at the same age and in the same month that her mother had her. This time the baby was adopted.

I have always wondered if that baby, now a grown, middle-aged woman, would ever try to seek her birth mother. It is this family that I always think of when I hear of adopted people looking for their birth parents. In this case I really hope that the person never wants to find her birth mother. The family are terrible, she would have such a shock. It would be so awful to find out you were related to people like that. I pray she has had such a happy life she does not want to look beyond her circumstances and seek out her birth relations.

Thank you Dharmacat, you made me remember this situation. It is, I suppose, the other side of the coin in the way that you so kindly consider the family that may exist which you do not want to disturb.

I wish you every happiness. You are truly a kind and thoughtful person. ?

Shesanana. just to say good luck with your search and how much I admire all the work you have done and are doing on your ancestry research. I am truly impressed and inspired to do some on mine. Do you use a website to get started? I am a beginner.
Thanks, and many best wishes to you and all others on researching your ancestry and to all who are trying to find their birth family. I hope it goes well for you. ?

Hi blzzle. I wish you well in your search but don’t set your hopes too high on the tv programme. I also filled in the form and unfortunately as they get so many applications they can obviously only try to help a fraction of the people who apply. I wasn’t one of them.

I discovered I was adopted 3 years ago at the age of 65. All the older generation who could have helped me to deal with it had long since died.

However following the receipt of my original birth certificate and adoption files I was able to trace my birth mother’s family. She had died a long time ago at the relatively young age of 59 of a heart attack. Her family welcomed me with literally open arms I’m happy to say. I have 4 uncles still alive and 26 first cousins!

I have now done the Ancestry and 23andme DNA tests because I need to know about my birth father. I have little information about him but I know I’m getting closer to finding out. I have 2 possible second cousins on his side and more people are testing all the time.

It’s also important to have medical history if possible both for yourself and your children.

Everyone is different and I know some people would rather not know. I don’t know if uncovering this shocking secret so late in my life has affected how I have to deal with it. I just know that I want..need..to know as much as I possibly can.

I wish you good luck with your search xx

If I had been adopted I would HAVE to know where I 'came from', as it were. I would move the earth to find out even though most adoption stories aren't happy ones. I haven't got the mindset to not want to know, and don't understand people who aren't interested in finding out. But that's me - not you nor anybody else. I wish you luck.

Strange Dharmacat that you spoke of your birth situation because during the war my parents were going to adopt an unborn baby in similar circumstances as my mother was told that she could never have children. Then they found she was pregnant with me so the future adoption was stopped. I am 75.

b1zzle.

I am not in your position so I humbly feel I can't say what I would do. But I do care about you and you do ask for "any helpful/encouraging thoughts (or otherwise)?"

Firstly, I would say, take care to protect yourself. You may feel very curious and quite excited to explore at this stage, but there could be a chance that you find out something painful or disappointing and I think you deserve to have some help just in case things turn out a bit sad, or not how you expect.

I do know someone in our family who was adopted and another person told me she wanted to find out her birth relatives. I did not want her to be alone doing this. So I wrote and told her about the day she came to my Aunt and how much she was loved and how we all saw her as our family member, and that if she wanted someone to be beside her in her enquiries I would do so and not discuss anything with anyone.

It turned out that the person who had said she wanted to seek out her birth family had been wrong anyway. But she said my letter made her happy - thank God!!

I would suggest that you find someone you can trust to go along with you in your search. Someone who will not gossip to others but will support you. I don't like to think of you opening a letter all on your own and reading something very sad. So please get some support!

Actually my own mother, born the same year as the Queen and almost her double, was adopted. She knew her biological mother but was often speculating about her father. Being so like the Queen in appearance, you can imagine the theories she had....

There are so many people investigating this now, I am sure there is help you can find. I do hope you will find this rewarding and that nothing upsets you at all in your quest.

Remember, you are one of millions of people brought up by parents who really wanted you! They may not have been able to do the biological creation of you, but they were imagining you, creating you in their minds before they received you and loving you from the moment they saw you.

You were wanted and you belonged! So biology is merely something anyone can do. Love and sticking by you day by day - that's what a parent does!

Bless you b1zzle, sending you love and best wishes, Elle ??

I think you will always wonder if you don't go for it. I know several people who have done this one ended very well with my friend meeting her birth mother, finding a half sister and brother and having an excellent relationship but two others didn't turn out well and they regretted doing it. I think you need to go into it with an open mind and having no expectation of a fairy tale ending but I can fully understand why wish to do it and hope you are successful and get joy.x

Maggiemaybe. Yes.

One of my aunts had a child outside marriage in the 30s. It was never spoken of but a couple of hints dropped ,.The child was a boy and if anyone out there had a grandad or a dad who was adopted in the North west of England I would be interested . I searched for 10 years but there’s was no trace