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Private Notes
80-year-old Violet Rossini hasn't seen her big sister Kathleen for 72 years. Violet and Kathleen were taken into the care system at an early age and fostered into separate families, and the last time Violet saw Kathleen she was only eight years old. Now, after a lifetime of wondering what had become of her beloved sister, Violet has sought the help of the Salvation Army's Family Tracing Unit, who have succeeded in tracing Kathleen. Violet travels halfway around the world from her home in Australia for a highly emotional reunion with her sister after more than seven decades apart.
Ron Clark grew up in 1950s Liverpool with his mum Elizabeth - but when he was just eight, his life was turned upside down when his mum left him with a neighbour and never returned. Ron ended up in foster care, and it wasn't until 50 years later that he began searching for his mother. He ended up unearthing four siblings he never knew he had, including half-Chinese twins. In this episode, Ron's brother Ray comes over from Bali to meet Ron's foster brother Steve for the very first time.
Photographer Claire Seville has no memory of her father George, who left the family home when she was just three months old. Claire's sister Sarah does remember her dad, but neither has seen or heard from George in nearly 30 years. However, recently Claire engaged the services of Leeds-based family tracing agency Finder Monkey. These family finders have managed to track down George, who is overcome at the news his daughters have been looking for him. In a highly emotional encounter, Claire and Sarah are reunited with their father - but will he be able to explain his motives in leaving behind the two daughters he so clearly loves?
Ray Martin grew up in Newcastle with the people he thought were his natural parents, until his world was turned on its head when he was just 14. Ray overheard a late-night conversation and learned that he was adopted. As an adult, Ray devoted years to the search for his birth family but came up with nothing, until his son Alan decided to turn family finder himself and unearthed no fewer than five brothers and sisters for his dad! In this episode, Ray returns to Newcastle to meet his new-found siblings and learn more about the mother he was never able to meet.
Mary Kitchen hasn't seen her little brother Lennie for over 30 years. When Lennie was still a baby, Mary and her mother moved away, leaving Lennie to be brought up by his father - and leaving Mary with nothing to remind her of her baby brother except one precious photo. It's only now, decades later, with the encouragement of her own daughter, that Mary has begun searching for Lennie in earnest. With the help of the Salvation Army Family Tracing Unit, Mary manages to track Lennie down and travels from Huddersfield for an emotionally charged reunion with the brother she hasn't seen in over three decades.
81-year-old retired musician Linda Wright only discovered she was adopted when she was 20 - and it was to be another five decades before she decided to find out if she had any living relatives. Engaging the services of genealogist Charlie Watson, Linda learns that she had a sister, Bridget - and when the two sisters meet, they discover some remarkable and uncanny similarities in their two lives - coincidences which may go a long way to explaining an unresolved mystery surrounding their mother's past.
Stephen Hills was just a baby when his dad Alan, a coal worker in Doncaster, left home. Alan's relationship with Stephen's mother fell apart amidst the strife and hardship of the 1984 miners' strike. Alan moved out, left the area, and hasn't seen his son since. Now with children of his own, Stephen is desperate to find his dad and has sought the help of a family finding agency, who have managed to track down Alan. After three decades apart, father and son are reunited in an emotional encounter. But can Alan explain to Steven the circumstances behind his departure, and just why he was driven to leave?
81-year-old Eric Morgan only found out he was adopted when signing up for National Service as a young man in 1952. After a lifetime of wondering about his early origins, Eric had given up hope of ever finding any birth relatives until he was contacted out of the blue by a half-sister May, who had been doing some family finding of her own. Their joyous reunion has just one shadow hanging over it - May's other brother Brian isn't convinced as to Eric's bona fides. Is Eric really their brother, or just some chancer trying his luck? Only a DNA test will reveal the full - and unexpected - truth.
George Chapman's childhood was as tough as it gets. George grew up in poverty in 1940s Northumberland, an only child looking after two sick parents. When he was 22, both parents having passed away, he made the shocking discovery that he was adopted. George put it all to the back of his mind - and it's only now, over 40 years later, that his daughter Tracey has resolved to track down her dad's birth family. Some painstaking detective work has found no fewer than three siblings! One of them, Thelma, comes over from her home in Australia to meet her long-lost brother George for the very first time.
Rebecca Taylor has only a few early memories of her father Trevor. She hasn't seen him since she was 10, when her mother remarried and moved the family to Devon. Rebecca never stopped wondering about her dad, but it was only when she enlisted the help of the Salvation Army's Family Tracing Unit that she made a long-awaited breakthrough. Reunited at last, Rebecca and her dad meet again near his Black Country home to spend an emotional day getting to know each other again.
Journalist and war correspondent Jonathan Fryer was adopted at the age of 18 months, but grew up never feeling fully part of his new family. Jonathan tried to trace his birth parents without success, and had all but given up hope until he received a letter out of the blue which changed everything. It turned out Jonathan's sisters had spent years looking for him - and had finally found him! The siblings meet up for an emotionally charged encounter, and are finally able to solve a long-standing mystery surrounding their mother, and the events that led to them spending so long apart.
Christine St Aubyn was researching her family history from her home in Australia, desperate to know more about her grandmother Rose, who had emigrated to the new world from the UK. Christine's curiosity led her halfway around the world on a pilgrimage to a small churchyard in Essex - only to discover that she wasn't the only person coming to pay her respects to the small wooden cross which marked the grave of a long-buried child. This set in motion a remarkable series of events, putting Christine in contact with a family member she never knew she had.
Wendy Brightwell grew up in an unconventional household - her father shared his life not just with wife Lil, but also with his live-in mistress, Wendy's mother. To the young Wendy this was nothing out of the ordinary, and she loved life with her half-brother Rod. But Wendy hasn't seen Rod since their father died when she was nine - and both siblings have spent their lives wondering if and when they'll ever see each other again. With the help of family finder Antony Marr, the two were recently reunited in an emotional encounter - and now Wendy introduces Rod to her children for the very first time.
Margaret Teague always wondered why she didn't look like the rest of her family. Convinced she was adopted, Margaret engaged the services of a professional family finder, and discovered that not only was she adopted, but she also has a brother called Mark. Mark is overjoyed to finally be reunited with the sister he never knew he had. Unlike Margaret, Mark has memories of his mother, and he takes his sister on an emotional and revealing trip to London to learn more about their shared past.
When she was a child, Sandie Smith opened a cupboard looking for some colouring pens and stumbled across a piece of paper which revealed she had been adopted. Sandie waited until she was an adult to try to trace her birth parents, but despite unearthing some tantalising leads she was unable to make a breakthrough until a professional family finder stepped in to help. Sadly, Sandie's mother had passed away, but the family finder had much happier news - he'd traced her sisters, Sandie's aunts. Sandie meets her aunts for an emotional journey into their past, as she finds out much more about the mother she never had the chance to meet.
These days, Alfred Alcorn is a distinguished Harvard academic - a far cry from his childhood spent growing up in wartime Liverpool. A tragic early life saw Alfred orphaned and sent off to live with an aunt in America - but he never forgot the early days and the family he'd left behind on Merseyside. Years of searching came to nothing until an email out of the blue revealed that not only did Alfred still have a family, but they had been looking for him! Alfred returns to Liverpool for an emotional reunion with the cousin he last saw when they were small boys.
Christina Boston grew up always knowing she was adopted. But when she set out to find her birth sisters with the help and encouragement of her adoptive mum Pam, Christina had no idea how difficult the search would be. It was a case that left the online family finding community baffled - until a professional got involved and was able to track down her sisters. In an emotional encounter, Christina introduces mum Pam to her sisters Rachel and Sarah for the very first time.
Wendy Thompson is addicted to the thrill of researching family history. She's helped friends and colleagues trace their own living relatives, and is a regular presence on family finding online message boards. But when Wendy offered to help a stranger with his own search, little did she realise she was about to uncover a remarkable connection to her own family. Wendy and her cousin Adrian meet up for only the third time to share a series of intriguing revelations about their grandfathers, two brothers who each led highly colourful lives.
Natalie Barker never knew her father. As an adult, she decided the time was right to trace him, and engaged the services of a firm of family finders. The only information she had to go on was a name and a last known address - and it turned out that even this sketchy information was wrong. However, after some clever detective work, the family finders tracked down her father, Patrick. Meeting him now for only the third time, Natalie shares some special memories with Patrick and has a very special request to ask of her dad.
67-year-old Hugh McGarvey sought the help of the Salvation Army Family Tracing Service to track down a mysterious cousin, Josephine, whose existence only came to light in a passing remark from a relative. There was scant information to go on. All Hugh knew was that Josephine had left Glasgow for Ireland to become a nun - meaning she could have ended up anywhere in the world. It would be a challenging case - could the family finders possibly locate her?
78-year-old Brian Read grew up in south east London during World War II. As young children, Brian and his older brother Tony were inseparable from their cousin Denis - all three boys played happily in the streets together, despite the ever-present threat of German bombers. However, in the postwar housing shake-up, the cousins ended up going their separate ways, and it was only with Tony's recent death that Brian resolved once and for all to track down his friend and cousin. Now, nearly 70 years after last setting eyes on each other, Brian and Denis are reunited once again, before taking an emotional and evocative trip around their childhood haunts.
Andrea Wood grew up not knowing her father, who left home before she was born. As she got older, she always wondered who he was and what he looked like, but it wasn't until she had children of her own that she decided to act and employed a family-finding agency to track him down. The family finders found an address for her father Peter - but how would he react to Andrea's letter? And would they be able to make up for lost time when they were finally reunited?
The amazing story of John Haydon and his American half-sister Diane Messer, who found each other recently after a lifetime apart. John's mother Eileen walked out on him and his father when John was still a young boy - and went on to live an extraordinary and colourful life of adventure. Via Paris, Africa and New York, Eileen ended up in New Orleans, where she married and had a daughter, Diane. 58 years later, Diane and John have finally found each other - and this emotional transatlantic reunion has an extraordinary twist, when a necklace Diane had been given by her late mother turns out to have a huge and unexpected significance...
When Paul Smith set out to track down the father he hadn't seen since early childhood, he knew the odds were against him - because his father's name is John Smith. It was never going to be an easy case for the family finders of the Salvation Army - but after some sterling detective work, they get their man. Drawing on their shared love of classic cars, John and Paul plan a road trip through their past - but can John explain just why he felt obliged to walk away from his marriage, leaving a young family behind?
Anne Ingles hasn't seen her younger brother John in over 50 years. The last time she saw him, he was a dashing young man with film star looks and plans to travel the world with the merchant navy. Now, with the help of a firm of family finders, she's managed to track him down. Brother and sister finally meet after five decades apart - and John fills Anne in on the details of his remarkably colourful life.
As a teenager, Geraldine Turner was almost like a mother to her half-brother Mark, who was 11 years younger than she was. And their relationship grew closer after both Mark's parents sadly died by the time he was 16. Not long afterwards, Mark enlisted for the army and ended up being posted abroad. At the same time, in a terrible stroke of bad luck, Geraldine lost Mark's contact details when her purse was stolen. Driven apart by events, the two siblings hadn't seen each other for over 30 years. Could the Salvation Army Family Tracing Unit rise to the challenge, and bring them together again after so long apart?
Jeanette Fear was 23 when she applied for a passport and learned that the man she had always called Dad wasn't in fact her birth father. Jeanette pressed her mother for more details, but it wasn't until many decades later that she learned the shocking truth - her birth father had been arrested for bigamy, and had another wife and family all along. With the help of a firm of family finders, Jeanette manages to track down her half-sister Glynis. Meeting each other proves a cathartic and emotional experience - but will a trip to their father's final resting place help them both come to a greater understanding of their shared past?
Irene Robertson was taken into care when she was just a baby. Growing up in the unforgiving company of her foster mother, Irene always wondered about her true origins - but it wasn't until she was nearly 70 that she enlisted the help of Edinburgh charity Birthlink, who were able to get her access to her care records. This comprehensive dossier held the crucial clues that recently led her to an emotional reunion with her brother Reg. Irene and Reg meet up in their home town of Edinburgh for the first time, where they trace their mother's footsteps and stumble upon a remarkable discovery that changes Irene's view of her mother for ever.
The extraordinary story of two first cousins, living only miles apart, brought together as a result of their independent searches into their fathers' pasts. Kate and Jim were both the children of Canadian soldiers stationed in Scotland during World War II - but their mothers had two very different experiences of life after being swept off their feet by these glamorous new arrivals. Many decades later, Kate and Jim are brought together with the help of a group of amateur internet family finders. In an emotional encounter, they meet for the first time, with many questions still to be answered and a lifetime of experiences to catch up on.
Elaine Pennington grew up knowing she was adopted, but it wasn't until her early twenties that she resolved to track down her birth mother. Decades of frustration followed, with apparent breakthroughs coming to nothing. But little did Elaine realise that 200 miles away, someone had spent the last ten years searching for her! Finally brought together with her sister Grace, Elaine makes the long trip to Somerset to introduce her adoptive mum Eunice to her new-found family for the first time.
