How I helped my friend Tim find the missing link to his birth mother - at the age of 76

“My name’s Tim, I’m 76 years old and I’m trying to find my mother.” 

 This is how I first encountered Tim, at the North London adopted adult support group he has faithfully attended for 10 years. Tim doesn’t always speak much during the group discussions, but when he does it’s powerful and unforgettable. Underneath Tim’s self-effacing humour I could sense a real yearning to know what happened to his mother, and if he had other relatives out there.

Here is Tim

Another member of the group, John, had already scoured public records including shipping records and discovered that Tim’s mother left the UK for Canada shortly after he was born. Then the trail went cold. With three different names/spelling listed on the few documents Tim had, and the likely possibility she’d married and changed her name once in Canada, we were stumped. 

Tim was fostered and later adopted by a local family, and it’s thought his birth mother had tried to contact him by phone and letter over the years, so we thought that if she were still alive she would be welcoming of contact. As Tim’s mother would now be almost 90, it was sadly not likely we would find her alive, but how difficult could it be to find Tim some family? Well, actually as it turned out really, really difficult! (But, spoiler alert – we got there in the end.)

When I raised the option of DNA testing with Tim he was reluctant due to understandable concerns about data and privacy. However, as the months went on and Tim’s health began to waver, he reconsidered. One Thursday evening in July 2018, after listening to the group share tales of their reunions, Tim spat into a test tube. We posted the precious cargo to Ancestry and waited. 

When the Ancestry email landed 2-3 weeks later I opened it with baited breath. One strong match! No medium matches. Lots of weak matches. So all our eggs were in one basket: this one strong match. She had quite an uncommon name, so I headed to Facebook to find out more. I found her easily and it looked as though she lived in Canada. Bingo! We also had the good fortune of her family tree being semi-open on Ancestry, which meant we could get a family overview. 

But how was this women related to Tim? Ancestry said she could be a 1st/2nd cousin, but due to her approximate age, I wasn’t convinced. I did some Googling and spoke to some amazing angels in the Facebook searching groups including Josie Pearse and the talented Gaye Sherman Tannenbaum to discover that Ancestry isn’t yet able to determine ‘halves’, as in half-niece or half-nephew, which this lady could very well be. If she was Tim’s half-niece, her mother would be Tim’s half-sister and could very well be alive! 

As a fairly impulsive person, it wasn’t long before I had written and sent this via Ancestry:

Hi XXXX,

My name is Claire and I am helping my friend Tim do some family tree research. He's 76 and not very confident using the internet! 

He actually doesn't have much info about any of his family and no living relatives as far as he knew, so to see that you are a very high match is very exciting indeed! He lives in London, UK and has done all his life.

Because of his age it would be really lovely if we could find out asap if you are indeed a relative and try to arrange a chat with Tim if you are. 

Would I be able to talk to you on the phone to explain briefly about Tim's situation? I am happy to call you anytime, or you can call me on XXXXXX

I appreciate it's rather an unusual one but believe me he will be absolutely thrilled to bits. 

I look forward to your reply.
Claire, on behalf of Tim

Nice and vague but compelling enough to elicit a reply, I thought. 

I was wrong. 

We heard nothing back although I could see she had logged in to Ancestry to read the message. Like a dog with a bone I gnawed away at the issue and decided the reason she hadn’t replied was because, living in Montreal, she only spoke French. (This is also known as clutching at straws.) So I asked a French friend to translate a second letter, giving more a few more details such as dates and locations. We settled back to wait for a response. 

Nothing.

If I’m honest I was angry on behalf of Tim, I felt he was owed a reply. But short of flying to Canada to mount a search, what could we do? So, we sat and twiddled our thumbs for a bit. We wanted to give the maybe-niece time to think about it, talk to the rest of the family and decide how best to respond. The trouble is, this was time Tim may not have. 

So I decided to contact the chief researcher behind Long Lost Family. If you’re familiar with my Open Letter to Long Lost Family you’ll know this was a bit of moral dilemma for me! Needless to say, her fees were out of Tim’s budget (circa £2k) and I did feel we were so far along the trail that it would be silly to pay someone to redo all the research we had already done. (Tim had already ruled out appearing on Long Lost Family or any similar shows, so there was nothing we could do; we were at a dead end.)

But try as I might I just couldn’t let it go. Tim was only getting older and I really felt he deserved to know his mother’s story after she left England. 

One day in April 2019 I fired off another spontaneous email to Tim’s maybe-niece in Canada, our only link to Tim’s maternal side. It had been nearly 8 months since our last attempt. In this email I revealed as many details as I knew about Tim’s mother, and I highlighted the urgency as Tim was not in the best of health. If I’m truly honest, I begged her to reply. I also included my phone number, social media links and a link to my professional website for reassurance this was a genuine attempt at contact. 

Here is an extract from the third email I sent:

“Tim is desperate for some information about his birth mother and it seems after a year of intense searching, using many volunteers from around the world, you are our only hope. 

“He has never even seen a photo of XX, but he is certain she tried to contact him when she was alive so we know she never forgot him. As Tim's friend I really wish for him to have some peace of mind over this as I am sure you can imagine it has been on his mind one way or another for his whole life.”

 Reader, she replied the very same day. 

When I saw the email I thought I was dreaming, I couldn’t breathe. Then I couldn’t stop smiling. We’d done it! After 10 years of searching, so many friends, social workers and wonderful searching angels getting involved, and for just the cost of a DNA test and Ancestry membership, we’d done it! 

The first and most important thing to say about the reply was that it contained bad news. As feared, Tim’s mother was no longer alive. 

However, the rest of the email was filled with lots of details about the family, and something more precious than gold: photographs. For the first time, at the age of 76, Tim could see his mother. 

There was also this sentence, which I clutched to my heart: “I think you are right my grandmother (Tim’s mum) never forgot him and he remained in her heart.”

I replied straight away with heartfelt thanks and sent the email and photos to Tim’s daughter immediately, Tim not being on the internet. 

And then another huge and unexpected leap forward… Remember a year ago Tim had no information at all about his birth family other than his mother’s first name, three possible surnames and a shipping record to Canada in the 1940s…. and now this tiny email offering so much hope and promise:

“I just spoke to my mum - XXX - who lives in Montreal Canada - and should love to hear from Tim ASAP. Her number is XXXXX.”

Tim’s half-sister had requested a phone call! This is more than we ever hoped for. (Ok, privately we hoped for all this and more, but as adoptees we have to keep our expectations low.)

A few months later, Tim’s sister flew into London and Tim and all his family were there to greet her with signs, hugs and tears. After a lifetime of wondering, here is Tim with his arm around his sister, basking in the moment that almost never came:

Tim and his sister, meeting for the first time in their 70s

P.S. If this were Long Lost Family, we would end the show here. But it’s my duty to remind you that adoption reunion is a lot more complicated than that! 

Photo credit https://unsplash.com/@adolfofelix

Do you have a family tree you could share?

Do you have a tree? Hmm... well the short answer is no. And the long answer is: I’m too scared to start a tree because:

• I don’t want to find out how Ancestry differentiates between adopted children and ‘real’ children (dotted lines? Parenthesis?)

• I don’t want to break the website trying to fit my complicated family into their (probably) simplistic framework.

• I don’t want to have to choose between my adoptive family and my biological family when it comes to inputting my mother or father, and I’m guessing it won’t accept two of each.

• I’m frightened to see just how much everyday people are obsessed with their ‘blood’ going back centuries (when “it’s not thicker than water you know, it’s really not: we make our own families, etc etc”)

• I’m worried an alarm will sound in my parents’ house if I type my birth name onto a website “traitor alert!” “Sound the ungrateful klaxon!” “Stop press: snotty-nosed foundling snubs selfless couple who ‘took her in’!”

• I’m worried biological relatives I have never met will politely ask me to ‘untag’ myself from ‘their’ family trees, despite DNA ‘evidence’ I’m related.

• I haven’t been given explicit permission by my birth parents to announce my existence to extended bio family and it may seem as though I’m ‘making waves’.

• A bio relative may express interest initially then ‘ghost’ me once they discover I am a black sheep/rotten apple/etc.
  

However I have been helping a friend with his tree and it has felt very empowering to see his mother’s name there in black and white. There’s a cool feature where Ancestry automatically populates any known siblings, parents, grandparents etc so we literally watched his family tree grow before our very eyes - and you can’t argue with the DNA!

So I will be creating my tree soon, and I’ll keep you posted on how it feels, if any bios contact me, and whether or not I’m struck by lightning for publicly stating information that a court decided should be kept secret.

I’d love to know how you’ve navigated the world of Ancestry.

Claiming space as an adoptee

Anyone else sometimes feel like running amok? Going rogue? Taking up some space for once? Here are a few crazy things I toy with doing from time to time. Things that, to even think about, make me feel super scared and cripplingly anxious.

However, I don’t want to break any official or unofficial rules. I don’t want to be “sent back” for not abiding by the terms and conditions of my adoption. Of course, then I remind myself I did not sign any terms and conditions. I wonder if I am being complicit in the secrecy that I so outwardly loathe and deride. If my behaviour is contributing to the sack of shame I carry over my shoulder wherever I go.

What’s the worst that could happen…?

Will I disappear in a puff of smoke if I…
Say I don’t believe in adoption as it is currently done?
Say I believe adoption is trauma?
Tell my children the lady whose house we visit annually is actually an extra granny?

Will I be arrested if I…
Name my birth parents on this blog?
Tag my biological siblings on Facebook?
Take a selfie outside my biological grandparent’s house?
Leave flowers on my paternal grandfather’s grave?

Will I deter future friends if I…
Answer the “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” question with the complicated truth?
Tell them about my attachment issues?

Will I be ridiculed if I…
Create a family tree on Ancestry?
Message a biological relative on ancestry and admit to being an adoptee?
Ask to be known by my original name?

Does an alarm go off of an adoptee claims their space on this earth? Or is it wonderfully exhilaratingly freeing? I’d love to know.... leave me a comment if you’ve done any of these things and tell me how it’s worked out.

Photo credit: Clem Onojeghuo clemono.com