Mum always told us that Dad, a Fusilier in the British Army, had died in the Second World War. I had a gut feeling that perhaps he survived and in 1998 I went to England to find out for myself. Through Social Services, I found that he had passed away just three months earlier. .
My investigations in the UK and talking with my mother's sister led me to believe dad may have had another child in England, an older sister to me. Despite my efforts, I couldn't find her and gave up thinking it was all a false hope.
Just two years ago, I began to research my family history with Ancestry.com.au and posted my family tree online to see if anyone could help fill in the gaps. Within weeks, I had an email from a UK member, who put me in touch with her mother-in-law, who was also using Ancestry in the UK to research her family. "It's you, isn’t it?", she said when I called; my long-lost sister, Christine.
While discovering that my father was, alarmingly, a bigamist, the joy of finding each other was overwhelming. Through Christine I also found two other sisters and a brother from yet another marriage of my father.
Finding my siblings through Ancestry.com.au has grown our family tree enormously! We may have been torn apart by war, a Casanova father, time and distance... but we're making up for lost time. I know who I am now.