A man was abandoned on the steps of a church in London in the mid 60s. Turned out his parents were actually married but she was already pregnant but kept it hidden. they came from Ireland to London and had the baby and then abandoned him because they dare not take him home because he had been born out of wedlock. They discovered his father died some years ago but his mother is still alive and he has 7 siblings. She did not want to be identified but they did meet up.
I still can’t believe this story because I am half Irish and I know for sure that things were a bit more relaxed in the mid 60s and my family over there were strict Catholics but I know some babies were born out of wedlock and they were kept.
The other girl featured was left on the floor of public toilets in a hospital and discovered she had a full sister who had also been abandoned in public toilets but in another hospital. So they also had two parents who chose to abandon them.
Why didn’t any of these parents just hand them over to social services or at least leave them somewhere nicer than unhygienic toilets or out in the cold behind a church?
yes i watched it, and thought it was odd too, but one never knows what goes on in families , and how controling parents can be even when you are grown up and left home .
The two Sisters case , I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other Siblings to be found yet …
The whole purpose of leaving them in a public toilet was to keep her Identity secret, no Cameras in these places .
I supose with not handing them over to Social Services ,they can walk away and not ever be traced .
I wouldn’t be surprised if the sisters parents were medical staff or medical students since they were both found in hospitals. As you say, more siblings are definitely possible.
My OH and I were discussing this issue and he says he would have no interest whatsoever in knowing who his birth parents were if he were abandoned or put up for adoption.I have a friend who was adopted as a baby and she is now 67 and she has never wanted to know anything about her birth parents.
I have another friend in her late 50s and she was left on a railway station as a small child by her mother. She was adopted and had a very happy life but always wanted to find her mother. She tracked her down some hears ago via a private detective but she didn’t want anything to do with her as she had remarried and had a couple more children and had told nobody what she had done.
These programmes always make out that the parents are great people and obviously the kids are hoping they are too. However, there are some very uncaring parents out there.
I have a similar experience. Someone popped up on my DNA database and said “close relative”. Turned out it was a daughter one of my brothers never knew he had who lived in another part of the country. her mother never told my brother she was pregnant and brought her up alone.
My brother was surprised but happy to meet her but this was at the height of the pandemic so they had to put it off until it was safe to do so. She also met her 3 adult half siblings and they all made her very welcome. She is “friends” with 2 of the siblings on FB but I don’t think she has much contact with her Dad now. I just think she wanted to know who he was.
I did one of those DNA things…I have had literally 100s of hits I must be related to the whole world just about…loads of American cousins but that might just be that the DNA kits have been available there longer.
I have no idea who my dad was.,…my mum was very secretive about him I’m sure if I delved into it all I could find him but whats the point he is probably dead anyway.
Have to admit I get very confused by people who get all emotional about someone who abandoned them as a baby…maybe I’m hard but I would find them just to give them a good telling off…especially if I were found in a loo or something in the middle of winter.
Have you got any close matches or 1st/2nd cousin matches Summer? You need to start with those.
My brother phoned me half an hour ago to ask whether I had received a load of paperwork from an heir hunting firm. He has with the name of a person who they believe was related to him. Neither of us recognise the name. Having watched countless Heir Hunter programmes this is often the case though.
Quite exciting really. Mind you, if he is an heir surely I am too!
Yes I have 2nd cousins not far from me in a little town called Boston Spa one of them emailed me asking who I was. I emailed back and explained a bit but I think I scared her off … I have a bit of a weird family … to be honest I’m not that fussed about knowing but my daughter is intrigued… ,I will leave it up to her
One woman, a mother and grandmother had found out she was adopted when her father murdered her mother in awful circumstances
She was worried that she, her children or grandchildren might have the callous, murderous genes, but by DNA testing they were able to prove that the man wasn’t really her father
Another woman knew she was conceived with sperm from a donor and they were able to trace who that was. He had died since but she did get to meet her half brother
I’m not sure I agree with people conceived with spermicide from a donor being able to trace that donor?
I think the donors were told at the time that would never happen?
Having dried my tears many times after watching these programmes today i do wonder how the mothers cope for the years after they have abandoned the baby they must live with such guilt., especially when more babies follow . I can’t imagine walking away from my baby but their circumstances must have been so dreadful for them. Racism was appaling back then one man met his sister who was told she was adopted by her and his white mother because of the colour differences how bad things were then , the man discovered an advert in the paper asking someone to adopt him as a tiny 8 month old because he couldn’t be homed because of his colour.
Susan, l am as bad! I cry when they are reunited with their families.
The thing is, they all seem to be really nice people, even after all they’ve been through.
The man last night who was advertised in the paper, came over as well educated. It turned out his father was in England studying Law but went back home, where he was a barrister.
Davina, is different in this series. In previous series of Long Lost Families, she seemed more caring. It’s as if she’s been told to play it differently. She didn’t tell the foundlings straight away that they had siblings, they had to ask.
I can understand the foundlings wanting to know where they came from and finding out about their roots.
What l couldn’t understand was, on finding their mothers, the mothers wanted time before they met the child they’d abandoned.
It seemed like rejection, all over again for them.
I have to say, the discovery of DNA has been one of the marvels of this century.
I agree with you. These sperm donors were told they would not be traced. Who would even want to know the person who gave their sperm?
This is why I don’t agree with gay people having babies by Surrogates or IVF either. There is going to be an avalanche of mixed up kids in a few years time because it is now so commonplace and kids are being brought up not knowing who their parents are. My son had a friend who only found this out in his teens and it wrecked his life for many years and he went into drugs, depression etc.
When I was young there was just one black child locally …. Actually I think he was the only one for about a 25 mile radius! His mother was a teacher and the story was that his father was an American serviceman who then went back to the States. She carried on working which I think was very unusual for the times and her own mother cared for the baby.
Mmm, I don’t see it’s any different for gay couples to conceive by surrogates or IVF than heteros but, boy, do have a lot of issues with it for everybody
So, woman’s own egg and her husband’s sperm? Fine. Although I don’t like creating “spare” embryos to implant later if needed and some never are
Egg and sperm donation I don’t get at all.
Children from your egg or sperm are as much yours as the ones you keep
And the child grows up not knowing it’s biological parents
Surrogates? Well, if the mothers egg and the fathers sperm are implanted in another woman to carry, I suppose that’s OK, apart from the spare embryo part
But if they just fertilise the surrogate mother’s egg with the husband’s or another man’s sperm, the woman who’s egg it is and who carries the child is that child’s mother
Like you say, very confusing for the child
I get it that someone conceived by sperm donation might want to know their biological father.
Because the sperm donor is as much their father as the children he kept and brought up and any other children he had are half siblings
But can it be right when the sperm donors were promised at the time their identity wouldn’t be revealed?
I’m not a fan of surrogates, IVF or sperm or egg donation, I think there are some very dodgy ethical problems
Art we just can’t ever understand another person’s pain can we and I often think how awful their lifes must have been to do that . Having a baby of a different race was seen as disgusting and even women and mothers treated the young mum with such cruelty and disrespect how could they do that . When I was a small girl I always wanted a beautiful black dolly to cuddle but I never got one , I am so pleased we have become more educated.
when my daughter was having ivf she gave away 4 of her eggs for another mother if the mother couldn’t produce her own but the eggs died sadly. Daughter did say she wanted to be anonymous because she didn’t want any future adult kids arriving to say hello.
My granchilden are ivf but from the same parents as eggs were fertilised outside the womb, amazing isn’t it . Science is wonderful really .
I think there may be some future issues when adult kids want to know their heritage but I also think it is a new world and will become more so and a new way of thinking or not thinking , or hopefully they will have a new way of living with it .
Kids can also not notice! When my daughter was about 5 someone gave me a pair of frilly bridesmaids dresses for our dressing up box. She had a little black friend who came round a lot to play and one day they were dressed up in these dresses and sitting on the stairs and I overheard my daughter saying “we are just like twins now.” never forgot that.
… to be honest I’m not that fussed about knowing but my daughter is intrigued… ,I will leave it up to her
