Family Finders - BBC1 11am (+ BBC2)

Jellybaby1

Just wanted to give this a mention. I discovered this series and am fascinated. Mainly about people who were adopted/fostered and either never knew, or discovered later that they had another family, or discovering mum or dad had kept secrets. The search is for living relatives. Covering two stories per episode, today's programme included an Irish man living in the UK who had been 'sentenced to 8 years in Artane' because he had been abandoned on the streets and was picked up for begging. His mother 'a Protestant preparing to become a Catholic' had become institutionalised in a Magdalene Laundry. The man eventually found he had a brother and they met in old age. Every episode is very emotional and considering the numbers that went through those institutions there must be thousands of other stories just like this waiting for a happy ending.

Hermy

It's very sad that there are still so many waiting for a happy ending or indeed any sort of ending.

Jellybaby1

Indeed Hermy. They don't divulge the details as to how they track the family members down. I could do with a little assistance to find my live ones in the UK. They mention the Salvation Army People Finding service which seems to do great work, but other companies also track them down. They work more like detective agencies. Wish I knew their secrets. I knew a boy who ended up in Artane, its true to say we never saw him again.

Hermy

I'm familiar with the detective work from my own search for my past.
It's been quite the adventure at times and has been very rewarding.

But it's not right that [adopted] people have to go to such lengths to find out their past and the official channels should be doing a lot more to help them.

pinkypinky

Sounds like the show presented by Davina McCall - always makes me teary. They do a little bit of explanation on how they find people but no real details.

Jellybaby1

Hermy wrote: »

I'm familiar with the detective work from my own search for my past.
It's been quite the adventure at times and has been very rewarding.

But it's not right that [adopted] people have to go to such lengths to find out their past and the official channels should be doing a lot more to help them.

From the case of the Irish man, it looked like the UK gives more information on adoptions than Ireland does.

pinkypinky wrote: »

Sounds like the show presented by Davina McCall - always makes me teary. They do a little bit of explanation on how they find people but no real details.

A bit like Davina's all right. Its terribly emotional and I get very sucked in and am a wreck by the end of the programme. The intro says something along the lines of 'learn the tricks' or 'find out how', which is very misleading as they give flip all details on how they do it.

Hermy

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

From the case of the Irish man, it looked like the UK gives more information on adoptions than Ireland does.

Yes, they seem to have a much more open view of adoption over there.
But then they're not bound by the IOT v B Judgement!

...The intro says something along the lines of 'learn the tricks' or 'find out how', which is very misleading as they give flip all details on how they do it.

I'd like to know how they go about making contact with the long lost relatives - what way they word the letter of introduction etc.

tac foley

I've tried over the years to find my two half-brothers - my father's 'legal sons' - in Cork with no success at all. When our father died back in 1971, their mother was very fast to lay claim to all his possessions, and how she found out that he had died remains a mystery to me. Sadly for her, he'd already left them to me. A couple of angle-iron screw clamps, a cobbled-together scriber, and one that he made out of a piece of scrap.

I still use them in every project I undertake.

It would be pretty cool to find out what happened to them, though, and to all the nieces and nephews I must have who probably never knew I was alive.

tac

pinkypinky

I know we've discussed this before, Tac. Have you tried putting an ad in a newspaper?