GENES REUNITED: Diane Gow with her dad and daughter Lauren

THE SISTER MY FATHER NEVER TOLD US ABOUT

Sally Ellis, 51, owns an estate agency and lives in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. She is divorced with four children aged 10 to 29.

She says: Three years ago I logged on to the website Genes Reunited for the first time - I was aware of it from its ‘sister’ site, Friends Reunited. I have always had a sixth sense that there was something I didn’t know about our family.

By sheer coincidence, there was a post on the website from a 60-something lady called Barbara who was looking for information about her father Ettric James who was originally from Cardiff. She hadn’t seen him since she was a baby. I knew instantly that she was my half-sister. Ettric is a very unusual name but it was my father’s name and he was from Cardiff.

I’m the youngest of six children and my dad died when I was seven. He and Mum married after the war when she was 18 and he was 30. I’d always thought Dad must surely have had another life before Mum because in those days people got married and had families very young. I couldn’t believe he’d not had a history. I e-mailed Barbara and said I was certain we must be half-sisters. I was slightly stunned but part of me thought, I knew it!

Barbara is a nun in a convent in Cambridge. She explained that her mother had divorced our father when she was only a baby after he was unfaithful while stationed on the Isle of Wight during the war. Her mother had sent her to boarding school and made her believe that her dad hadn’t wanted her. Poor Barbara, an only child, just wanted to know her father.

It took me six weeks to summon the courage to break the news to my mum and siblings that Dad had been married before and had another child. It was tough telling Mum and initially she couldn’t accept it. My siblings didn’t believe it either but Barbara had her birth certificate with our father’s information on, plus her mother’s marriage certificate.

We’re not angry with our late father. He obviously kept his first wife and Barbara a secret because if my mother’s family had known he was a divorcee they would never have allowed him to marry her. Obviously that was incredibly sad for Barbara because she never knew her dad. We met Barbara for the first time over Easter 2007, three months after she and I first found one another.

When I picked her up from the station we hugged and cried. She has my dad’s distinctive misty blue eyes and is the image of my eldest brother Michael. After a lifetime without any family, Barbara is thrilled to now have six half-siblings. We all love her. She’s a serene, calm and kind person and comes to stay twice a year when she gets leave from the convent.

We e-mail most weeks – I share family news and she tells me all about her days being up at 5.30am for prayer, followed by charity work and tending the convent gardens. Logging on to Genes Reunited that day in early 2007 was the best thing I ever did.

I'M RELATED TO PRINCESS DIANA AND JAMES 1

Diane Gow, 51, is a speech and drama tutor. She lives in Bangor, Northern Ireland, with husband Paul, 48, a general studies support worker in a college, and their daughter Lauren, 21, a university student.

She says: When I say that I’m related to Princess Diana, Princes William and Harry, the Stuart kings and William of Orangeit sounds ridiculous. I didn’t believe it myself when I started making all these incredible discoveries after enrolling on Genes Reunited in 2008 to learn more about my paternal great grandmother, Madeline Constance Browne.

As far back as I can remember I’ve been intrigued by her because my grandfather, her son, always said she was a member of the aristocracy. Other family members used to giggle and tell him he was being silly but I would hang on his every word as he told stories of how she used to go to school in a pony and trap.

She then married a working-class man and they lived in a humble terraced house in Belfast. When I was a teenager my dad tried to research his family tree to see if there was any truth in my grandfather’s stories of Madeline – and there was. Dad used to take the train to and from the records office in Dublin.

He returned home one day with a new name to add to our family tree – Sarsfield Vesey Browne, a sea captain who was my great, great, great grandfather. I was intrigued because it was such an unusual name. But the trail went cold and we didn’t learn any more about my grandfather’s family until 30 years later when I found Genes Reunited.

When I posted a request on the website for information about Sarsfield Vesey Browne, existing members of Genes Reunited gave me the means to unlock this most amazing story. Sarsfield’s family line led me to a William Sarsfield, who married a Mary Stuart. On first discovering this I thought, imagine if this was a royal connection! I couldn’t believe it when it was – Mary Stuart was my great grandmother seven times removed and this line led me back to Charles I, Charles II, James I and Henry Stuart – all of them my great grandfathers numerous times removed.

I also share great grandparents 10 times removed with Princess Diana, making Princes William and Harry my eighth cousins once removed. Even the Stuart kings are my grandfathers many times removed. In the past I’ve visited Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle, Scone Palace and Glamis Castle and marvelled at their beauty, unaware they were the homes of my ancestors.

My family are still in shock at my discoveries. Madeline’s daughter Anne is still alive although very old. She’s so excited about my research. I now wish I’d paid more attention in history lessons at school because I keep having to buy books to read up on my royal ancestors. If nothing else, it’s going to be a great topic of conversation at dinner parties for years to come.

SUDDENLY I HAVE A WHOLE NEW FAMILY

Jenifer Taggart, 66, is a retired doctor of economics and lives in Bonhill in the west of Scotland with husband James, 67, a retired professor. They have two children aged 42 and 45.

She says: I first logged on to Genes Reunited in April to try and find out more about my father, John Herriot, who died from TB one week after I was born in 1944. He was just 28. I was told he was an orphan, so I always assumed I had no relatives on that side of my family. Mum remarried when I was five and she and my stepfather didn’t like to talk about my father – they wanted my sister Dorothy and I and my stepdad’s two daughters to feel like one family.

After my mother died in 1992, I found my father’s death certificate giving his mother as “deceased” but his father as “widower” – he hadn’t been orphaned after all. So I began to wonder whether my grandfather had remarried and if there were other family members after all.

Within three weeks of enrolling on Genes Reunited I established that my grandmother Isabella Herriot died in 1916, a year after having my father. I then found that my grandfather remarried in 1924 and had a daughter, Margaret, and a son, David – my father had a half-brother and sister.

Through Genes Reunited I found that Margaret and David emigrated to Canada in the early Fifties. Margaret is now dead but she had three girls and it was through one of them, Amanda, also being registered on Genes Reunited that

I found my family. Amanda lives in British Columbia, Canada, and her sisters in Trinidad and Vancouver Island respectively. It’s wonderful to know that I have cousins on my father’s side after years thinking there weren’t any relatives.

Meanwhile my Uncle David is now 81 and living in Toronto. He’s written some lovely letters and e-mails to me. The great irony is that my husband and I were in Canada last year for a wedding – if only I’d known that I had all these family members there I would have made arrangements to see them.

Uncle David has told me that my father was cared for by a family called Murray after his mother died but David doesn’t know who this family was. Apparently this was quite normal back then if a woman died leaving young children – friends or family would take care of any infants. He told me that my father had always been know as John Murray even though on his marriage certificate he is named as John Herriot and my sister and I were christened Herriot too.

It was a comfort when Uncle David told me that he remembers going to visit my dad when he was dying of TB in the sanatorium. All I know is that my father lived in Kinghorn, Fife, at the time he married my mum and he was a golf club maker and an excellent player. I’d love to know so much more about him and what sort of a person he was – was he happy, could he sing or play a musical instrument?

I hope that through Genes Reunited I can now find the Murray family, as they are the people who knew most about my father. This is difficult as Murray is such a common name in Scotland, but I’m certainly going to keep on trying.

By: Sadie Nicholas

Source: express.co.uk