Family Finders

Episode 12 (2x12)

Air date: Jun 07, 2016

In World War II, thousands of British soldiers were declared missing, presumed dead, only to return to their families years later. In some cases their wives had started new relationships and had children only to then give them up for adoption when their husbands suddenly returned. Maureen Cooper from Bristol was adopted out as a young girl when her father unexpectedly returned from war. Her long search for her birth mother eventually led her to a sister who had met the same fate. Unfortunately, her sister, Christine, had died by the time she traced her, but since then Maureen has met up with all her newly discovered nieces and nephews. Now Maureen is taking her sons to meet their relatives for the very first time. And we meet Wendy Stringer, whose mother was with a new partner and pregnant when her husband, having been declared missing, returned from the war. When the baby boy was born, his great-grandparents hastily found him a new home. It was only after her father's death that Wendy felt she could try to trace the half-brother she had never known. Unbeknownst to Wendy, her half-brother, John, was also looking for his birth family, but a simple spelling error on the records meant he hadn't been able to track them down. Wendy's husband, Graham, took up the search and eventually found John on a social media site. Reunited, Wendy takes John to visit his mother's grave for the first time.