Family Finders

Michael, James and John Buckley are brothers from Glasgow. Following the death of their mother, they were placed in the Nazareth Children's Home. After James's wedding in 1966, the youngest brother, John, disappeared - and it would be 50 years before they found him again. Following decades of unsuccessful searching of telephone directories and records, the Buckley family turned to a tracing agency, who finally found their long-lost little brother living in Blackpool. Now John is heading home to Scotland for an emotional reunion, a 69th birthday and a warm welcome from the nephews and nieces he's never met. And we meet Alison Searle from Worthing, who discovered she was adopted when she told her parents she was getting married, aged 16. Alison's hunt for her birth mother takes her on a voyage of discovery which unearths two half-sisters, Liz and June. To help them better understand their mother's story, the three reunited sisters visit the Yorkshire mill where she worked before getting married, and make a journey to the mother-and-baby home where Alison was born.

It was a modelling assignment for a genealogy website that prompted Belinda O'Brien to research her own family history. A search through her family's 'Bible box' led to the discovery of an old letter from a mysterious relative in Peru. From here, Belinda embarked on some genealogical detective work which revealed a whole South American side of her family, who she had never known. After many dead ends, Belinda finally made contact with her cousin, Rosemary, who had been raised in Peru and had always regretted losing touch with the English side of her family. Now Rosemary's son, Alex, is coming over to London to meet his English Aunt Belinda for the very first time. And we meet Barbara Cohen, who grew up as an only child in the Jewish community of east London after the Second World War. Barbara was introduced to an older half-sister, Sybil, just once as a young child but never saw her again. Many years later, Barbara set about trying to trace Sybil. With the help of her husband, Michael, genealogical research revealed that Barbara's father had been married before - to a Christian woman. This interfaith marriage was frowned upon, and when their young daughter Sybil came along, she was ostracised by the local Jewish community. Following a long search, Sybil's story takes Barbara and her husband to a remote town in Denmark, where a warm reception awaits them.

Sisters Wendy and Nicola had always wanted to find out more about their mysterious maternal grandmother, so they hired a genealogist to explore their family history. Research revealed that Wendy and Nicola's grandmother was a music hall star in the 1920s - and not only this, the sisters also discovered a cousin, Helen, who they never knew existed. All three cousins get together for the first time and head to Covent Garden to discover more about their family's fascinating musical heritage. The programme also meets Allan Skeggs, who carried out his genealogical detective work himself. Years of searching finally led him to his half-brother David. David discovers more about the father he never knew, and Allan gets to see to the children's home where David grew up, before sampling his newly discovered older brother's favourite pie and mash shop in the East End.

Diana, Marie and Jean are half-sisters who have found each other after a lifetime apart. Sharing a mother, all three of them were placed into care when young and grew up completely unaware of each other's existence. Jean and Marie were the first to discover each other, and then Diana found them. Diana and Jean have never met before, and now all three sisters are sitting down together for the very first time. We also meet classic car enthusiast Nick Morgan, who was adopted as a baby. It was only when he became a father himself that Nick felt an urge to try and find his biological family. Initial searches didn't yield any results, so Nick employed a genealogist. On the journey to discover more about the mother he never knew, Nick was delighted to find he had a sister, complete with family of her own. Now Nick is meeting Deborah's grown-up children Gemma and Daniel for the very first time.

The death of Simon Wrigley's beloved grandmother ignited a fire in him to research his family history. What he traced was a family tree stretching back over hundreds of years, uncovering living relatives on his grandfather's side that he never knew he had. Simon and his partner make the 4,000-mile trip from their home in Israel to Simon's birthplace on the Isle of Wight. There, they visit the grave of his grandfather, a war veteran who died before Simon was born, and they attend a family reunion with his recently discovered relatives in the hope of filling in even more blanks in the family history. And we meet Lynn Lewis, who was shocked to discover that her parents had had a baby boy together when they were just teenagers. Despite going on to marry and have more children, the couple had been forced to give this first baby up for adoption. Lynn became determined to find her brother Dave and, after years of searching, finally received an address from an adoption agency. Could this lead Lynn to the brother she was so desperate to find? And after all these years, would he even want to be found?

This programme will be available shortly after broadcast Episode 6 Family Finders, Series 2 Episode 6 of 15 David Stewart grew up in Scotland along with two older sisters and a brother. When he was still a young boy, David discovered that his mother and older sisters weren't in fact his family by birth. His dad was his real birth father and had brought David and his brother to live with him and his new family. Years later, after the death of his father, David felt the desire to find out if he did in fact have any other blood relatives and, chasing up a rumour that his father had had other children before him, David employed the help of an amateur genealogist online. It seemed the rumours had been true as David discovered a half-brother called Steven. After several weeks of on-the-phone communication and, it turned out, several years unknowingly living just 50 miles apart, today the brothers are meeting up for the very first time. Sally James's mother Phylis spent most of her childhood in an orphanage in Ireland. At the age of 16, Phylis left the orphanage, moved to England to train as a nurse and had Sally but she never stopped wondering about her birth mother. Years later, when her mother was elderly, Sally took up the challenge to find out the truth about her mother's family and took a gamble on some cutting-edge family-finding technology - DNA testing. The gamble paid off, the results came back positive and Phylis discovered a brother, Sally's uncle Jim. Just a few months later, Jim flew to England to meet his sister Phylis. Sally had fulfilled her mission and, just four months later, her mother died. Today Sally and Jim visit a childhood friend of Phylis's who grew up with her in the orphanage.

Janet Emery has been trying for decades to find her birth mother, who left a young Janet with relatives to start a new life in Canada during World War II. After years of unsuccessfully trawling through records, Janet had given up on her search, but her daughter Deborah refused to give up and made it her mission to track her grandmother down. In the process, she found a great-aunt and cousins still living in the UK. Now, as they meet for the first time and share information, Janet is confronted with photographs she had never seen before of her mum in Canada, along with two children from her marriage to a Canadian serviceman - Janet's half-sisters. A family-tracing agency is drafted in to trace the sisters, and now all Janet and Deborah can do is wait. And we meet Denise Wilson, who was adopted as a baby and had always wanted to find her birth mother. After years of searching, Denise finally traced and met up with her mum, Elsie, and discovered that she had four other half-sisters, all of whom had been given up for adoption. Now Denise meets up with her new-found sister Kathy, and they travel together to Manchester, where they were both born. Kathy takes Denise on a trip down memory lane to the house where she grew up with her adoptive family.

When actress Jacqueline Clarke was still a young child, her mother revealed something that was to change her life forever - that she was adopted. It was never spoken about again but, after the death of her adoptive parents, Jacqueline began browsing the family registers for any trace of her birth mother. Drawing a blank, she turned to a professional genealogist for help. Before long the genealogist hit gold, uncovering a sister, Sylvia, who had also been adopted as a young child. After 70 years apart, the sisters are back in touch and are going to visit the house where their mother lived and where they were both born. Sisters Tracy Kerrison and Theresa Horsler had a happy childhood growing up with their parents in Hounslow, London, but they were aware from a young age that they had an older half-sister, Leslie. Tracy and Theresa's dad had been married before and Leslie had been born to this marriage. For several years, the sisters saw each other regularly, with the younger siblings even attending Leslie's wedding, but when Tracy and Theresa's parents moved house the sisters lost touch. Years later, when their dad died, Tracy and Theresa were keen to contact Leslie and, with the help of a family-finding company, they tracked her down and are meeting up for the first time in nearly half a century.

During the Second World War and the postwar years, the number of babies born to unmarried mothers increased. Rob Skinner was one such baby and was given up for adoption soon after his birth. Growing up in a loving household full of foster children who came and went, Rob believed he was the birth child of the woman he called Ma. It was only when, as a young adult, Rob's potential employer asked for his birth certificate that Rob found out he was adopted. An online search for his birth mother resulted in Rob discovering twin siblings Martin and Sue. Rob meets up with his siblings for the first time in over a year and reveals some surprising news about his biological father. Sisters Sue and Eileen spent 50 years apart and led completely different lives. Both went to live in a baby home when their mum became unable to cope. Eileen then left to live with her biological dad, and Sue was subsequently adopted by the parents of one of the young nurses, Dilys, who worked at the baby home. Years later, when Sue's adoptive mum and dad died, she started to do some digging and finally tracked down her half-sister Eileen. Now the newly united sisters are meeting up with Dilys, the only person who remembers Eileen as a baby.

When Tony Robinson was a boy he was sent to an open-air boarding school for children with ill health, and, during the two years that he was away, his parents made the heart-breaking decision to give up their new baby son for adoption. Following his parents' death years later, Tony found paperwork from an adoption agency and decided to investigate. His search led him to a brother, Stephen, who he'd never known existed. The brothers met up and have been in contact ever since. Tony then discovered that his parents had given not one but two babies up for adoption and so that he had another brother, Ian, out there somewhere. Several searches for Ian had hit a brick wall when one day a message from an unknown name popped up on Tony's laptop. It turned out that Ian had changed his name to Martyn some years earlier and that Tony's little brother had found him! Today Tony, Martyn and their sister Diane are meeting up to take a trip down memory lane. Lorraine Hall had spent her childhood believing that she was the only child of Pat and Ray Edwards, but, when Lorraine was 15, a family friend, Sylvia, died, and Lorraine was stunned by the shock revelation that Sylvia was in fact her biological mother. In a heartbeat, Lorraine discovered that Sylvia's children, whom she'd grown up playing with, were in fact her brothers and sisters. However, following Sylvia's funeral, her children were split up and moved away from the area and Lorraine returned to being an only child. Years later, Lorraine has been reunited with two of her sisters, Belinda and Donna, and today they're visiting the local crematorium where their mother's name has been entered into the book of remembrance.

As a schoolgirl, Sarah Lindfield became pregnant and made the heartwrenching decision to give her baby son Daniel up for adoption. All his life Daniel Williams, now called Iwan, longed to meet his birth mum. At the age of 21 Iwan requested his adoption papers from social services. The papers revealed his mother's full name, but Iwan still had to find the courage to make contact. Years later, with the help of a genealogist, Iwan tracked down his mum's address, and mother and son soon met up. Overjoyed to have found each other, they now meet up again to see the house where Sarah lived when pregnant with Iwan. Hussin Zahra was a successful businessman in Syria, but when civil war broke out he realised he had to flee for the safety of his family. Together with his wife, children and extended family, Hussin travelled to a refugee camp in Egypt. He then made the decision to leave his wife, daughters and baby son in Egypt, while he, his 11-year-old son and his nephew made the perilous passage across the Mediterranean in a refugee boat. Once in Calais, they lived in a refugee camp before travelling to the UK in the back of a lorry. Securing asylum, Hussin turned to the British Red Cross to trace his family. After seven months and the involvement of a huge international team, the Red Cross finally brought Hussin's family over to the UK. They are now all happily living in Birmingham and building a new life for themselves.

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.

Brothers Fred and Jimmy O'Donnell spent 80 years apart. Their Irish mother gave birth out of wedlock, first to Jimmy, who was placed in an orphanage, and later to Fred, who grew up in a Catholic boy's institution. Both boys grew up completely unaware of each other's existence, and their mother was sent to one of Ireland's notorious Magdalene laundries, where she remained as a 'fallen woman' for the rest of her life. As soon as he could, Fred left Ireland, settled in Bradford and got on with raising a family. But the thought of what had become of his mother played on his mind. Determined to help, Fred's daughter, Theresa, made it her mission to trace her grandmother. Her search reveals a tragic story, but she also makes a major discovery - her dad had a brother called Jimmy. According to records, this brother would now be 80 years old. Could he still be alive? And if so, could he be found? Newspaper appeals to find Jimmy met with no joy, and then a family-tracing agency stepped in. And it was a chance conversation with a friend at a drinks party that led to another incredible family discovery. Sisters Tessa and Jan's father died when they were young. They later found out that, whilst continuing to live under the same roof, their mother and father had been divorced for some time before he died and that he had been in a relationship with another woman, called Rosemary. But there was something else - soon after their father died, Rosemary had given birth to twins. Many years passed without the siblings crossing paths, until a conversation at a party revealed the twins' existence. Delighted by the discovery, genealogical detective work carried out by Tessa's husband revealed they had all spent their lives living close by. Now Tessa and Jan meet with twins Chris and Jennie to exchange photographs and memories before an emotional visit to their shared father's grave - a first for Chris and Jennie.

Basharat Najib has been trying to trace his grandmother Ellen for his elderly mother Yasmin for ten years. As a young girl, Yasmin was adopted by her stepfather and grew up happily with his family in a village in Pakistan. She subsequently married a local man and returned to England with him and their children in the 1950s. Yasmin has always wanted to meet her birth mother. Basharat hasn't found her so far, but he has found two half-sisters of Yasmin's - Marguerita and Silva. They all meet in Norfolk to get to know each other more. When twins Janet and Michael's mother died, they became aware of a family secret. While their father was away fighting during the Second World War, their mum had become pregnant - and the baby girl had been given up for adoption. After years of searching, Janet and Michael had given up hope of ever finding their half-sister, Brenda, until a change in the law allowed relatives of people given up for adoption to contact them. They were finally brought together with Brenda, and now they are meeting her with a newly found letter which may give a clue as to who her father was.

Jeannie Taplin and her daughter look for Jeannie's father, a Finn who immigrated to Britain in 1917, and discover they have several previously unknown relatives. Graham Holloway meets his sister for a trip to their childhood town of Southend. They were reunited recently after being separated when they were toddlers.