Find My Family - Long Lost Brother and Sister united by Online People Finders

Find My Family - A brother and sister who spent 40 years looking for each other were finally reunited thanks to the skills of an internet based people finding service.

Caroline Barton’s brother Colin was adopted at the age of two, nine years before she was born. She had started looking for her long lost sibling when she was a teenager but always reached a dead end until she came across the website of people finders FinderMonkey and their service to find lost relatives.

She telephoned the firm and spoke to one of their researchers, David Oates, and within 48 hours she was sitting in the car outside her brother’s house.

“I’d tried everything over the years to find Colin but the trail always went cold - either the family had moved on or there was no trace of him - but when Dave gave me his address and phone number I sat outside for nearly two hours before plucking up the courage to knock on the door.

“I’d often said that if it was a choice between winning the lottery and finding my brother I’d choose finding my brother every single time but even so I was nervous when the moment came.

“His wife answered the door and at first I told her I was researching my family tree. Then Colin walked down the stairs and it was just like looking at my Dad. I couldn’t believe it.”

Overwhelmed, Caroline came clean and told the couple why she was really there.

“They couldn’t believe it and we were all shocked at the family resemblance. It was an incredible moment.”

David Oates, of FinderMonkey, said the firm was regularly called in to help trace long lost relatives and friends.

In this case, as with many others, he had very little information to go on.

“We’re often asked to find people when all they have is a name or, in this case a date of birth. It can take hours of researching old records and databases to piece together a history of the person but most of the time we manage to find them.

“In this case I didn’t think it would be easy because we weren’t sure of Colin’s surname after adoption but in the end it was straightforward and I couldn’t wait to ring Caroline and tell her.”

Although FinderMonkey is an online tracing service the work is carried out by real people with experience in genealogy and data research. This meant Dave was able to try different spellings of Colin’s surname and personally assess the information available to make sure he’d found the right person.

Caroline, who now lives in Watford, discovered that she and her brother had lived round the corner from each other in Buckinghamshire for 13 years without realising. Colin also works at the supermarket where Caroline does her weekly shop. And the coincidences don’t end there.

“My husband died when I was six months pregnant and the shock sent me into labour early,” recalls Caroline.

“My son, who I named after my missing brother, was born nine weeks early on Colin’s birthday.”

Caroline and her brother are now enjoying getting to know each other thanks to the people finding skills of FinderMonkey and their family search service.