Long Lost Family

Chance Meeting

A few years ago I undertook a bit of research for a local lady who had a letter written in Dutch.  She had no idea what the letter contained.  At the time I was working part-time (as well as running Somerset Genealogy) in a Well-Being charity cafe offering support to the local community.

One of the charity board members happen to mention to me in passing about a letter, written in Dutch, that his wife had and they believed it was something to do with her family.

Indeed it was.  The letter gave information on a former unknown half brother.  As I read the letter, I remember thinking, this is HUGE.   Although they approached me as a member of staff for the cafe, my genealogical ethics kicked-in.   What if the half-brother didn't want to be found?  What if the half-brother knew nothing about his family in England?  What if this caused a family rift?

I was well and truly put on the spot.  The couple stood staring at me perplexed to my silence.  My mind raced as how to approach this situation without causing problems but also taking into account my ethical stance as a professional researcher.

I drew breath and suggested we grab a coffee and sit down.  This gave me time to evaluate how to move forward, albeit very gently.  I suddenly had a cunning plan.

I asked if I could take away the letter to translate it properly as it is actually quite difficult to translate such documents whilst interpreting the correct 'gist' of the contents. They agreed.

I knew now this gave me time to act sensitively towards the situation.  I HAD to take into consideration that the brother might not want to be found.  I made some general inquiries in the Netherlands and found the half-brother. 

To cut a long story short.  Both parties gave consent to swap contact details which I gladly passed on.  Not long after, I left the cafe and lost contact with the couple who gave me that letter so many years ago.

Then this happened totally out of the blue yesterday whilst I was helping another local lady track down a family member....

12 August 2016

 Permission to publicly post given by their daughter Maria Rossiter - thank you!

It's days like that, that make me love my work even more.

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