How to track down a parent...

[Anonanother]

I am a regular on here but have namchanged for this.

I was told when I was 12 that my Dad wasn't my 'real' Dad and that my 'real' Dad had left when I was 1, my Dad was in my life from the age of 3. It was my Dad who told me, and I have never spoken to my Mum about it, not a word mentioned. In fact it hasn't been spoken about since that day. I'm now 25. I once found my birth cetificate and can remember my biological Dad's surname.

I want to track him down. I'm not very close to my parents, and we don't talk about alot of things. I would have no idea how to approach them with this.

How would I go about tracking him down with just a surname?

anon.. can I just say ( and it isn't the case for lots of people sadly) .. but MY DH was 'found' last year and very happy we are about it too

DH desperatly wanted to be found and we even moved closer to the area of his 'lost' DC so that it would be easier to be found. ( if any of that makes sense).

Dh and his DC cannot however do much about the fact that they missed so much of the past.. and it must be hard for his DC to see DH being a very good step dad to my ds's and a fab dad to DD. But you know some dads are out there wanting to be found.

BCNSback - thats lovely, thank you for that, is nice to hear of a happy ending!

I just want to ask though, why didn't your DH make contact with his DC? I often think this about my 'Dad'...why hasn't he come looking for me?

ahh it's a long story .. but I'll cut it short.

Dh and his ex split up when his dc was a baby, at first he did have contact. When there was a new man on the scene DH would turn up for his contact time and ex basically wouldn't allow him to see DC. It ended up in the family court ( this was 20 years ago), the judge said that it would confuse the DC to see him, seeing as new man had now married ex and Dc saw him as dad.

DH carried on paying maintaince (sp). for a lot of years without seeing his dc. He did send birthday and christmas cards, but often these were sent back ripped up. Dh didn't know if it was ex or DC.
Then his ex and her husband put in to adopt DC. DH refused for a long time, and only gave in and signed the papers when SS and his solicitor basically said DH was fighting a lost cause and in his best interest he might as well sign the papers.

So Dc was adopted and DH had no rights what so ever. He knew where his DC lived so we moved to be close by, so that if DC ever wanted to find him, he would be very available. ( it was a small town and a lot of locals knew exactly what had gone on. When DC asked one of these people what they knew about his dad.. they told him he lived literally 5/10 mins away, and would be waiting for him, and gave him our phone number.

I took the first call as DH was out at work. when DH came home I told him and he almost burst! He called back.. they met up.. and the rest is history.

Thing is a lot of dads may not know about their DCs, a lot may not want to know.. but out there is a lot of dads who did fight to see their DC's, thought about them all the time.
I'm not saying this is the case for you or not.. but I did want you to know, sometimes it can work out. without trying to give out false hope.
Some dads though are basically forced to get on with their lives.. particularly when a good few years back the family courts didn't do much to help the dad's out.

also the question of 'why didn't 'dad' come looking for me?'

DC had the very same question, it seems to be something that is very common.

It was hard for Dh to put his side of the story across without running his ex down. So put it across that had the family courts had a different judgement, he would have continued contact.

But at the end of the day no matter what or why things happened in the past. DH's ex and her husband bought up a very lovely well adjusted DC into a fab adult.
It is a bonus that they have found each other, a closing or answer to one chapter in life and an opening to another.