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Long Lost Family foundlings

110 replies

Onefliesoverthecuckoosnest · 01/06/2020 11:30

Just thought I would let everyone know that there are two Long Lost Family specials tonight and tomorrow on ITV1. They are following three foundlings and tracing their families using DNA.

Definitely worth a watch.

OP posts:
covetingthepreciousthings · 02/06/2020 21:17

Anyone watching now?

Yes I am.

I always wonder how they feel down the line, whether it works out in the long run, or whether they end up having regrets about finding out more, discovering siblings etc. Must be a life changing thing to happen.

incognitomum · 02/06/2020 21:21

Bloody hell another strange story!!

incognitomum · 02/06/2020 21:25

Sad Heartbreaking

Hepzibar · 02/06/2020 21:32

Tragic. Utterly heartbreaking for him.

covetingthepreciousthings · 02/06/2020 21:39

So he moved his young lover into the house with his family??

YahBasic · 02/06/2020 21:40

David and Helens story really hit home with me - my mum was born in 50s Ireland but has no idea who her father is.

Her mum would never say, but from what we’ve pieced together from aunts/family friends, he was most likely a married Protestant from NI & my nan was Catholic from the South.

My Nan was also in her 30s when my mum was born, but luckily she kept her and got married to a lovely man who was really my grandad.

Absolutely fascinating to see “what could have been”.

incognitomum · 02/06/2020 21:45

YahBasic same with my dad's dad. I've always wondered.

I'm so moved by the foundings stories.

SouthWestmom · 02/06/2020 21:54

Slightly off topic but Davinas hair looks very dry. Thought she advertised hair stuff?

I was quite cross about the last one - six kids and they left him in a pub and just carried on?

incognitomum · 02/06/2020 21:58

Bloody hell they worked in same place!!

incognitomum · 02/06/2020 22:00

What was that last thing they said about someone passing away?

theliverpoolone · 02/06/2020 22:03

The lady in the pub who found him had passed away.

Sarcelle · 02/06/2020 23:06

These stories are the stuff of good fiction.

Both tragic again tonight. Simon has it in his head his mum was a young girl who slept with a Swedish sailor, when the truth was that he was the youngest child of a married couple. They said the mother was secretive, bloody right! Simon was such a nice guy, just longing for a family. It's great that his siblings immediately took to him. How must he feel though about his parents?

And Fiona's story was bizarre. The land army girl moves in with married lover and wife and with her son (with him) in tow, but had already abandoned her daughter (also with him). A lot to take in. Amazing if she doesn't feel any bitterness.

eggandonion · 02/06/2020 23:17

I hope that everyone involved is happy with developments, it must be a lot for a family to accept about their parents, as well as welcoming a new sibling. I wonder if we only saw people whose parents had died?

indecisivelil · 02/06/2020 23:48

It was amazing tonight. So lovely for them to have siblings. The father of the female foundling looked like a dirty old man. What the heck has gone on there??!!

Sarcelle · 03/06/2020 00:07

If you were one of the children (not the foundlings) it must change the way they think about their parents. Like they never really knew them, just like the foundlings.

Smallsteps88 · 03/06/2020 00:25

What a heartbreaking show. I came away with a lot of anger towards those cheating men. I realise affairs happen, and times were different but look how many children were created and their entire lives affected by it. Children just abandoned as inconvenient side effects of the affair. Toss them aside and carry on the affair as normal. Particularly the father of Fi. Her birth mothers family said her life was very difficult while she was pregnant with Fi. So he goes and gets her pregnant again!! Angry at least he managed to bring the second one up for a while.

All those poor children with siblings they could have grown up with. Sad

Normalmumandwife · 03/06/2020 07:10

I have done some family research (using Ancestry etc). It's a pretty powerful tool and within a couple of hours my family tree was back to the early 1800's.

Some stuff massively sad like a great great aunt never known about by us and all her sones killed in WW1 (pictures of graves on the site). Also found out some family explanations were massive massive lies as documents like census records on there.

What is spooky is it shows you other family trees that have been built including your relatives...within days I was in contact with another branch of the family and exchanging information etc

You do need to think before doing and it whether you are prepared but I did find both episodes of LLF very moving and sad

BigSandyBalls2015 · 03/06/2020 16:38

Love this programme, just wish I was brave enough to apply to go on it.
I was adopted in the late 60s - my mother was an Irish catholic teenager, living in Ireland. She got the boat to England and spent the latter part of her pregnancy in London, pretending she had a job there, (I think the catholic church helped her), before returning to her parents farm a few weeks after having me.

I got so far as getting my adoption papers from the agency but then then didn't get any further with finding her. She'd be early70s now.

Twospaniels · 03/06/2020 16:39

@covetingthepreciousthings

What shocked me was the mother's wider family refused to have her identity revealed. That even now they obviously feel there is stigma and shame around what happened. Whereas, the father's family didn't feel the same way.

I didn't think they showed any pictures of the mother or the father, I thought the one picture they did show was of the mother's father ? But I could be wrong.

The pic of the man was the foundlings father. The pic of their mother was blurred out.
HollowTalk · 03/06/2020 16:47

Imagine how scary it would be to have an affair in Ireland in the 50s, not only with a married man but with no contraception.

I felt the grown up children in both programmes were incredibly generous in their attitudes towards their birth parents - it wasn't always deserved.

HollowTalk · 03/06/2020 16:51

I remember seeing a programme about adoption years ago - a man was in his 50s and had discovered his birth parents. He was shell shocked - like many others he'd assumed that his parents would be very young and had no choice, but he found that he was one of five children - all five were born when he was given up for adoption. He wasn't the youngest or the oldest, so there was a "Why me?" question about it. His mum went on to have two more children. His parents never tried to find him later on.

He said he'd been quite happy beforehand - he'd had a good life and had this story in his mind about his birth parents - discovering the truth really damaged his self-esteem. It was a real warning not to look into your birth parents unless you are really prepared to discover something you don't want to know.

Smallsteps88 · 03/06/2020 16:55

but he found that he was one of five children - all five were born when he was given up for adoption. He wasn't the youngest or the oldest, so there was a "Why me?" question about it

That is truly horrible!! That poor man! And as a child he would have had some awareness that he was going to a new home without his parents or siblings Sad

HollowTalk · 03/06/2020 19:03

He said he had no memory of that - he was about four at the time, so it would've been traumatic. I don't think (from what I remember) he'd actually thought about it at all - it was just something he thought he'd look into. He said he'd been thinking his mum was probably a 13 year old girl... the usual story. I still remember his absolute shock when he learned what had really happened. It was awful.

incognitomum · 03/06/2020 19:03

@HollowTalk that rings a bell with me. Are you sure it wasn't long lost family?

HollowTalk · 03/06/2020 19:04

And then to learn she'd almost immediately had two more! I think the reunion hadn't gone well - his mum couldn't explain herself really.