Quote:
Originally Posted by mobertol
Those things happened a lot back then -not the same means of communication as we have now obviously. In the mid-70's an un-known cousin of my dads turned up to find the family from New Zealand. His mother had died and left written in her will who her brothers and sisters were and that she was originally from Accrington, UK. He had no idea! She was a sister of my paternal Grand-father and apparently ran off in disgrace in the early 20's as she was pregnant (she came from a good Catholic family!)  |
Sadly it did happen.
Mainly because only the wealthy could afford to divorce. So if a relationship broke down, it was easy for some to scarper, and start an entirely new life somewhere else, with a brand new family.
One of the saddest Who Do You Think You Are? programmes featured Kim Catrall, when this happened to her mother.
Catrall's grandfather left her mother and two aunts as children to a life of poverty in Liverpool. Whilst he played the doting daddy to his new family in the northeast, before moving the whole family to Australia.
Must be hard, hearing how wonderful a dad your father had been to a later child, after abandoning you without a backwards glance.