On June 26, I received the e-mail I had been hoping for. I didn’t recognize the name of the sender and thought perhaps it was a spam message as my name was in the subject line. But I took a quick look and saw three photos that were attached. The one I have posted on the top of this blog post struck me as I was looking at a man who bore a strong resemblance to my grandfather, Charles Edward Evans . I knew without a doubt that he was my cousin. Such a fine looking cousin too!

The letter was written by my cousin David and his wife, Joanne, and described the details of his birth and adoption, in Ontario. The adoption had been arranged prior to his birth. He was christened by his adoptive parents 10 days after his birth. His parents were a lawyer and his wife from St. Lucia. David was so fortunate to be welcomed into a loving home right away so he could bond with his parents.

They wrote:

David’s adoption papers include a brief background, which provided his birth mother’s year of birth (but no date), the existence of two sisters, her parent’s nationality and occupation etc. No names were provided on the adoption papers. The medical birth record however, provided a name for his birth mother as Barbara Evans. There is even less information on his birth father. He was an African American, but born in Sweden to a jazz musician and his wife who were residing in Sweden at the time. They moved back to the USA and then he joined the US Air force.

The private investigator told them it would be a difficult task to find a woman with such a common name as Barbara Evans. But they got a break when they found an obituary for a Barbara Mary Evans, who died at 78 years of age in 2005, giving them a birth year to work with of 1927. But if we hadn’t found Barbara’s ashes in Maureen’s closet after Maureen died, I probably wouldn’t have posted much information about Barbara on my blog. Burying Barbara at the same time as Betty gave me the opportunity to have them both memorialized and remembered at Mountain View Cemetery. And that was the key to making the connection.

David and Joanne still live in St. Lucia, that gorgeous island in the Caribbean, where they are raising their children. They were grateful that I had chosen to publish my family history as it might not have been a successful search.

I responded right away and anticipated the contact.

On June 9, I received a phone call from a private investigator. He asked me a few questions about my aunt Barbara, then inquired if I was aware that she may have had a child “out of wedlock.”

I certainly had not heard that story. Yet, when he told me what he knew about her — her interest in music, theatre, dance, her year of birth, her city of birth (Vancouver) and her Irish heritage, I told him that sounded like my aunt Barbara.

This child was male and recently hired the investigator to see if he could find any family. I had posted a memorial for Aunt Barbara on Find A Grave as we buried her ashes in the Evans plot at Mountain View Cemetery at the same time as her older sister Betty, in April 2013.

Unfortunately, I had nobody to ask about this as both of her sisters were dead and she had lived in Ontario since the 50s and had no contacts here.

I gave the investigator permission to give my contact information to his client and waited to hear.

On June 11, I did a blog post to provide this possible new cousin with more information. As I had been through a similar experience when I found my biological father, two full sisters, and three half-siblings, I knew that there could be fear and reluctance to make contact.

I waited to hear . . .