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Can you believe it?  A couple of weeks I posted that we’d hired a PI to find our last remaining sister - Elizabeth.  On Friday I received an email out of the blue via genes reunited.  When I unwittingly hit the link I was taken to a message from her!  She’d found a post I’d put up over a year ago on one of the many adoption search sites I’ve been to and managed to track me down on Genes where she contacted me.  We spent over an hour chatting on the phone on Friday night and I filled her in on the rest of the siblings.

So, unbelievably, we’ve actually done it!  We’ve managed to find (well, if we’re being totally accurate - all three of them found us!) all of them and are now trying to arrange to get a hall or something so we can have a proper reunion together before Tony’s wedding reception in September.

I’m still amazed that we’ve actually done this.  Only 18 months ago it seemed an almost impossible task as we didn’t know where to look and were running out of options.   Now, Helena has suggested that there’s a story here that should be written and has come up with a set of questions to help us tap into the various things that could go into writing it.  I’ve spoken to the rest of them and so far it’s a decisive yes on attempting to get it down, so wish us luck and I’ll keep you informed!

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I never thought I’d find myself in this position but, believe it or not, I’ve just hired a Private Investigator!  Don’t worry, I’m not have Gary followed or anything just as seedy though.  I’ve hired him to find our final missing sister! 

I did manage to resist asking him if he wears a fedora and mac - I’m not sure how well that would have gone down.  I might wait until he’s actually done the job I’ve hired him for and then ask :D  He might have a sense of humour, you never know!

He seems quietly confident that he will be able to track her down and then the ball will be in her court as to whether she wants to initiate contact with the rest of us.  I do wonder if she even knows about us, whether her adopted parents told her she was adopted and whether she has actually got her adoption file.  If she does have it, I’ll be the only other child listed as she’s the second eldest - unlike Laura’s whose file includes myself, Elizabeth (our missing sister) and Tony, but doesn’t list Emma, Helen or Rachel.  So Elizabeth could be in for a rather large surprise.  I just hope it’s a surprise she welcomes!  But if she makes the decision that she doesn’t wish to have contact with us, if we can get the question as to whether she is alive and happy answered then I, for one, will be satisfied.

Wish us luck and I’ll keep you guys informed!

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Over the last 18 months, my brother and I have been trying to track down three of our sisters who were taken away from the family.  One went with her father when he split with our mother, the other two were put up for adoption.

We regained contact with the first in February 2007, due to Tony (my brother) discovering that he worked with someone who knew her and it snowballed from there culminating in us finally exchanging IM details, addresses and mobile phone numbers and have kept in touch since.  She didn’t remember any of us (except Tony) and was taken away at a very early age so it’s been around 25 years since we saw her last.  I managed to visit her in March this year and spent a couple of hours at her home.

This left two to find.  These were much harder as they had been adopted and there was every possibilty that their names had been changed.  To be honest, it was hard to find somewhere to start so I tracked down their original birth certificates which confirmed they’d been adopted and then contacted the local adoption services.  Due to being pregnany, I let searching fall by the wayside and didn’t chase up the services  to see if they’d discovered anything and was thinking about taking back up the search over the next few weeks.

So, imagine my surprise when Tony calls me early Friday evening, all excited and told me that the second sister (his full sister, my half sister) had been in touch!  She’s only been wanting to find us for the last 10 years.  It turns out that Tony dated her best friend when she was 16 and happened to have a photograph of him which she spotted a few nights ago.  They then trawled up and down a street looking for his best friend’s house and she left her mobile number with his parents.  We’ve spent the weekend catching up and filling her in on the family history (skeletons and all!)  So it’s been quite a crazy weekend.  The craziest part is that Laura got in touch with us all on her 29th birthday (Friday 18th April) 27 years later!

So now we just have one more to find.  Once again, I’ve spoken to the adoption services and they’re going to call me back (hopefully today!) and see if we can chase her down.  Obviously they won’t give me her contact details but I’m hoping they will contact her for me and that she or her parents still live at the contact address they have.  Otherwise it could become a costly endeavour. 

Wish me luck!

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I updated the blog to WordPress 2.5 the other day.  It went very smoothly (which surprised me) the style still works as do all plugins except the tagally one which pains me as it was pretty colours!

I’ve been feeling a bit out of sorts of late, hence my very little interaction on here.  We’ve had server load issues with the host which, I hope, are sorted now.  At the very least, it seems a little faster currently, but we’ll see!

Kids are still on school holidays - got another week of em at home and I’m just about fit to murder.  It’s not really their fault.  They’re cooped up indoors because there’s absolutely nothing they can do around here and, because I don’t drive, I can’t take them anywhere.  Using public transport while having to take a double buggy and having to watch two kids under 6 is pretty much impossible when you’re on your own as Gary’s at work.  So stuck indoors with very little to do except drive me insane!

I’m very happy with the progess of IaBT, if you haven’t come over and joined you really should!  We still have a very small memberbase but we’re close to hitting 5,000 posts - none of which have been spam, which I find amazing.  I think it shows how vBulletin’s new spam system is working as I’ve seen bot accounts trying to register on there without any success at all!

BookWeazle is moving along a lot slower, but it hasn’t been advertised as yet and I’m focusing on us getting content on there and still figuring out a style before really putting it out there.  The Blog part is moving forward though with reviews getting added regularly.

I also have decided to bring back a site that’s always held a special place to me.  It was the first site I ever built and while running on Ezboard was extremely popular.  I closed it down about 3 years ago, but have decided it’s time for it to return - albeit not on Ezboard, but on vBulletin!  A Magickal Journey is still very much in the building stage - the blog area will house articles and the products area (where you can purchase Natal (Birth) Charts and Tarot Readings and the forum area (once built) will be a place for people to discuss all aspects of spiritualism, religion, paranormal and supernatural topics.

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I have absolutely no excuse for my lack of updating over the last few weeks.  If truth be told, I just couldn’t be bothered.

WordPress released a new version 6 days ago and I need to update the blog to reflect that.  I’ve been thinking on this and am of the opinion that I might do something new with my blog at the same time.  I’m not 100% certain what that something will be as yet, hence my holdup on posts and upgrading.  I’ll think of something though, as I just don’t think I do enough really to warrent simply blogging about what goes on (or doesn’t go on) in my life.

In the meantime, go visit my sites at http://itsabitchthing.com/forum and http://bookweazle.com/forum - go on, you know you want to!

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