'I can finally rest now I've discovered I have a family'

WHEN John Kennedy got a phone call via an ancestry website, his 70-year search to find his family finally ended. It culminated in tears and high emotions when the 82-year-old got to hug his siblings for the first time.

- BRYANA FRANCIS

The family met for the first time on Saturday at a hotel in south Wales after John travelled five hours from Yorkshire with his wife and daughter.

And John had a simple message: "I can now rest within myself that I have a family."

Although John never got the opportunity to meet his mother, he was was able to meet four of his siblings - Kenneth Evans, 78, Betty Hender, 74, Frances Evans, 71, and Terry Evans, 62, who live in Nelson.

For John, whose adoptive sister died 15 years ago, finding out he has a large family in south Wales has proved quite the discovery.

He said: "I tried for years but it was always a dead end. Then going back a few months ago, my son-in-law said, 'put your DNA on' and there was a match.

"I didn’t know I had this many brothers and sisters; that came as a shock. The only thing I ever dreamed of was seeing a picture of my birth mother, and I finally got to see it.

"Today means a lot, a hell of a lot. I can rest within myself that I have a family. I’ve seen a picture of my mother and I'm learning things as I talk to them. It’s brilliant. It’s absolutely fantastic."