Getting a DNA test can throw a few surprises, as 83-year-old Mike Rodwell discovered when a “gift” of a test revealed his biological father.
Now he has half-sisters in Canada that he never knew about, and a photo of his biological father, who happened to be in the same air crew in World War II as the father who raised him.
Ironically, he now has photos of his biological father and members of the air crew in England, plus a photo of his mother during the war years, whereas all of the early photos of both his parents who raised him were lost decades ago.
“It was mind-blowing seeing photos of my (biological) father in Canada when I had never seen him. And to see a photo of my mother during the war years in England.”
Mike’s daughter and son-in-law paid for the DNA test, so they received the unexpected results that a woman in Canada shared the same father.
“They said they didn’t want to tell me the results on the phone, so they came down from the North Island to talk to me.”
The name of his biological father was familiar because he was good mates with his “adoptive” father during the war, and Mike even got to wear his biological father’s flying jacket as a youngster because it was given to his father.
Though Mike does not know whether the father who raised him ever knew he was not the biological father, there is a good chance he did, as the Canadian family has revealed they knew there was another child and the family had a photo of him as a baby.
Regardless of whether his father knew or not, Mike says he was raised as his father’s son with his mother and he had a good upbringing.
He was born in a bombing raid in England and, at four, remembers sitting on his mother’s lap on a stopped train, crammed with people, as bombs dropped on both sides, realising he had nowhere to run.
Seeking a more peaceful life beyond the air force and potential conflict, his parents headed to New Zealand in 1958 when Mike was 16, and it was enroute that their family photos went missing.
“I’ve got no photos and yet people I haven’t met have photos of a family I don’t know.”
Mike is hopeful his two daughters and three grandchildren will get to meet his other family and get to know more about the relatives they didn’t know they had.
Have you had an unexpected twist in your family tree? Contact anne@waimeaweekly.co.nz
