You can never have enough...

[Oh_hunnihunni]

One of my great uncles disappeared during the Great War, and my grandfather, the youngest of the boys was devastated by his loss. As soon as he had the opportunity as a young adult he attempted to trace him but had no luck, even in England and in France. Right up until his death he had all these unanswered questions. Decades later .I googled my grandfathers name one night, playing on my laptop, and up popped a message from a ancestry tracing website asking for any relatives to please contact the writer. So I did, with my Mum's permission. Turned out this Australian woman was the very elderly adopted daughter of an Ozzie real estate agent who had died some years before, with his estate falling into the hands of another family member, who left everything to this woman on their death. Among the family papers were some revealing her adopted father had another identity. He was our missing great uncle who had apparently gone awol from his battalion, made his way to England, then to Australia as a working seaman, all under false papers, and established a completely new life, only being honest with a very few trusted supporters, who kept his secret for years even from his most immediate Australian family.

And there he was, just across the Tasman, and never made contact with his bereft parents or young brother, so close and yet so very distant. I guess he had his reasons.

Families are interesting things.