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Family Groups - Searching for lost parents

Carol Rider
source

This is Worcestershire
First published on Friday 08 February 2002:

A WOMAN - shocked by recent revelations about her family - is searching for the father she has never met.
Carol Rider's life has been turned upside down after discovering, at the age of 56, that she was adopted by her grandparents when she was born.
She has also found out that the woman she thought all her life was her sister, June, was actually her mother.
She had been adopted because June was only 17 when she gave birth to her. Mrs Rider was conceived after June met an American GI when he was training in Evesham and Honeybourne during the Second World War.
Mrs Rider made the life-changing discoveries only after her mother and grandparents died recently. Her grandparents never told her that she was adopted, and it was only when she tried to find her birth certificate that she began to discover it.
"I never had a full birth certificate," she said.
"So I thought one day that I would try and get one.
"I had always asked about it, but my relatives had always put me off and changed the subject.
"I thought I was born in Evesham, but when I made inquiries, I found no trace that I was born there."
Mrs Rider then discovered from her grandfather's half-brother that she had been adopted.
Birth certificate
With the help of her friend, Valerie, the daughter of a close friend of Mrs Rider's mother, she found a copy of her birth certificate. She discovered that she was born in Reading.
Valerie also told Mrs Rider, who now lives in Maidstone, Kent, how her mother had met the GI when the 24th Operational Training Unit Bomber Command had been training in Evesham and Honeybourne in 1944.
She became pregnant, and lost touch with her lover when his training period finished.
Her grandfather, William Rider, worked at Stigmat-Wheway Ltd, Avon Croft, Offenham, which was why the family was in the area during the war.
"It was a complete shock," said Mrs Rider, a mother-of-three. "I was very close to my mother, although I thought she was my sister at the time.
"I was so upset and hurt that nobody ever told me about it. I'm not the person I thought I was. Everything in my life has shifted."
To make matters worse, her friend, Valerie, was told the name of her father, but cannot remember it.
"Without his name, it's going to be very difficult to find him," she said. "I've tried everything, but I've had no luck.
"He could be dead."
Anyone who remembers Mrs Rider's grandparents, William and Nora, or her mother, June, can contact her on 01622 677930 or email dawn.rider@uk.dreamcast.com


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