After years of searching, DNA tests, social media and old-fashioned tenacity have played crucial roles in reuniting fractured families. Here, six people tell their stories
I used to go by Larecia Whitehead, I changed my second name to Buford – my real father’s name – when a DNA test led us to each other after decades apart. For most of my childhood, Mum told me another guy was my father, a man I never knew and who left us when I could barely walk or talk. I was never convinced. Then, at 15, a girl in school recognised my then surname and introduced me to the man my mother always said was my dad. We looked nothing alike. He didn’t think I was his daughter either. Fastforward to me being 31, and I needed certainty. Once again I tracked down the man my mum said was my dad and asked him to do a DNA test. The results came back: there was a 0% chance we were related. I’d been right all along.
