Family reunited after years of searching

It was an extra special 70th birthday party for Anne McCarthy, from Thatcham, who celebrated with friends and long lost family from Scotland and Norway at Thatcham Football Club.
Although Anne had known of their existence for four years, the party marked the first time that she had met her Norwegian relatives.
The hunt for Anne’s family began about six years ago when one of her daughters, Lorraine, started trawling through online records and registries.
“It turned out to be a long, fascinating, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately successful task. With the rise of genealogical websites and online records, and a sprinkling of luck, the pieces of the puzzle started to come together,” Lorraine said.
The first clue appeared after tracking the grave of Anne’s father, Henry.
He was killed in North Africa during the second world war, months before Anne was born.
When the situation in Tunisia becomes more stable after the Arab Spring uprisings, Anne hopes to be able to place flowers on the grave of the father she never knew.
Her mother Anna remarried twice but for reasons unknown, was unable to keep Anne.
“I was hoping to find that out but nobody really knows why,” Anne said. “It could be that she couldn’t afford to keep me as a widow.”
Anne was then adopted by her father’s sister, Eunice, but she died when Anne was just 11-years-old.
With details of her father’s life becoming clearer, the next lead was Anne remembering that she had two Norwegian brothers with the surname Pettersen.
Lorraine searched Norwegian records but could find no trace of them and a search on genealogy websites also bore no fruit.
Next was the turn of the Scottish archives to be rifled as Anne knew that her mother was Scottish.
All progress resulted in a dead end until four years ago when an email arrived from a genealogical website saying that some Scottish records were available online.
A search of the marriage records revealed that her mother had married Mr Pettersen in Scotland and the records provided a full name to begin a trace.
Armed with this key piece of knowledge, Lorriane searched the net once again and discovered a family tree posted on a site a few months earlier.
She emailed the creator - a Norwegian man named Alexander - who turned out to be her cousin.
A reply then revealed that both sides of Anne's distant family were in contact with each other and a prompt reply said that they had been searching for his long lost sister.
He said that there were seven of the Berrie siblings although their mother and one sister had died a few years ago.
Lorraine called Anne to say that she had finally found her family and that she was oldest of 10 siblings - although their mother and one sister had died a few years ago.
Some of the surviving relatives finally met in the same room last Saturday.
“It was a mixture of excitement and nerves and was quite emotional. They commented on how much I looked like their mother, that I laughed like her and had a few of her mannerisms,” Mrs McCarthy said.
One of Anne’s Norwegian relatives is turning 70 next year and she plans to join in the celebrations with her new found family.