DNA test leads Newbury woman on a journey of discovery

Lisa Harrington always knew she was adopted. And she always knew that she “looked a bit Asian”.

But it was only at the beginning of last year – now in her 60s – that a spur of the moment decision to take a DNA test, revealed a family who had been searching for her for two decades.

It also proved what she’d always really known – she was half Goan.

“Both my parents were English white and they let me know I was adopted from the age of about two,” she explains. “I thought they said I was dotted, so I looked all over my body for spots.”

Lisa was adopted from birth, from the Plymouth area, and says her “mummy always loved to believe I was her daughter” because her family originally came from Plymouth too.

“My childhood was lovely, I was brought up around here and I went to school around here,” she says.

She had already been told that her birth mother was English and speaking to her adoptive mother while out one day she also discovered that her “biological mother had gone to Aden with her father and had a liaison with an Asian boy and then was sent home to have me”.

But that was as far as she took it.

Then, when her adoptive parents died four years ago, people kept telling her she should try to find out more.

“Occasionally I plonked about on adoption sites, but it’s really difficult,” she adds. “For anybody who was born before 1975 the adoption papers are sealed and it’s only the child that can trace; the parent can’t trace and again it’s still difficult.

“You have to jump through a lot of hoops. I think there was something where you had to have a psychological test to make sure you could cope with the situation so I didn’t bother.

“But last Christmas My Heritage were doing an offer – half price DNA testing – and I thought it would be interesting to find out what my heritage was, what my make-up is.”

The results proved what she had always expected – she was 52 per cent south Asian; 44 per cent English/Scottish/Welsh “and then the rest was Scandinavian, which was really weird”.

The website then brought up something unexpected – the names of two people who could be her first cousins.

She emailed one, but didn’t hear anything, so tried contacting the other – Carl Lewin.

“I emailed him and all of a sudden I got an email back saying – ‘Yes, hello Lisa, we’ve been looking for you for 20 years. You’re my cousin’,” she says.

Since that email back at the beginning of the year Lisa has uncovered her history and connected with a large family she knew nothing about just 12 months ago.

She has a half-brother called Alan, and two half-sisters called Lezli and Jacky, but sadly her birth mother June has died.

She has since spoken to all of them – and met with Lezli, Alan and Jacky.

And it was Lezli who has filled in Lisa’s past for her, after June’s other children discovered the story about her at a family gathering many years ago.

June had been 16/17 when she had Lisa. The family were in Aden as June’s father was in the RAF and she had a relationship with a young man from Goa.

They had wanted to get married but it was not allowed and June was sent back to the UK by boat – wearing her older sister’s wedding ring so as not to arouse any suspicions – to have Lisa – or Noelle as she was called.

“On my birth certificate I was down as Noelle Lander and as I was born in January I always assumed it was because I was born near Christmas,” Lisa says. “But apparently this chap that she met in Aden, who she was with for a fairly long time as far as teenagers go, about eight or nine months, was called Noel.

“But no one really knows his last name. They didn’t really talk to her [June] about it until she got Alzheimer’s.

“He was from Goa, so I am half Goan. I have always had an affinity with Goa and with India. We’ve been there three times, we absolutely love India.

“One of her brothers remembers he used to go to Noel’s house and Noel taught him to play guitar, as Noel was in a rock and roll band.”

Although she says she had a very happy life and never felt anything was missing, the times when her path could have crossed with her birth parents are now things that Lisa wonders.

June and her husband moved to Skye and ran a café and gift shop and Lisa and husband Brian – whose own family tree has its roots in Nova Scotia, but that’s another story – have visited the small Scottish Island at the same time her birth mother would have been there.

And then there’s the trip to Goa: “We were walking around in Goa and you might have literally walked past a relative and not known”.

“There are so many coincidences,” she says. “June and her husband and the children joined a drama group and I’m the chairman of New Era Players, so there’s a similarity there.

“Some of it is nature and some is nurture, my adoptive mother was very heavily into her drama and literature.

“The Indian side is interesting though as my parents were never in to that sort of thing.

“Suddenly finding out you have all these half-siblings and hundreds of cousins; it’s really weird.

“Lezli and Alan came to a party and I introduced them as my brother and sister and I felt really weird saying it. I am very pleased and it’s nice to meet them and get to know them.

“I still want to trace my father’s side as that will be really interesting, especially as I have this affinity with India. And I always have. And an affinity with rock music.

“But I was an only child so was brought up as the only one, but [adoptive] mummy and daddy are still my parents and you can’t get away from that.”