Genealogy Chat

How do you go about contact a relative you haven;t seen for years, ive sat and thought about contacting my dad for many months who i haven;t seen for over 30 years, have found his address and now not sure how go about.

please help

sue

Is it possible for a third party to contact him for you? That was usually recommended by Joan Allen who ran myfolks.net.

Rose

Hi,
My only suggestion would be to write him a letter with a return address and keep it simple. Don't know if it will work but at least the ball will now be in his court. It may be months before you ever get a reply but that will give him all the time he needs to pluck up the courage to return contact.

I don't know if there is any guaranteed way as I have seen many possible methods written about on this site which have worked for the individuals.
Wish you well.
Paul

A lot depends on the individual circumstances.

But, as said above, a short letter with SAE and your phone number, saying that you'd like to know how he is, and stressing that you don't want to put any pressure on him might elicit a response.

If it doesn't, at least you won't be for ever regretting that you didn't try..................

I rather imagine that his reaction will, to a large extent, be dependent on his current family circumstances

Not quite the same as you as finding a lost birth parent is trickier ,but some years ago I found out my mums older sister was still alive aged 99 in a nursing home in Cornwall, Must have been over 30 years since my side of the family had any contact with her . no fall out just family dispersing and my parents passing on .I wrote a simple letter saying who i was and and how lovely it was to find her address and how that came about . I said would love to hear form her and enclosed a stamped addressed envelope . She got one of the staff to write her reply which she signed and gave me a phone nos . we corresponded and did talk on the phone a couple of times but she was very deaf so was a problem anyway me & OH took a long weekend to Cornwall from the SE and had a lovely afternoon with her ,gots lost of family gossip. Was glad we did make the contact as she passed away aged 102 in 2008

As Purple has suggested, get in touch with Joan Allen on this site as she will help and guide you through it

Wish you all the best

Kim x

plucked up the courage to send a letter did exactly that told him it was ok not to contact due to the lengh of time, just advised him was happy with my life and what i was up to, 3 days later he called me spent most of the time the pair of us crying but spent nearly 2 hours chatting very early days turn out better than i thought

Thanks

Susan i am so glad for you. I do hope you do have many more talks and maybe meetings

I know when my brother found us 6yrs ago now. Last time my mum saw him was 59yrs. Sadly he only had 4yrs with mum be for she died. But there were very happy times they had.

Good Luck to you all

Hazelx

I was having a bad day - you've now cheered me up!

Good luck.

Delighted to hear that there was a positive outcome...........