Scott Radley: Hamilton women searching for the sister they never knew they had

If you're a 56-year-old woman with a birthday in a couple weeks, you might want to stop what you're doing for a few minutes and read this. You might be the one.

If you are, your sisters are looking for you.

Of course, if you are the one you probably don't know you have four sisters. They had no idea you existed until a few weeks ago.

It's definitely been eye-opening," says Shelley Kay, one of those sisters, of the incredible tale they suddenly find themselves living.

They call the story wild. They're right.

Andrea Richard, Simone Cameron, Shelley Kay, and Lori Richard grew up in Hamilton. Back in the day they were the Richard girls who lived in the east end and all went to Holy Family Elementary before heading off to different high schools. Along with their mom and dad, they couldn't have been a more normal family.

So normal that when Andrea - a Hamilton police sergeant who's the oldest - decided to take an Ancestry DNA test in January, she didn't really expect anything too exciting. Like millions of other people who've done the same, she was just curious.

Yet when the result came back, it made no sense. She had a half brother. Which was weird. She's never heard that before. Now she was baffled. Did her dad secretly have another family? He died in 2003 so she couldn't ask. Mom died in 2017. She couldn't answer either.

She sat on this information for a few days, not sure how to raise it with her sisters. Nothing like dropping a bomb into the family without knowing what the information even meant. When she finally sent them an email laying out what she'd learned, she figured they'd be shocked.

They were. But not as stunned as she was when they got back to her.

They called me," the 52-year-old says. They said, We don't know how to tell you this but we found your adoption papers.'"

Wait. Her what?

I did not know I was adopted."

Years ago, a relative jokingly asked her if she was the adopted one.' The sisters laughed about it at a few family gatherings since then but it was never considered anything more than a misspeak.

Yet in a fluke of cosmic proportions, Lori had been cleaning out some of their mother's things just five days before the DNA test had come back and stumbled upon those secret papers.

Once Andrea had a moment to process everything, she asked about her birth mother. Did the papers say anything about that? Who she was?

They did.

Her biological mother was apparently the mother of that half-brother. Even more astonishing? One of the documents said her birth mother was her aunt. Her mom's sister.

Andrea's mind was now blown.

It's like the ground is pulled out from underneath you," she says.

If that's where the story ended, it would be enough. But Lori then mentioned she'd discovered something else alongside the papers. Something truly baffling. Blue hospital bracelets for a newborn marked with the name RICHARD and an M for male. Which was odd since the sisters didn't grow up with any brothers.

Thoughts began to swirl. Did they have a brother who died at birth? If not, who did the bracelets - two for a single newborn and a matching one for the mother - belong to? They called cemeteries. Nothing. They called hospitals. Records that old had been purged. They asked the province. Nothing.

Now all a little unsettled, they wondered if their mom also could've placed a child for adoption. The idea was ludicrous of course, but they decided to contact the Hamilton Catholic Children's Aid Society anyway.

The reply to Shelley's inquiry arrived early last month.

Dear Ms. Kay,

Please find enclosed non identifying information regarding your birth sibling's adoption ...

Shocked?" Shelley asks. Absolutely."

Turns out their mom had become pregnant during a temporary breakup from their dad before the couple got married and before they adopted Andrea. The baby's biological father was said to be in the military but died in an accident several months before the birth.

But it wasn't a boy. It was a little girl, born healthy in mid-May 1964, baptized in a Hamilton church 10 days later and adopted by a couple who had previously adopted a son who was 18 months older. Which is when the connection to the Richard family ended.

The sisters talked about what to do. It didn't take long to decide. The bracelets were a dead end. The boy - if there was one - would remain a mystery. The sister, on the other hand, was very much a reality.

The search was on.

Records say their mother had given her little girl a name. Her surname would've been Finnan, mom's maiden name. They had an idea where to start looking. The closest Catholic church to the Catholic Children's Aid Society building was St. Patrick's. Their sister had to have been baptized there. There had to be records.

She was. There are. But for privacy reasons they aren't available.

Andrea started looking into deceased military. Maybe that would get them a name. Or a lead.

I found one," she says.

Military man. Deceased. Accident. Around that time.

But I think he's too old."

Scouring the CCAS letter, the sisters learned the couple who adopted their sister lived outside Hamilton. And there were enough general details that taken as a whole should point them in the right direction. At least create some momentum.

The dad was born in 1930. He'd be 90 or 91 now. He had two brothers. His father was a minister who lived nearby. The mom was born in 1933. She had four brothers, one who was a police officer. The couple was married in 1958.

How hard could it be to find them with this information?

It's not that easy, really," Shelley says.

Wedding records and death notices are hard to search these days since COVID has shut libraries' archives down. They searched Ancestry.com but you don't just type in a last name and a birthday and have all the information pour out in front of you as it seems to on Long Lost Family.

We tried that," Simone says of applying to be on the TLC show. It's not open to Canadians."

They read that the adoptive parents enjoyed dancing, travelling, boating and each of their families had a cottage. That didn't help focus the search much. They learned their missing sister had dark brown eyes and dark hair. That narrowed things even less.

They discovered the mom played tennis, loved to read and sang in the church choir. The dad worked as a technology supervisor and enjoyed football, hockey and gardening. Which got them exactly nowhere.

Even the help of a search angel - someone who's experienced in finding people and has contributed to 5,000 reunions - didn't lead to a name.

We've hit a bit of a roadblock," Simone says.

Someone has to know something, they figure. With this many people in the family and this broad a web, there must be a way. Three weeks ago they went public with their search and launched a Facebook page (@sistersfromhamilton) hoping social media might do the trick.

So far, nothing. Even with ways to contact them listed there - people can also reach out at solidrockfarm@outlook.com - things have been dry. Right now it really does seem like the impossible quest.

They don't know if their sister is in Hamilton, around Hamilton or even in Canada. Heck, they don't know if she's alive. But if she did spend her childhood around here and if she was raised Catholic as CCAS was told she would be, one or more of the sisters might've crossed paths with her.

There's an adrenalin rush at a thought like that. Along with an excitement about the search. But what started as a curiosity has become more than that.

We just want to reach out and find out who this woman is," Shelley says. She's a part of who we are."

Even if she doesn't know it.

Yet.

Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com