Riddle of my parents solved by stamp DNA
Irish mother and father of baby left in bush in 1937 now identified
SINCE she was abandoned as a baby in a blackberry bush, Anthea Ring has spent decades trying to find out the identity of her birth parents.
And now, eight decades on, the mystery has finally been solved – after saliva on the back of a 30-year-old post stamp matched her DNA.
The discovery has confirmed the identity of her biological father, who was from Co. Galway, and allowed her to make contact with relatives she didn’t know she had.
Mrs Ring, now 81, became the UK’s most famous abandoned baby when she was discovered in August 1937, aged nine months, crying in a blackberry bush near Worthing, Sussex, by a holidaying family.
Her hands had been bound with a strip of material from her ripped pink dress and her body was covdoned ered in scratches, but otherwise she was healthy and appeared well-cared for.
Police launched an attempted murder investigation but they were never able to solve the mystery of who abandoned her or why. She was eventually happily adopted.
But after the mother-of-two became a grandparent, she decided in 1994 to start her own painstaking investigation to discover the identity of her biological mother and father.
The final piece of the puzzle has now been solved thanks to a speck of DNA on a stamp on a letter sent by her birth father to another relative around 30 years ago.
Family history detective Julia Bell had established her father was likely to be one of six brothers from the Coyne family in Galway.
But researchers could not confirm which brother it was until the letters from one, Patrick, were found, and saliva on a stamp confirmed he was a match.
Mrs Ring, who now lives in Bradford-on-Avon, near Bath, said: ‘Being able to track down my family has been incredible.
‘I’m delighted to have found the final piece in the puzzle of my family history. Who would have thought that stamps from decades-old letters were the key to unlocking my story?
‘I can now finally tell my children and grandchildren about their roots and where they came from.’
Patrick has died but she is now in contact with his wider family.
The DNA search was overseen by David Nicholson, of Living who said: ‘Stamps and other materials containing DNA, such as hair from a brush, can provide vital evidence in DNA testing, and this has proved critical in Anthea’s very personal, and long-running, case to learn her roots.’
In 2016 experts traced her deceased mother’s identity and roots to Co. Mayo, using global DNA databases which identified distant cousins.
Family trees and other clues pointed towards her mother being one of seven daughters of a John O’Donnell.
Records of illegitimate births suggested her mother was his youngest daughter, Ellen O’Donnell, who was born in 1911. A DNA test on Mrs Ring’s halfbrother proved the genealogists were right.
Her birth name was Mary Veronica and her birth certificate revealed she was born on November 20, 1936, just five days after the date her adoptive parents had picked for her birthday.
Her mother, who had given birth at St Mary Abbots Hospital in Kensington, gave her occupation as a machine operator at a telephone factory on the document. She was later taken in by a charity for unmarried mothers called Devon Nook in Chiswick, west London.
Experts are still unsure as to how Mrs Ring came to be abanDNA, in a blackberry bush, but doubt it was by her birth mother. One theory is she was abandoned by a foster parent.
After she was found, she was looked after at Worthing Hospital for six months while the police launched a nationwide appeal for information, which was fruitless.
‘I may never know what happened to me but I’ve come to terms with it,’ Mrs Ring told the BBC.
‘Even if my mother left me, there must have been dire circumstances to make her do it. And I was catapulted into a very loving family. So I have nothing to grumble about at all.’
‘Delighted to find final puzzle piece’