A £79 DNA test led me to my real dad ..who lived down the road my whole life

ancestry DNA test with her. The results showed her sister could only be a half-sibling – meaning Ray was not her birth father.

She decided to ask her aunts what they knew, and finally discovered the truth. Emma was told her mother had slept with 18-year-old Trevor when she was in her early 30s.

“When I knew the truth, I couldn’t really take it in,” Emma said. “All sorts of things go through your head.”

The aunts also told Emma some of her family members had known all along and had been sworn to secrecy. She used social media and the electoral roll to find out where Trevor lived and then she wrote to him with contact details if he wanted to see her.

FRIGHTENED

“I agonised over what to put in it,” she said. “I didn’t want to give too much information away about myself. I was frightened.

“Was he a good person? Was he going to be some strange drunkard?”

Trevor emailed her saying he was surprised but pleased to hear from her. He revealed he had always felt ashamed about how things had gone with her mum.

The moment they met, Emma stared into his matching blue eyes and knew he was her birth father.

As they hugged for the first time, she says she thought about all of the family moments she had missed out on over the years.

“He could have been there at my wedding,” she said. “I always wanted someone to walk me down the aisle.

I’ve missed out on grandparents. I’ve been looking through his family photo albums, and I’ve not been part of any of it.” Trevor’s family have welcomed her with open arms.

She has a new half-sister a few years younger than she is. Now Emma and Trevor enjoy sailing together on his boat along the River Medway.

“There’s a security in spending time with close family members, and I didn’t appreciate how much I craved that,” said Emma. Trevor added: “A lot of time has been lost. I expected her