AFTER years of searching and not getting anywhere, an Oakley resident thought she would never discover who her birth mother was.

Christine Savage was put up for adoption when she was six weeks old, after her mother was forced to give her up at the age of 18.

Having started her own family and being raised by her adopted parents, it wasn’t until the Basingstoke Ladies’ Choir member retired that she decided to dig into her passed and try and discover who her birth parents were.

The 69-year-old told the Gazette: “My adopted mother offered to help me years ago, but I didn’t really put much thought into it.

“When I retired, I thought I would look into it, so I got in touch with social services and went through that avenue.

“I discovered news about my brother, but they couldn’t find any more information about my mother, so at that point I never thought I would meet her.”

However, after six year’s of searching and research into her family history, last Wednesday Christine travelled to finally meet her birth mother 88-year-old Margaret Preston.

Christine added: “Obviously it was bit odd because in reality she was a completely stranger. We had exchanged letters and phone calls but its different meeting face-to-face.

“When I sat down with her I said, ‘we’ve got a lot of catching up to do haven’t we?’ and she told me everything about my birth and putting me up for adoption.”

The Oakley resident, who has two children and three grand-children of her own, being reunited with her mother was due to doing research on Ancestry and having her DNA done, which unveiled that she also had a half-brother and half-sister who didn’t know anything about her.

“I got in touch with my half-sister, who didn’t know who I was, to ask if my mother would be interested in meeting me,” Christine added.

“It turned out that mum had been watching Long Lost Families hoping that one day I would get in contact, when I was doing the exact same thing.”

Now, Christine said she is excited to get to know her mother more and see her more when she moves to Birmingham and for Margaret to meet her new family.