FINDING YOUR ROOTS

Man Abandoned as Newborn Finds Family After 65 Years

“It was like finding a needle in a haystack,” David Stevenson said on finding his biological family.

A man abandoned as a newborn has reunited with his birth family after more than 65 years. David Stevenson, an Englishman who currently resides about 75 miles north of London, was found in December 1960, abandoned in a London apartment building, at just a few days old. “Growing up, I knew I was a foundling,” Stevenson, 65, said to BBC. “It wasn’t until I had children of my own that I started to think about where I had come from.” Despite efforts in the media and by local police to find the family of the newborn, there was limited information on the baby’s origin and reason for his abandonment. He was later adopted by the Stevenson family without a trace of a birth family. With the help of his wife, Julie, and the team of ITV’s hit series Long Lost Family, David was able to track down his birth mother: Petra, a Catholic woman from the Netherlands born in 1940. The team used DNA and genealogical research, along with an old police report obtained by Julie, to locate Petra. “I have nothing but sympathy for her,” Stevenson said about his mother. “It was difficult for girls in the 1950s and 60s to be unwed mothers. I think she did the best she could.” Petra died in 2010, but her son has been able to reconnect with her sister and cousins.