A gran found her birth dad after a 37-year search thanks to a 23andMe DNA test.
Anna Sharp, now 52, learned aged 14 she had a different biological dad to her seven older siblings – but she had no idea who her birth dad was.
All she had was an old photo she found in her mum’s belongings and a love note signed ‘Carlos’.
Her children gave her a 23andMe kit for her birthday in February 2024 – a saliva-based DNA service which provides family history and can connect people with relatives.
In July she got a message from fellow user Jasmin Andrews from L.A – a DNA match.
It turned out the pair were second cousins which allowed Anna to track down her birth dad, Charles W Sharp Junior, now 79, an ex-soldier who lives in Dallas, Texas, in October last year.
Now Anna and Charles speak every day and she’s jetting out to see him in April.
Anna, a student nurse from Milton Keynes, said: “Finding him has been amazing!
“It’s easily the best experience in my life.
“I’m so excited to be going to meet him.
“We’re going to revel and live in the moment to make up lost time.
“We’re very similar – we both love to talk, and we have the same sense of humour.
“We even hold our hands up by our faces in the same way.
“I felt so lost not knowing who my biological dad was, like I didn’t really know who I was.
“I felt a real void when I looked in the mirror and didn’t know about the person looking back.
“It’s lovely to feel whole now.”
Anna said she had different skin tone and hair texture from the siblings she grew up with in Wolverhampton, and aunts and uncles made odd comments, so she always had an inkling she had a different dad.
Her mum, Shirley Johnson, a dancer who died in 2021 aged 76, told her she had a different dad but wouldn’t give any more information.
Anna said: “It was a real shock but a lot of things started to make sense.”
Anna asked for information when she was 18, and again aged 25, but relatives just said she needed to speak to her mum.
She said: “My mum just wouldn’t tell me anything.
“I guess she was protecting the life she had built up.”
Since speaking to Charles she has discovered the pair met in Germany, in 1971, where Shirley was working for a year, and Charles, a US soldier, was recovering from a bullet to the head he sustained while fighting in Vietnam.
Charles later visited Shirley in the UK – and while both were married, they had a short affair before he was posted back to the US before Anna was born in February 1973.
Shirley never told him about their child, and separated from her husband before Anna was one.
Anna chanced upon a picture with a love letter from ‘Carlos’ on the back in one of her mum’s albums when she, Anna, was 36.
She learned he was a soldier and the note said how he always loved her mum, but despite online searches, Anna was no closer to tracking him down.
Anna found she had two DNA matches in April 2024 – and reached out to two cousins but got no reply.
Later she connected with Jasmin who revealed she had an “uncle Charles” – her grandad’s sisters son – and they compared photos, to discover he was Anna’s dad.
“I started crying’, Anna said, “I’d found my dad.”
Anna reached out to Charles via Facebook Messenger, and they exchanged photos before a phone call on October 3 last year.
She said: “I was shaking like a leaf.
“When he answered we both just kept saying ‘hello’.”
Gran-of-four Anna discovered her dad has been awarded two purple hearts for being hit in action.
He’s worked as a policeman, an accountant, and an engineer.
Anna changed her surname to match her dad’s, in January – from Johnson, her mum’s ex-husband’s name.
She’s the third-born of Charles’s six children, but he knew nothing about her until she contacted him.
Anna and her son Thierry will meet her half sisters Martina and Kei and half-brother Richard: they fly out on April 22.
She said: “It’s amazing and we have so much still to do together.
“We’re still at the beginning, which is very exciting, but I do wish we had both been spared the pain of separation and not knowing.
“We have to make up for lost time and lost memories. My mum had her reasons and I love her.
“But I think it’s really important to know the two people who have given you life.
“I have a new sense of belonging now and it’s a huge relief.”
Charles said: “It was a shock but a lovely one, and a lovely early 79th birthday present.
“I wish I had known earlier because I would have wanted to be involved all her life.
“I’m so glad Anna didn’t give up on her search.
“I can’t wait to give her a big hug.”
