I grew up not knowing anything about my father’s family. He told us he was an orphan, although he admitted to having two sisters whom he said had been sent to America and he had lost contact with them. Then over a cup of coffee I mentioned this to a friend who had an Ancestry.com.au subscription. She decided to have a look for me.

We discovered that dad was a man of many secrets. He told us he was born in New Zealand in 1919, that his mother had died in childbirth and his father was dead by the time he was four. Through Ancestry.com.au we have found this all to be untrue. Even his name was wrong! He was known as Edward John Presnell but the name on his birth certificate is Edward Marcus and his real date of birth is 15 August 1912.

His mother did not die until 1973 and his father died in 1941, his two sisters lived in Tasmania and one of them only passed away 2009. He was also married previously and had a son, Barry, before he met my mother.

It seems he walked away from his entire family including his son and never looked back. We think he met my mother during the war years and fell in love with her. She was a staunch Catholic and would never agree to marry a divorced man, so he had to lie about his past to marry her.

He kept his secrets and took them to his grave, we had no idea although I often asked him about his family he always came up with the same story. He would also get quite angry with me for asking.

Thanks to Ancestry.com.au we have made contact with our brother Barry and five cousins (children of dad’s sister Dorothy Caroline). We met at a family reunion in Tasmania in April this year.

The photo above is of my brother John, myself, my sister Jeanette and our new found brother Barry.

We released new research recently that reveals that New Zealand trumps Australia in the celebrity stakes, as 16% of Kiwis are able to lay claim to someone famous. However, Aussies should not fear as we are twice as likely as New Zealanders to be related to ‘convict royalty’, with almost one in five of Australians having a link to a convicted criminal or convict.

2,000 Australian and New Zealand residents were surveyed, the results highlighting that the family trait of keeping skeletons in the closet is universal. In both Australia and New Zealand, almost 12% of people said family members refused to discuss family secrets or rumours. Fortunately, it would appear that you don’t have to shake the family tree too hard to uncover your own family secret as almost one third (33%) of respondents in both countries have discovered one by chance.

But not all are so easily revealed – more than half of Australians (55%) currently exploring their family history are seeking to shed light on a family secret. 35% also said that confronting a family secret resulted in them getting in touch with relatives they didn’t know previously, and that it also brought their family closer together.

Have you found a secret in your family tree? Perhaps you have found a secret adoption, a child born out of wedlock, links to royalty or someone who was married to more than one person at once?

We want to hear about it! Simply click on Submit Your Story on the right hand side of this page, enter your information and click submit. We’ll let you know before we publish your story.