SHE was adopted at birth and spent most of her life unaware of her tangled family tree living in Scotland.
But now Alison Stevens has been reunited with siblings she never knew she had after launching a worldwide search to discover her roots.
And the 60-year-old also uncovered long-buried secrets of her parents' unconventional love life, and a perplexing mystery over a missing brother.
Her incredible search uncovered two natural sisters, and also with her two half-brothers and a half-sister, after unravelling family secrets and tracing them down through the decades.
But it appears she has one more half-brother somewhere, although no-one knows his whereabouts, or if he is even still alive.
Mrs Stevens, of Brighton, said: "I always knew I was adopted and that my mother came from Scotland. My adopted father used to joke about it, and it was just something I accepted and didn't think too much about.
"But my own son fell ill and he suggested looking into my family tree to see if there was anything in it, like an inherited condition, so I just took it from there.
"It's been an incredible journey and I never expected that I would find out so much about my family, or meet so many of my relatives."
Through searching the general records office, Mrs Stevens found out that her mother, Ruby, died in childbirth in 1958. Her own file from the adoption agency revealed that her father was called David Ellis and was from Dundee.
She managed to find her father in a Dundee nursing home, but he passed away before she could speak to him. But this opened the door to a shocking revelation from her past.
Mrs Stevens said: "I contacted the funeral home and asked who had registered the death, and they said it was his daughter, so I knew then that I had a sister.
"She was called Carol, and I got in touch with her. Almost the first thing she said was 'are you a twin'?
"It turned out my mother was David Ellis' mistress, and that Carol and her brother David were his children with his wife and my half-brother and sister.
"Ruby died in childbirth giving birth to stillborn twins, and Carol could remember the police coming to her door and speaking to her father. She did not know at the time the twins had died."
Mrs Stevens was able to piece together further details after visiting her mothers' memorial plaque at Dundee Crematorium, which revealed the names of two uncles.
One emigrated to Canada, and it is believed he took another sister with him, while another lived in Los Angeles.
Mrs Stevens said: "I got a large glass of whisky for some Dutch courage and called the uncle in America. His widow answered and said 'which one of Ruby's children are you?'.
"I got a big shock. I did not know anything about other brothers and sisters. I was just hoping she had a photo of my mum."
The aunt was able to put her in touch with another half-brother, David, and her full sister Jo, from Northumberland. Together, the three of them hired the charity Birthlink, which specialises in reuniting adopted children, who found another sister, Dorothy.
The family, who were all adopted as children, found that they had many things in common, with shared looks and sense of humour, and even an odd family trait: Webbed feet.
Mrs Stevens said: "When we got together we all got our socks off and there it was. It's funny, but we know we are siblings.
"Finding them all means I've got another family. We all grew up separately but we're quite alike and it's another support network. We all laugh together."
But a few pieces of the puzzle remain. A woman thought to be the sister in Canada refuses to acknowledge she may be related to the siblings, and is not in touch.
There could also be another brother, somewhere.
Mrs Stevens said: "David's dad wasn't David Ellis. We know that Ruby also had a relationship with a coach driver from Glasgow, who used to take parties on tours in Europe.
"Family history says that she had another son, but we can't find him. We're going to keep on looking for as long as we can and track down the last of my mum's children."
Meanwhile, Mrs Stevens' detective work has also revealed that she may have another brother, born to Ruby and her boyfriend sometime in the 1950s.
The father is known to have been a coach driver, who may have worked for Glasgow-based Golden Eagle Coaches, who drove tourists to Europe on organised tours.
Family history suggests that the man also had another son with her mother, but what happened to this child is unknown.
Mrs Stevens said: "Between 1950 and 1958 when she died, my mother had seven children, almost one a year. But there is a gap between 1951 when David was born and me coming along in 1954, and we know that there is supposed to have been a son born sometime around then.
"But we don;t know anything about him and there are no records. Hopefully, someone will remember the driver or the company and can help fill in the blanks."
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