When my half sister came to visit I took her to my parents’ home to see some family photos.

We have one large framed photo of our paternal great grandfather. It’s black and white but had some had hand coloring in the eyes mostly.

I was telling her that he was a redhead (he was white Australian) and she got really excited.

Her husband is a redhead and their daughter Lily came out with red hair too. But apparently you have to have red hair on both sides of the family to inherit it, so she always wondered where it came from. Her mother’s family is Irish and they all have black hair. So she was thrilled to finally find out where the red hair on her side had come from.

I know she knew WHO her father was but she knew very little about the family. I’ve often wondered what it was like for her growing up not knowing half her origins. I intend to make copies of all the pictures and send them to her. She is very obviously one of us, the family resemblance is so strong. Now she’ll be able to have family pictures and see her own face reflected back at her.