Life
Women trying to find their father on Facebook discover that they’re sisters, then find dad
When two sisters went searching for their father, they realize there's much more to the story than they could have realized.
Jessica
01.21.21

Back in 2016, 33-year-old Lisa McLean and 24-year-old Rebecca Parton found each other on social media. It just so happens that they were both searching for their father when they found out about each other.

Now the sisters are the best of friends.

And they’ve finally found their father.

A joint mission

Lisa had been searching for her dad since she was 18, combing over missing person websites after he disappeared when she was nine.

Facebook - Lisa McLean
Source:
Facebook - Lisa McLean

Rebecca, on the other hand, never knew her father. She had only begun looking for him after her mother Andrea died of cancer at age 37.

They say two heads are better than one, so the combined efforts of both women finally did the trick, and in December of 2020, Christmas came a little early for the sisters.

A man named David Riggs messaged the sisters through their online appeal and was able to identify multiple people in old family photos.

Facebook - Lisa McLean
Source:
Facebook - Lisa McLean

The 53-year-old then traveled to Blackpool, England to meet his daughters for the first time and make arrangements for the year’s end.

A Christmas Miracle

The three agreed to a holiday reunion and David, Lisa, and Rebecca all got to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve together with their families at Lisa’s home in Nottingham. That’s also when David got to meet his 8 grandchildren.

Lisa, a mother-of-5, was overwhelmed by the festivities:

“It was just great, there were a few emotions which were obviously to be expected,’ mum-of-five Lisa, a carer, said. ‘You get butterflies and I was thinking “is he coming?” when I was at the station and if his train was delayed. But it was just lovely, he’s seen his grandkids now and there’s a lot of catching up to do – a lot of years to catch up on. The kids have now started to call him grandad so now he’s feeling a bit old.”

It was the perfect Christmas story for the long-separated family.

“It was just lovely… there’s a lot of catching up to do—a lot of years to catch up on. The only way I can describe it, it’s a bit cheesy, but I suppose it is a Christmas miracle,” Lisa said.

“Winning the lottery”

David is a former pier maintenance worker and when SWNS asked him about the reunion, he said he felt “like he’d won the lottery” and was the “happiest man in the world” upon meeting his daughters.

It turns out David had tried searching for his daughters as well (including a third daughter, Amy, who he is in touch with).

“I was searching for the girls for quite a number of years on and off,” he said. ‘They were always on my mind and in my heart. As the years passed and I was getting older I was trying to find them but every time I was trying it seemed to backfire as though my world was just falling apart. I feel for the last 20 or 30 years I was out walking around without a heart.”

When he saw Lisa and Rebecca on Facebook, he of course didn’t recognize them at first. But then he scrolled down and saw the photo they had posted of him.

“They could have walked past me in the street and I wouldn’t have known. I scrolled down and saw my picture and thought wow why am I online? When I read it all I broke down in tears.”

Starting over

David’s life has never gone quite as planned and while he was carrying around a lot of guilt about walking out on his daughters, he also embraced the chance to get to know them.

And he simply couldn’t believe they had been searching for him as well.

“I was heartbroken, it was a shock to find out they had been searching for me and I did cry for quite a bit. I never thought I would see them again ever I was in absolute shock. But they are really great girls and I’m very happy – it’s now just a case of making up for the lost time.”

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