Woman, 74, who was abandoned on a train at six-weeks-old is left shocked after discovering a sister she never knew she had on Long Lost Family: Born Without A Trace
- Marguerite Huggett was adopted by a couple in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire
- Mother-of-two, 74, was left on a platform at London Paddington Station in 1946
- But it wasn’t until she was in her 40s that she finally discovered her tragic start
- Marguerite enlisted the Long Lost Family team to help find any living relatives
- After placing her DNA into an online database, she finds a match with Carol
- Carol is Marguerite’s paternal half-sister, and the two meet via video call
An elderly woman who was abandoned on a train at six-weeks-old has been left shocked after discovering a sister she never knew she had on Long Lost Family: Born Without A Trace.
Marguerite Huggett, 74, was adopted by a couple in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, after being left on a platform at London Paddington Station in 1946 as a baby.
But it wasn’t until she was in her 40s that she finally discovered her tragic start, with her birth certificate revealing both her biological mother and father were ‘unknown’.
Believing she’d reached her last chance of finding anyone alive who might be able to tell her about her beginnings, Marguerite enlisted the Long Lost Family team to help find any living relatives.
‘It’s knowing the reason that I was abandoned, that’s the drive to find my birth parents,’ she says during her appearance on the ITV programme on Tuesday, which airs at 9pm.
After placing her DNA into an online database, Marguerite finds a match with an Australian-based woman named Carol, who turns out to be the mother-of-two’s paternal half-sister, and the two meet via video call.
Marguerite Huggett (pictured left), 74, was adopted by a couple in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, after being left on a platform at London Paddington Station in 1946 as a baby, pictured right
After placing her DNA into an online database, Marguerite finds a match with a woman named Carol (pictured), who turns out to be the mother-of-two’s paternal half-sister, and the two meet via video call
It wasn’t until she was in her 40s that Marguerite finally discovered her tragic start, with her birth certificate (pictured) revealing both her biological mother and father were ‘unknown’
Marguerite, who spent two years in an orphanage before being adopted, was never told the truth about her start in life until she requested to see her adoption file when in her mid-40s.
‘This was the document the social worker showed me. Name and surname of mother – unknown. Name and surname of father –unknown,’ explains Marguerite on the show, reported The Mirror.
‘I was aware of the probability, no father’s name recorded. But what did come as a surprise was there were no names at all.’
Looking for answers, Marguerite travels to Great Western Trust’s Didcot Railway Centre in Oxfordshire, where researchers discover details in a 1940s Paddington station logbook.
The mother-of-two is left speechless after being shown a newspaper clipping of herself as a newborn with the headline ‘Baby Left on Train Track’.
During the show, the mother-of-two is left speechless after being shown a newspaper clipping (pictured) of herself as a newborn with the headline ‘Baby Left on Train Track’
The report reveals that Marguerite was left at 3.35pm on Platform 9 and found by a guard called CH Cook.
Following this, by placing her DNA on an online database that traces birth relatives, and following a three-year investigation of the initial matches, the Long Lost Family search team discovers the identity of both her birth mother and her birth father.
A match is made with a woman named Carol, who is found to be Marguerite’s half-sister, with the pair sharing the same father.
Speaking to co-presenter Nicky Campbell from her home in Australia, Carol admits her father Arthur most likely knew he had another child but not that she was left alone.
She recalls how she overheard a snippet of a conversation between her parents in which they said ‘I wonder how old she would be?’. Carol says at that time she assumed there might’ve been another child.
Believing she’d reached her last chance of finding anyone alive who might be able to tell her about her beginnings, Marguerite (pictured) enlisted the Long Lost Family team to help find any living relatives
Mother-of-two Marguerite (pictured centre) with her sons Trevor (pictured left) and Ken (pictured right)
Carol’s father was just 19 and in the army when Marguerite was born. He died in 2010.
Sadly, Marguerite’s mother Hannah also died in 1992 at the age of 69, with co-host Davina McCall revealing the reason the parent likely abandoned her daughter.
‘She already had a daughter and she wasn’t with that girl’s father. She was an unmarried woman and at the time having a second child would’ve been quite scandalous,’ said the presenter.
Davina told Marguerite how her mother’s first daughter sadly died when she was just nine, but that Hannah went on to have a son, Robert, who is still alive and would like to meet his newly-discovered half-sister when he’s well enough.
Marguerite meets Carol via video call, who tells her about their ‘very generous, kind-hearted’ father, while she introduces her sons Trevor and Ken to Carol.
‘I grew up all my life as an only child. To be told at 74 about my mother, my father who has four children. It’s quite a change. Amazing,’ says Marguerite.
Three-part series Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace is on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 9pm on ITV.
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