Adopted Penryn woman's reunion with birth father thanks to Facebook's 'suggested friends'

Karen Harris recognised the name that appeared on the social media platform, and after scrolling through the man's profile found information matching what she had been told by a social worker 30 years earlier that confirmed he was her father.

They chatted for weeks and met on Friday for the first time, although they say it is like they have known each other their whole lives.

Karen's birth parents gave her up for adoption in the early 1960s. They were teenagers and she was born out of wedlock, which she says "wasn't the done thing in those days".

She added: "You just don't feel as though you belong. Looking at your family that brought you up, you're really grateful that they brought you up but you don't have that sense of belonging.

"Now I've found completion. I've found connection and completion and I'm cherishing it."

Karen has found "connection and completion" after being re-united with her father

The re-united father and daughter decided to meet in Lyme Regis, roughly halfway between Penryn and father Trevor Linden's home in Kent.

When they first spotted each other on Friday, they hugged for so long that a passerby said "I hope you know each other."

Karen replied: "Actually, no we don't!"

They had a lot of catching up to do in the following days, which were spent going on walks and searching for fossils on the Jurassic Coast.

Karen was also introduced two of her long-lost cousins and has had "an amazing time with many new memories."

Trevor said: "It's like all of her Christmasses at the same time. It's so surreal, the chances of actually meeting were so slim.

"I have looked on the internet but could never find her. It's early days but I feel we already know each other quite well.

"If it wasn't for Facebook we wouldn't have met."

Karen says she has found "connection and completion" since meeting her father

Karen had known few details about her father since she approached an adoption agency at the age of 18 seeking to find her birth parents. A social worker shared with her what details they could and Karen managed to track down her mother around ten years later, after she had had a child of her own.

Finding her father proved to be more difficult. She knew his name and that he was an electrician from Croydon; it was not until seeing that the information on his Facebook profile matched what she had been told that she finally found him.

He responded immediately and after seven weeks of chatting every day, they finally re-united.

She said: "Those who are adopted can understand that moment when you first see someone other than yourself in a mirror that has your cheek bones, your eyes, your chin. It is something that someone who isn’t adopted probably can’t relate to or understand, but it changes the way you look at the world.

"Now there is someone else like me, loving me for me and I cherish every moment."

She added: "I'm incredibly blessed to find him now."