Secret sisters reconnected after an email

An unexpected email set a woman on a trail that ended up with her meeting two half-sisters she didn’t know she had.

One day in 2009, Jag Sherbourne received the message from a woman called Charley who was convinced they were related, and revealed the potential existence of siblings Jag had always wished she had.

Charley believed her grandmother Michele was Jag’s half-sister.

Initially Jag, who was born in 1956 and was raised as an only child, was unconvinced as Michele had a birth date of 1945, and the other sibling’s was 1942 – but her parents had been separated during World War Two.

Her mum had left Guernsey on one of the last boats before the German Occupation of the island in June 1940 but her dad had missed the chance to leave in time.

“There was no way these two babies could be my parent’s babies. During those dates my parents were apart,” Jag said.

She stayed in contact with Charley who kept giving “extra clues” and then on one occasion revealed she believed her grandmother had worked at a Guernsey guesthouse called Romo, which was also Jag’s family home where she was brought up.

This triggered memories of a 17-year-old girl who had worked at the guesthouse as a chambermaid for a summer in 1962, and shared Jag’s bedroom.

She said: “I remembered it was lovely having her there and it was a bit like a sister, I was only six at the time.”

With that connection Jag realised: “This is my story, I just need to figure out how.”

Her parents had both died by this time so she started with their boxes of possessions stored in her attic, including lots of wartime memorabilia.

She decided she wanted to meet Michele, her half-sister and they got together later that year, in 2009.

She learned Michele had been brought up in a home near Bournemouth.

She said: “I have reason to believe my parents visited her there, as I have photos of them in Bournemouth.

“She named her, I think her intention was to go back for her.”

In amongst her parents belongings she found lots of rejection letters for jobs her dad had applied for in the UK and Australia.

She said: “I think they hoped to go and make a life for themselves with her somewhere and it just didn’t happen. I just don’t think the jobs were there after the war.

“There were family members who knew about Michele, or at least knew about one baby. It seems everybody just knew about one baby, not two.”

Jag’s parents, Charles and Kathleen Le Bargy had lost a son, Michael, at six-weeks-old early in 1940, and her dad told her many years later, her mum had been pregnant when she evacuated.

The little girl was stillborn.

For a long time Jag thought maybe she was the 1942 baby girl and there had been a clerical error, until she applied for a copy of the birth certificate.

In the margin there was a note which said “adopted”.

Jag realised there was potentially another half-sister out there and after 18 months of searching she found, and met, Pauline.

She also stayed in touch with Michelle but she died unexpectedly in 2017, sadly before the three sisters could get together.

Jag wrote a book about her family called ‘Clouds in my Guernsey Sky’ and hoped it might help to uncover some new information.

She said: “I’m very, very sad to have lost Michele, it was a big loss. It may have been if she’d lived longer she might have said more but I just have to accept that, and I am very grateful for the time we had together.”

Among the many emotions of finding out she had two half-sisters there was also a fear she was betraying her late mum, and she felt that most strongly when she went to meet Pauline.

“If Pauline was hostile to mum that would almost be the ultimate betrayal,” she said.

But, when they met she noticed a photo of their mum on display.

“That was very reassuring. I realised then that wasn’t a betrayal, that was a celebration.”

Jag Sherbourne has shared her family’s story as part of the Island Memories Project, the oral archive being compiled by BBC Radio Guernsey and Guernsey Museums.