LDS genealogical records and photo reunite long-lost sisters

TELLICO VILLAGE, Tenn — May Slawson, 73, was doing what a lot of children eventually have to do. She was clearing out her mother's home after placing her in a nursing home. As she packed her mother's things, she found an old, small photo of her late father, but he was standing alongside a small girl in front of the abbey in Greyabbey in Northern Ireland. She wondered who was that child.It would take Slawson three years of digging, but she eventually found the startling answer thanks to help from an LDS Family History Center. It was her half-sister, Karen Young, who is now 80 and lives in Newtownards, Northern Ireland. Slawson's mother knew her husband had been married before, but Slawson says there was never any discussion of her father's daughter. She had even visited her father's birthplace without knowing she had a half-sister nearby.Wilson Reid, the sisters' father, married Mary Johnston in their hometown of Greyabbey, and shortly after in 1923 followed a brother to America to work in the auto industry in Detroit. The plan was for the young bride to follow as soon as possible. Mary came to Detroit, but after a couple of years grew homesick for Ireland. The couple returned and found that Mary was expecting. Reid returned to America, and his wife went to stay with a friend in England, which is where Young was born, a fact that complicated Slawson's search.