WHEN her son had problems with his teeth, Jan Phillips couldn't say whether it ran in the family because she didn't know.

Her adoptive parents adored her and gave her a happy childhood, but she was always coming up against such blank walls.

When her father died and her mother developed Alzheimer's, Jan felt she could look for her birth mother without betraying Kathleen and Frank Nuttall who had brought her up.

"I was divorced, the only child of only children," said the charity fund-raiser from Charminster.

"Mum died last October but I had lost her already - she no longer recognised me.

"That spurred me on and I felt free to look."

Jan broke out in goose bumps when she was handed her birth certificate and discovered she had started life as Collette Tidman, born to Audrey Tidman in Bootle in 1953.

Further enquiries unearthed her adoption papers and she learned she was a GI baby.

A researcher from the National Association for Reuniting Children and Parents (NARCAP) found that Audrey had married another GI called Bill Franks.

"Then it all went cold - we assumed she had gone to America," said Jan.

That would make the search much harder because she would have had to search on a state-by-state basis.

So she tried another tack, looking up the name Tidman in the Liverpool phone directory - there was only one match and it was at the same address as her birth certificate.

Thinking of all the possible outcomes she and her best friend Margaret Tryska just sat there.

"We were both shaking - will I cause absolute uproar and break up families?" said Jan.

Margaret offered to ring the number.

"This lovely elderly gentleman answered the phone," she said.

"He said 'that's my daughter, she's in America - do you want her address?'.

"I came off the phone and said 'I have just talked to your grandfather'. We were there for about another hour, just looking at this address."

Jan followed the advice of the specialists and got Caroline from NARCAP to write. There was no response to her letters.

Then Jan wrote herself saying, "I bear you no grudge, I have had a wonderful, happy life with lovely adoptive parents but there are so many things I would like to find out."

Letters and photographs were exchanged and eventually Jan visited Goldsboro, North Carolina - with Margaret in tow for support.

Mother and child hit it off immediately.

"We just didn't stop talking - we felt a bond, an amazing bond right from the beginning," said Jan.

She had always wanted a sister and found she had three - all strikingly like her in looks and mannerisms, not to mention a brother.

Mother and daughter ring each other regularly, Jan will help the couple celebrate their golden wedding in Florida in November and Audrey and Bill plan a visit to Bournemouth next year.

"And she was so happy to find me before it was too late," said Jan.

"I totally understand what she went through and how hard it was to give me up after looking after me.

"Now I just feel complete. I lost my mum but I found my mom."

First published: September 23