Hunt for long-lost father driven by 'primal' urge, says Ontario daughter

Ontario resident Gina McCormack, 57, was raised by a step-father she loves, but the mystery of her biological father still nags at her. 

It's been more than five decades since he walked out of her life, but McCormack still wants to find him. And thanks to social media, she may now have a chance to. 

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McCormack has put out a plea for information. It's garnered almost 9,000 responses, among them a few solid leads suggesting her father resettled in B.C. after walking out on her family.

A Halloween 'trick'

McCormack says it was Oct. 31, 1961. Her mother was pregnant with her fourth child, a boy. They came home to find her father had disappeared. 

"She took us out for Halloween Oct. 31, 1961 and when she came home it was her 'trick' — he was gone," said McCormack.

"He just left," she said.

She's been looking for him on and off since then, but she doesn't have much to go on.  

Who was he?

McCormack knows her father, Thomas Smith Hammond, was a police officer in Scotland, and worked for CP Rail once in Canada. She knows he played the bagpipes, and had a mean temper.

About 23 years ago, McCormack said she got a call from a man claiming to be him who seemed to know details of his life. 

That man told her that he'd moved to England, after remarrying and having a child named Gordon in B.C. with his new Hungarian wife.

He never gave her a phone number, and once they hung up the trail went cold again.

But she hasn't given up. 

"There is a piece of you missing," she said. 

"It doesn't matter who the person is. Good or bad they are your mom or your dad and you walk around your whole life being only half a person."

Social media, science and family mysteries

McCormack is one of a growing number of people around the world who are looking to solve family mysteries by sleuthing on social media and through DNA registry sites.

The recent story of an Ontario woman who found two siblings in Prince Rupert is a recent, widely publicized example. Janet Keall and her new-found siblings, who were all abandoned at birth, eventually found their biologicial mother, but say she had died a few months prior. 

• Bittersweet ending in mystery of 3 abandoned Prince Rupert babies
• B.C. woman meets half-brother and possible sister after 20-year search

McCormack doesn't yet know where her search could end. Hundreds of people replied to her recent plea on social media — most wishing her well, or asking if she'd found her father.

But a few claimed to recall this man and his two sons living in the Fraser Valley, some suggested he was once part-owner of a Vancouver pub.

She has also been told he might have died. But she remains undeterred, saying she would like to connect with any half siblings she may have. 

"I don't know if it's primal but there's something that drives you to do it," she said.