"Absolutely, my world went to hell, and I thought, 'Who the hell am I? Where do I come from?'"
Graham Daniel's life was upended 45 years ago, when his cousin broke the news that he had been adopted.
"My world just fell apart. I was absolutely shot," the now 74-year-old from Nulkaba, near Cessnock, said.
The secret of the adoption was revealed inadvertently in a postcard sent from New Zealand by his adoptive father's new partner after his adoptive mother had died.
The postcard was sent to a friend of Mr Daniel's then partner. His aunt then arranged for a cousin to break the news over a six-pack of beer.
"I went downhill very quickly, and then, me being me, I pulled myself out of it and thought I'd have a bit of a search around," he said.
Mr Daniel went to Crown Street Women's Hospital in Sydney, where he had been born 30 years earlier, to talk to a social worker.
But legislation at the time did not allow adopted children access to detailed information about their birth families.
"The social worker said my mother came from a western town close to Sydney and she had flaming red hair and she was 19 when she had me," Mr Daniel said.
"I went home and I said, 'Hang this. I'll live with what I've got, because I'm only hitting brick walls.'"
Fast forward 37 years and government legislation had shifted, allowing Mr Daniel to access his birth certificate and that of his mother, slowly unravelling his family history.
He got more than he bargained for.
With help from a Salvation Army adoption search service, he discovered eight years ago that he had two younger brothers and a younger sister, along with a niece in her 40s.
He has had limited contact with his siblings but has forged a close bond with his niece.
"My niece was the first one to ring me, and we now have the best relationship," he said.
"She's like a daughter to me."
The half-siblings were born to his mother, who married not long after she put up Mr Daniel for adoption when he was two weeks old.
Mr Daniel grew up with his adoptive family in Sydney and joined the navy at 16, serving as a diver in the Vietnam War. He was a plant operator in the Hunter mining industry for most of his working life.
Wife Terry said her husband had been "not the happiest person" before connecting with his birth family, a "miraculous" turn of events which multiplied in significance when his niece badgered him into taking a DNA test.
"She'd been cattle-prodding me in the back to go and do ancestry DNA," he said.
"About three months ago, she said, 'If you don't do that and you pass away, I'm going to lift the lid off your coffin, take hair off your head and do it for you."
Mr Daniel relented, and the testing produced "hits" of fifth and sixth cousins, then a first nephew.
"About three hours later my niece rings me and she says, 'Are you sitting down? I think you better. You have 10 half-sisters.'"
It transpired that the set of 10 sisters - and no brothers - were born to Mr Daniel's birth father and his wife, who married when Mr Daniel was about five.
Three of the sisters live in Queensland, five in NSW, one in the ACT and one in Victoria.
"We have just come back from a road trip meeting seven of those girls, and we flew to Brisbane to meet two of my sisters and her son, who is my nephew," Mr Daniel said.
Contacting birth relatives can be tumultuous, but Mr Daniel said his experience had been entirely positive.
"It's just been such a welcoming trip," he said.
"The arms were out. Even their husbands have done the same thing. I just feel as though I'm part of their family.
"It's scary but, by god, it's brilliant."
Mr Daniel was born in the post-war period when authorities forced many unmarried mothers to surrender their children to adoption.
"My upbringing with my adoptive parents was unbelievable. I had a ball. I was brought up correctly. They were unreal people," he said.
"But to find this family out is just over the top and unreal. Ever since we met them there's been phone calls, texts.
"I've had things given to me that were owned by my father. I've had so much information about him, stories.
"I've even been taken to his grave. It's one emotional road trip, but worthwhile doing, and I feel so lucky to have found them and to be so accepted by these people.
"That weight has gone off my shoulders so easily. All my friends say, 'You look the happiest I've seen you.'"
He encouraged parents to tell adopted children at an early age about their past "because the shock of finding out as an adult is just mind-boggling".
