A HOSPICE user has been reunited with his half-brother after researching his family tree.

Graham Stevenson, from Lowton, who has liver disease and emphysema, found that Ian Ritchie Stevenson was living in his child hometown of Blackpool.

The 60-year-old has been tracing his family history on the website ancestry.com after attending Wigan and Leigh Hospice’s Oak Centre day therapy sessions since January.

His second cousin Michelle Fairs contacted Graham to let him about Ian.

Ian knew about Graham and had been looking for him and his brother Leslie, who died a few years ago.

Graham, who worked as a joiner, said: “I had tried researching my father’s side of the family tree before but I did not get anywhere.

“My mother and father split up when I was three and I didn’t see him again after that so I did not know much about him.”

In her own research, Michelle found a copy of a birth certificate of Graham's dad, who was known as John Wesley Stevenson.

It found that Graham's dad had been adopted and explained why Graham and hospice rehabilitation assistant Gemma Williams had not traced the certificate.

Graham’s wife Kath, 59, said: “He just couldn’t find his father – there was no birth certificate.

"I said he must be adopted but we only found out when Michelle got in touch that Graham’s father was named Wesley Alan Millard at birth.”

Graham and Ian met up recently at Carleton Cemetery in Blackpool where their dad was buried after he died in 2010.

Kath and Ian's wife Debbie also went to see the two half-brothers become reunited.

They have made plans to keep in touch.

Graham added: “It’s quite an emotional feeling - one minute you think you are by yourself and the next you’ve got an extended family.”

Graham is now continuing to research his father’s side of the family tree to find out more information.