Secret Joe

After submitting to a DNA test and being alerted by the provider of family members in their database, James, Joe's son, managed to contact a newfound relative and discovered, with astonishment, that:

"It turns out [Joe] was one of 7 siblings (2 of which are still alive now). .... He says 1981 was the last time anybody in his family heard from or saw him.

Interestingly, it turns out his name wasn’t Joseph Christopher Foley, but actually Joseph Francis Murphy. He was actually born in Dublin in 1949 (same birthday)... The whole family moved over to East Ham when my dad was around 8 years old, and all the siblings except his older brother Liam (the oldest) lost their accents. The family at some point moved to Luton, and many stayed in and around that area, except for his sister in Australia and Liam, who moved to Staffordshire....

He apparently often did go by ‘Joseph Christopher’ in his youth.

There appears to be what you could call a ‘lost decade’ between 1980 and '90 .... His [Joe] estrangement from his family didn’t come from their side, and a few of them came looking for him in Elephant and Castle at some point too. He apparently would disappear for periods at a time when they were still in contact.

His mother died in 1994 and father in 2001, while his brothers Charlie passed away in 1996, Liam in 2017 and Tony in 2020. His sister Margaret in Australia passed away in 2017. His sister Agnes now lives in Austria and Ann lives in Luton".

The description chimes well with what I know of Joe; for instance, his stay in Australia and also his military training in special forces units would tend to credit a new army-provided identity.

Below some picture from the family side