Oh Hai, I'm Your Sister!

Who needs private investigators to find long lost family members when there is Facebook now?

When I was eight years old, I was told something shocking: My father wasn't my biological father. At that point, they were petitioning to allow the man I call my father to adopt me. My biological father had apparently left when I was a baby. I have had three last names in my life: Kuriger(the last name of my biological father and the surname on my original birth certificate), McGrath (my mother's maiden name,my birth certificate was changed after my biological father left) and Paoletti (my current surname and the surname of the man I call "Dad" now.) I remember when I was in first grade and my name was "Cheryl McGrath" and I was curious as to why it was different, but I wasn't given an explanation until I was about eight when I was told this. My biological father never contested the adoption.

When I was 13, strange things started to happen. My biological father's new wife, Josette, started contacting my grandmother about me . I'm not so sure why she was so interested in me. My grandmother told my parents and we started having contact with the other family, though it was mainly through the stepmother. I found out I had three younger sisters--Jennifer, Jessica, and Michelle. At one point, I talked on the phone with them and a had a brief conversation with my biological father. My stepmother even sent me a letter with the intial "M" for Michael, my biological father's name. We were still living in New Jersey at the time and I believe they were living in Maryland. We were going to slowly pursue this relationship when all contact from them suddenly stopped abruptly. No explanation whatsoever.

Fast forward to many years later. Living with my grandmother, she has at times brought up Michael's name and told me a bit about him. There are photo albums in this house of when I was a baby and they included him and his parents. Unfortunately his mother didn't seem to care for my mother and tried to discourage the relationship. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong, but my mother broke up with him. I've heard that while my mother was at one of her brother's wedding a neighbor was babysitting for me and Michael tried to take me away. I think my mother told him he could visit me and stay in my life but I'm not positive. It's difficult to really get her to talk to me about him.

Anyway, last April I started thinking about them again and with the popularity of Facebook considered the high probability that they might be on it. I was right. I found this girl, Jennifer, and realized she was one of my younger sisters. At the time I was able to view public posts and also found my father. I decided not to do anything about it at the time. I'm not sure why, but just recently I started thinking about them again. I had bookmarked Jennifer's page in case I decided to contact her and now I'm debating about that. The girls were awfully young at the time they were told they had an older half-sister and I'm not sure she'd remember me. Since no contact was made in 15 years I'm not sure they'd want to. This time I tried searching for my father again through her friends page and couldn't find him so I'm not sure if something has happened to him.

This might not seem like such a hard decision for other people, but with everything I've gone through, especially in the last month, it may not be a wise move. So I need your advice. Do you think it's a good idea to contact her and tell her I'm her sister and try to have a relationship with her and the others? Or do you think I'm setting myself up to get hurt again?