An adopted man is appealing for help in tracking down a half sister who he believes was born in the Midlands in 1948.

Computer consultant David Mason, (pictured with his family below) has conducted months of painstaking research of birth records and is hoping that his sister, thought to have the surname Cole, may turn out to be one of three girls born in either Derby, Nuneaton in Warwickshire, or Walsall in the West Midlands.

David now plans to to contact to the registry offices who dealt with the three girls' birth certificates to ask if the registered mother of any of the children was his birth mother.

"At the moment, my search for my sister is stalled. I remain convinced she exists and believe it is only a matter of time before I identify and locate her," he told Adoption-net.

David's story begins in Birmingham in 1951 when he was born David Cole, illegitimately, to a D. Cole, of Aston, in the city.

Ten months after his birth he was adopted by a fishmonger Cyril Mason and his wife Peg. They lived in Birmingham for the next few years before moving to Northolt in west London.

"My earliest recollection of being told I was adopted is when I was about eight or nine years old. I was given no information other than I was adopted.

"My adoptive parents found it very difficult to discuss the situation and so it became almost a 'taboo' subject," said David, who is married with three sons, and lives in Woking in Surrey.

For years, he did nothing about retracing his roots but four years ago, he had the urge to find out about his past and contacted St Catherines House in London.

There, a counsellor told David his original name and gave him information on how to instigate a search and advised him on the possible outcomes.

David began the laborious task of searching the birth records for his birth mother but without success.

A few months later, he suspended his search when his adoptive father became ill and eventually died.

"For various reasons, I did not resume my search until April 1998," said David. "I again searched the birth records but also checked the death and marriage sections."

Then, he had a breakthrough. He discovered a marriage certificate for someone with the name of his birth mother in Leicester in 1955 and that this woman had given birth to a daughter - potentially his half-sister - in 1956.

He contacted Birmingham social services and Birmingham Magistrates Court to see if they had any records to confirm his suspicions. Social services did not have anything but the court did come up with something and David was asked to attend a meeting in June 1998.

"In that discussion, I learnt for the first time that I was my birth mother's third child and that the first two - Pamela and Michael - were both adopted in Leicester."

His court records also revealed that at the time of his adoption, his mother had been a 26-year-old single typist from Leicester employed at the G.E.C. Witton and that all three of her adopted children had different fathers.

Michael was born on April 5, 1950, and Pamela was said to have been born April 18, 1948.

David's mother told the adoption officials that she had hoped to marry David's father but found out that he was already married. There is no mention of David's birth father on his birth certificate.

David was born at the Sorrento Nursing Home in Birmingham and looked after there for three months after his birth while his mother was treated at a different hospital for tuberculosis.

He was then cared for at a nursery in Perry Barr in Birmingham before his mother consented to his adoption saying she was unable to care for him because of her state of health. His future adoptive mother Mrs Mason used to go to the nursery to look after him before he was formally adopted.

David then agreed, through a third party, to send a letter to the woman he believed was the woman in Leicester who David believed was his birth mother.

But her reply said she could not help with the enquiry and seemed anxious that her husband had been curious about the letter.

He has since written to his birth mother four times. In the first letter, he indicated that he was looking for the mother of four children stating the sex and dates of births. He received no reply.

In the second letter, he said he would be in the Leicester area and asked if could meet her.

"In her reply, she admitted to her 'traumatic past', said she had no intention of telling her husband and asked not to be contacted again," said David. "I wrote a third letter thanking her for her help telling her I ... would trouble her no more although I hoped we might meet one day."

David then moved his search to his half-siblings Pamela and Michael. He has been able to trace Michael (now married with two boys in Leicester) but, so far, he has had no luck with Pamela.

Both Leicester social services and Leicester Court had details of Michael but drew a blank on Pamela.

"It appeared that she either didn't exist or something in my adoption file was incorrect," said David.

His brother was somewhat shocked at the discovery of his birth mother's past and "is slowly coming to terms with it and deciding what (if anything) he wants to do", said David. They have exchange letters via a third party.

"He does not want to reveal his identity which I fully respect. I do in fact know his name and address but have no intention of making any direct contact," said David.

At the Family Records Centre in London, David has spent hours scouring the records for his sister but has found no birth record for a Pamela Cole in the years 1946 to 1950 where the mother's maiden name (MMN) is Cole.

So he has expanded his search to include all children born in the Midlands in the June quarter of 1948 with surname Cole and has narrowed his search down to three names. They are: