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It won't be easy as Hannah Ryan's biological father doesn't even know she exists.
As a last resort Ryan, a native Australian now living in Ladysmith, B.C., with her partner and infant son, has taken to Facebook to call out for help locating her father.
As of 5 p.m. Saturday a post of her holding up a sign looking for information has been shared over 50,000 times.
"He has no idea he has a daughter," said Ryan, 33, over the phone from B.C.
"Now that I have children of my own it just breaks my heart. Life is short," said Ryan, who is pregnant with her second child.
In 1984 Ryan's Australian mother Karen was in
One night out at a bar with a girlfriend she met a tall, blond 20-something man with blue eyes.
"She ended up having an alcohol-fueled one night of passion, so to speak, and that was the last she saw of him," Ryan said.
Shortly after that she moved on to B.C. with her nanny job and found out two months late that she was pregnant. She had no way of contacting the father and moved on with her life.
All her mother recollects about the man is this: he was tall, had blue eyes, long blond hair, showed social insurance card with the name David John Pinnochio (it might have been "Finnochio"), and said he worked at a university in Waterloo as a janitor and had relatives in Milton.
"I've been looking for him since I was old enough to use a computer," says Ryan, who grew up in a small Australian town before moving to B.C. seven years ago.
She has registered her DNA on Ancestry.com, contacted agencies, even reached out to the janitorial departments at the
Making it that much more difficult is that there's no chance her father is looking for her because he doesn't know she exists.
"It's more often than not quite disappointing with leads that fizzle out," she said.
What keeps her searching?
"I think it's that drive to know where you come from," she says.
"I'm not expecting much. Even if I was to find him he may not want anything to do with me and I would have to accept that as his decision. But I'd like to know, Do I look like him? Do I have his eyes? Do I laugh like him
"I'd be satisfied with even a photo."
Ultimately she would like to find him and meet him.
Ryan said it's "absolutely mind blowing" how many shares her Facebook post has had. She thought it might get 100.
"But I know I'm not guaranteed of a Disney reunion where everyone is happy and dancing around," she said with a laugh. "I need to be prepared for every aspect of what might or might not happen."
