
The summary of the situation (to the best of my knowledge) is that my uncle had a son but was not on good terms with the mother. He had some visitation, which is how my uncles and parents knew about their kid. The mother later refused to allow visitation or contact and after an attempted visitation turned dangerous (won't get into the details other than to say major car repairs were needed), all contact was lost. After that, he went through a few moves and his own issues before finding religion, joining the coast Guard, and starting a family. After his mother passed away 6 years ago, he decided to try to track down his father's family. He was very young when everything went down so he really had no memory of us or his dad and his mother apparently refused to tell him anything. This was long before I was born so I really can't comment on any of this, just what I've overheard.
We were all so pleased to hear from him and to get to know the cousin/nephew that we had long since forgotten and he was in tears at hearing about his father and his extended family. It definitely made this one of the best Easters our family has ever experienced.