Maureen Close’s birth brought shame on her mother’s family.

But Mrs. Close was not ashamed to search for her paternal origins and her persistence solved family mysteries on two continents.

"I always felt there was only half of me and I wanted to find out the other half," said Mrs. Close, 56, of Melbourne, Australia.

Her life-long search was fulfilled this summer when she met eight brothers and sisters, her stepmother and various other family members for the first time. Most of the family lives in or near the Shenango Valley.

Mrs. Close was born out of wedlock in Australia, the daughter of an Australian woman and an American Marine, George Bobish of Pulaski, who was stationed there in World War II.

Her mother hid the simple details about her father from her.

"I’d always been led to believe that my father was an Australian serviceman," she said, speaking at the home of her sister and brother-in-law, Debbie and Sam Falvo of Farrell.

Her mother’s evasiveness was understandable given the social connotations of the birth.

"It was a stigma on the family; a girl brought shame to the family when she got pregnant," she said. "Most children were adopted out. So I was lucky I wasn’t adopted out. At least I knew my mother and my grandparents."

After birth, Mrs. Close was taken to a babies home. She was with her mother for a while, but her mother was unable to look after her and work, so she was sent to an orphanage, where she spent 11 1/2 years.

"That hurt me so bad when she said that," said her stepmother, Shirley Bobish of Kinsman.

But Mrs. Close responded that her time in the orphanage was a good experience.

"It wasn’t bad, Shirley. I felt special. They looked after me."

Mrs. Close moved in with her grandparents at about age 12 and got to know her mother.

"I didn’t even grow up with the name Bobish," she said "My grandmother just made up a name."

That name was Dailey.

At age 21, Mrs. Close’s mother and stepfather legally adopted her.

"I’m pretty sure that was because if I go for birth certificates to get married, I had to have them," she said. "On my original birth certificate it says nothing about a father. The records for the babies home say ‘Father killed in action.’ "

Just as Mrs. Close’s mother sheltered details of her father, Bobish refused to discuss her back home in the United States.

He told his wife after they married in 1947 that he had a daughter in Australia and knew her first name.

"He didn’t want any details," Mrs. Bobish said. "I was stupid enough not to think to ask."

Mrs. Bobish wanted to contact the girl but didn’t have enough information to try.

"If I had a nickel for every time I thought of her, I’d be a millionaire," she said.

The Bobishes had eight children: Georgia Martin, Pam Bobish-Staul, Tina Meeks and Andy Bobish, who live in Sharon; Mrs. Falvo; LouAnn Dyll, Kinsman; Patty Filipovich, Brookfield; and George Bobish, Canton, Ohio. Some of them knew their father had another daughter.

Bobish’s refusal to talk about his oldest daughter left her fate the subject of family speculation.

"We don’t know the real circumstances of what actually happened because our dad died in 1976 -- he’s not here to ask -- but I like to think he went to his commanding officer and told him a lady was pregnant and they shipped him out," Mrs. Dyll said. "They were in a war and didn’t want to deal with that kind of thing."

The two sides of the family came together after Mrs. Close’s mother gave her a scrap of useful information in August 1999.

"I just asked my mother yet once again, which I had done all my life, to tell me about my father," Mrs. Close said. "She finally typed out a name and a unit number."

Mrs. Close, who has a brother and sister in Australia, contacted the U.S. Embassy, which gave her the address for the U.S. Marine Corps.

"Three months later they wrote back and sent me his service record. Then my youngest son looked into the Internet because we knew he came from Pulaski in Pennsylvania. We looked up all the Bobishes on the Internet and we found 42 altogether. I chose George Bobish from Canton, Ohio. He e-mailed me 11 days later to say, ‘You must be my half-sister. Why have you taken so long?’ It was a bit of a shock to find out there were eight of them.

"It was amazing how easy it was to find them. I was prepared to write to the whole 42 people I found on the Internet."

After numerous e-mails, letters and photo swaps, an uncle paid for Mrs. Close, her husband Don and their daughter Moira to make the trip to the United States for a six-week stay, which ended Sept. 10.

"I was accepted readily by them," beamed Mrs. Close, who has three children. "They were just beautiful."

"We love her," her sisters said.

The U.S. contingent is now discussing how they can make the trek to Australia.

"I told them not to all come at once," Mrs. Close quipped.