Not entirely honest: looking for the truth about my father

I have had a big few months.

My knowledge of my father consists one blurry photograph of him holding me when I was a a newborn. I have always been curious about him and his family. Recently in a therapy session with my mother (yup, we are all kinds of disfunctional) she pulled a genuine Maury Povich-esque big reveal. The story about my father and his family that I had been told my whole life had a few key portions left out.

She had always claimed that my father was an alcoholic who came from a family of ultra religious judgemental people who did not want a realtionship with me due to the fact that my parent were not married. They did try to get married while my mom was pregnant but the church officials in Finland would not give permission to marry in their church due to the fac that my mother had been married before. She also was fond of telling me that after their relationship ended my father ran away every time they tried to get child support from him.

A few weeks back when the subject of my father came up my mother blurts out that she was always afraid that my father's family was going to take me away from her. This really did not make much sense since she had always said that they did not approve of me and my father had purposely run away from the responsibility of me. Then she suddenly has a new tale to tell.
Apparently my father had a cousin who my mother got the impression wanted me, as in wanted to adopt me. She married and unable to have children of her own. She then tells me that when I was a baby that she and my father used to take me to see his parents and my aunts and uncles. I had been under the impression they never met me or wanted a relationship with me. She now with a sigh tells me that they kept "tracking her down to check up on me".

I understand that she was afraid. The mere idea of someone wanting to take your baby anywhere without you would strike panic in any new mom. But what I really question is why she would have continued to deprive me of an entire branch of family when I was older. I am 33 and suddenly she give me enough information (the name of the family's church) that I managed to locate two of my aunts. They E mailed me almost immediately saying they would love to meet me. Sadly I also had enough new information that I found that my father passed away in 2000. I wonder if he would have liked to meet his grandchild or me for that matter. My family up to this point consisted of my mother and an uncle who I am not on speaking terms with. I had two wonderful grandparents who passed away but really my family has always been quite small. Well until I started making me own members it was. To think that my father was one of ten children means I have a whole lot of relatives that I never got a chance to know.

Now the idea of meeting them is simultaneously exciting and terrifying. I was hit with a huge wave of insecurity when I got the E mail. My first thought was, Oh my gosh- what if they don't like me?