Paul Joseph Fronczak

The Foundling tells the incredible and inspiring true story of Paul Fronczak, a man who recently discovered via a DNA test that he was not who he thought he was—and set out to solve two fifty-year-old mysteries at once. Along the way he upturned the genealogy industry, unearthed his family’s deepest secrets, and broke open the second longest cold-case in US history, all in a desperate bid to find out who he really is. In 1964, a woman pretending to be a nurse kidnapped an infant boy named Paul Fronczak from a Chicago hospital. Two years later, police found a boy abandoned outside a variety store in New Jersey. The FBI tracked down Dora Fronczak, the kidnapped infant’s mother, and she identified the abandoned boy as her son. The family spent the next fifty years believing they were whole again—but Paul was always unsure about his true identity. Then, four years ago—spurred on by the birth of his first child, Emma Faith—Paul took a DNA test. The test revealed definitively that he was not Paul Fronczak. From that moment on, Paul has been on a tireless mission to find the man whose life he’s been living—and to discover who abandoned him, and why. This is the story of Paul’s heart-wrenching and tortuous journey to solve both mysteries and finally learn the truth about his identity. The Foundling is a touching and inspiring story about a child lost and faith found, about the permanence of families and the bloodlines that define you, and about the emotional toll of both losing your identity and rediscovering who you truly are.

The True Story of a Kidnapping, a Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me

The Foundling

Alex Tresniowski

A man desperate to know his true identity struggles to solve the infamous kidnapping that nearly destroyed his family—and find his twin sister, who has been missing for more than fifty years. When he was ten years old, Paul Fronczak was snooping around for Christmas presents in a crawl space in his family’s Chicago home. There, he found hundreds of old newspaper clippings about the kidnapping of a one-day-old infant in a hospital in 1964. He also learned that, two years later, the boy was found and returned to his family—and that the boy was him. Nearly fifty years later, Paul, acting on long-held suspicions, took a DNA test that proved he was not the kidnapped boy. In an instant, he found himself at the center of two half-century-old mysteries—who was he, and where was the real Paul? True Identity is about three separate major investigations—the hunt for the real Paul Fronczak; the search for the author’s missing twin sister Jill; and finally, the investigation into his true identity, his heart and soul and the demons inside him—inherited and created—that still need to be confronted.

Cracking the Oldest Kidnapping Cold Case and Finding My Missing Twin

True Identity

When he was ten years old, Paul Fronczak was snooping around for Christmas presents in a crawl space in his family’s Chicago home. There, he found hundreds of old newspaper clippings about the kidnapping of a one-day-old infant in a hospital in 1964. He also learned that, two years later, the boy was found and returned to his family—and that the boy was him. Nearly fifty years later, Paul, acting on long-held suspicions, took a DNA test that proved he was not the kidnapped boy. In an instant, he found himself at the center of two half-century-old mysteries—who was he, and where was the real Paul? True Identity is about three separate major investigations—the hunt for the real Paul Fronczak; the search for the author’s missing twin sister Jill; and finally, the investigation into his true identity, his heart and soul and the demons inside him—inherited and created—that still need to be confronted.

Paul Joseph Fronczak

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