Growing up in Seattle, Paul Davison knew he was different — a brown-skinned, dark-eyed boy in a "very white neighborhood," who got beat up and called names when he started school.

"I didn’t exactly look like everyone else in my family," said Davidson, now 54.

But he had early clues that his father was a transplanted Hawaiian musician and merchant seaman named Hiram John.

John was among a group of Hawaiian musicians who moved to Seattle.

He traveled as a merchant sailor, but would return to Seattle with generous gifts for Davison and other family members. Davison recalls receiving toys, a green-and-white aloha shirt and shorts, and money on his birthday.

His mother never told him John was his father, though he believes everyone else knew.

"I was mad for a while," he said. "That generation had a really hard time expressing feelings. If it was turned around and it was me, who knows?"

Davison wrote to John, but he never responded. He later learned his father had Alzheimer’s disease.

After learning of John’s death in 2002, Davison tried to find his Hawaiian relatives.

He found one of John’s nieces — Brenda Fischer, 54 — through an Internet search.

That led him to a 1959 Honolulu Star-Bulletin photo of a group of children at a statehood parade, which accompanied an article that ran in the 2009 50th anniversary of statehood edition. He made contact through ancestors.com.

Initially, Fischer, whose father was Abel John, was skeptical about a stranger in Seattle claiming to be her cousin.

"No, my uncle was always single," she insisted.

Meanwhile, Davison discovered a cousin, Dempsey Henley, who happened to live in Seattle. Henley introduced him to his Hawaii relatives, and Fischer visited Davison earlier this year in Seattle.

"When I met with him, I was just so full of emotion" — and almost got cold feet, she said.

But the meeting went well.

"Oh, when I walked out I was so elated," she recalls. "He is the spitting image of my uncle. I said, ‘Oh, my God. You are truly the son of my uncle.’ It’s surreal. I cannot explain the feeling and emotion that is in me. I just embraced him. I couldn’t stop talking. … I was trying to make up for lost time."

Fischer told Davison she’ll need time to adjust because it was a shock.

"For whatever reason your father didn’t say, but it doesn’t matter because you found your family," she told him. "He needed to know we were here. …

"In Hawaii, your family is never too big," Fischer added. "We can always embrace more people into your family."

On Saturday, Davison will meet three other Hawaiian cousins and their children for lunch at the Johns’ Waimanalo homestead, where their grandmother had lived, and fulfill a lifelong desire.

"I have two families now, so I’m feeling really blessed," Davison said. "They’ve accepted me with love and a lot of support."

Speaking by phone from Seattle, Davison’s voice was filled with anticipation.

"I’m closing the circle," he said. "I’m bringing the circle back around — just the connection. I don’t want anything from them, but just to be a part of them. I am part of their family now."