How to Find Grandparents After Adoption

Finding birth grandparents after adoption is an important process for many people. Meeting your grandparents can help you to further establish your identity and connect with your roots. Though the process may not be simple, with some persistence and thorough research, it can be done.

Instructions

1. Find your biological parents and ask them about your biological grandparents. If you're already in touch with your birth parents, they should be able to quickly and easily put you in touch with your birth grandparents.

2. Search birth certificate records. You may be able to locate where your biological grandparents are by looking at your birth certificate, and then buying copies of the birth certificates of your parents. Birth certificates can be obtained by anyone, but each state has different rules.

3. Find the names of your birth parents if you don't already have them to locate the names of your birth grandparents. You can then, in turn, find their birth certificates by visiting the towns where they were born and visiting the vital records departments there. These birth certificates should have the names of their birth parents on them, your grandparents.

4. Talk to your adopted parents. Contact the parents who raised you and ask if they can provide any information. Be sure to reassure the parents who raised you that they're your parents and that will never change.

5. Check phone books, church directories, school year books and court records in the cities and states that you believe your grandparents likely live to try to find out information about them. Go to the high schools where you believe your grandparents have attended and flip through some old year books. This can help you find photos of your grandparents and the names of the people they went to school with.

6. Talk with neighborhood people to ask around as to who might know your biological grandparents, including their former classmates.