How to Search for a Birth Parent

Although you may have been perfectly happy growing up with your adoptive parents, you may still want to find a birth parent for personal or medical reasons. Try these strategies to conduct a successful search or to help you contact someone who can assist with the effort.

Instructions

1. Discover a birth parent's name by checking the listing on your birth certificate. If you don't have one, ask your adoptive parents, relatives and family friends for any information or documents they may have on your birth parents. The original adoption petition or amended birth certificate, for example, will assist your search.

2. Ask the adoption agency if they can give you any "non-identifying information" on your birth parent that you can use later. They may be able to provide a brief medical history, ethnic data, age, profession or even the existence of siblings.

3. Consider searching for your biological father first, since your mother may have changed her last name if she remarried. Visit the local library in the city where you were born to search newspaper archives for references to him in an article, obituary, professional listing, Census report, family history or marriage and divorce records.

4. Join a forum or group with other people searching for their birth parents. In addition to receiving support if you encounter false leads, members of the group who have been successful may point out methods or resources you haven't considered. (See Resources below.)

5. Hire an experienced adoption attorney if you discover your sealed adoption records and need to pursue a court order to open them. She may also help you request information from adoption agencies or hospitals and interpret any legal regulations and forms you encounter.

6. Register with a variety of online reunion Web sites that may also put you in touch with other friends and relatives who know your birth parents.

7. Contact a search agency if your independent efforts haven't produced any leads. Experienced organizations have developed a system of contacts and strategies to help you locate a birth mother, father or sibling. Before paying for such a service, however, check with consumer advocate groups or even former clients to ensure that the organization you're considering is reputable.

Resources

• Get support and advice from other people in the same situation.
• Enlist the help of an adoption attorney.
• Sign up on a variety of reunion websites.
• Professional search agencies may help you with added resources.