"As long as someone else controls your history the truth shall remain just a mystery".

Ben Harper

There are many approaches to dealing with bureaucrats that you may encounter during your search. Growing up in the South as youngest child in our family, I learned early on that my smile could be a very useful tool. For me, I first began to learn the power of my smile when I was a little girl and wanted my Daddy to run me over to the local Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone. A smile - a little subtle begging - and it generally worked for me.

I do understand that it may seem distasteful to need to beg or cajole a social worker or clerk for your own information. However,... more

If in the course of your inquiries, you are able to determine if you were baptized shortly after birth, or if you were placed by a private agency with a religious affiliation, particularly a Catholic agency, you might be able to obtain a baptismal certificate that could contain information about your birth name and birth family. Churches in general keep excellent records.

In some states and with some agencies, or late, if the child has been baptized prior to the placement for adoption, the church where the child was baptized is provided with the pertinent information on the adoption. The agency may request a change to the baptismal certificate so that it bears the name of the adoptive... more

The records of your birth can contain a lot of useful information and in some cases can be relatively easy to get, as in many hospitals, after a certain period of time the records are moved to an archiving company and stored in warehouses staffed by people who know little about adoption and have had little contact with medical requests. The place to start, is with the hospital.

If you do not have your birth name, you have a few options. You can request the records under your adoptive name and that of your adoptive parent(s), hoping that, especially in the case of a private adoption, they might be listed as responsible parties and therefore the records will be cross referenced and... more

Whether you are a birthparent or an adoptee, file waivers of confidentiality! This document will reassure record keepers that if the persons you specify come looking for you, you WANT them to get your identifying info. You want to file these with the agency, attorneys, but especially with the county court in which the adoption was finalized, which is usually the home county of the adoptive parents at the time of the adoption. If you are a birth parent and do not know what county your child was adopted to, you want to find this out so you file your waiver in the right court. You may be able to get this through the agency that facilitated the adoption if you tell them why you need it- to file... more

When a person is adopted, their original birth certificate in most cases will be sealed in the court file and a new certificate, with all reference to the birthparent(s) names, and the adoptee's original name removed, is issued. This new certificate, referred to as the 'amended' birth certificate, usually will list your adoptive name and your adoptive parents as your mother and father. The remaining information, such as addresses, age, occupation, previous births, and race of parents, is usually the information as it applies to your adoptive parents, although mistakes have been known to be made. The hospital of birth is usually accurate, although that information, too, can be altered and was... more

"Non-identifying information" is referred to as information given to an adoptee about their adoption and birth family. A very few states define within their statutes what constitutes non-identifying information, and makes provisions for its release through agencies and courts. In some states non-ID is not defined, which leaves it up to the court or agency releasing the information to determine what to give or what not to give you. In general non-ID' will include some or all of the following about one's birth parents:

• ages • occupation(s) • level of education • race and/or ethnicity • religion • physical description • hobbies • talents... more

The purpose of this post is to aid you, the searcher in obtaining documents and further information related to your adoption that may fill in the gaps in the information you have accumulated from your initial efforts. Even if you have a name, it is a good idea to try and obtain some of the documents that I will be discussing below in order to help you narrow down your search and to confirm the name that you have been given.

I recommend that you read some of the search books that I will refer in later posts. Once you start to educate yourself I think you will discover that in a majority of the cases the adoption file in the court that it resides is sealed. What I mean by sealed is... more

1) Choose Who will search. Decide whether you want to make your search a personal quest or pay an agency or searcher for execute the search for you;

2) Request Non-identifying Information.. Obtain your non-identifying information from either the state in which your adoption occurred or the adoption agency; (I will share some tips on how to increase your chances of getting more info in the non-id in an upcoming blog entry.)

3) Request for Contact. If your adoption was through an agency, get in touch with them to see if a form called "Consent for Contact" or a letter has been placed in your file requesting contact. If... more

Once you have gathered copies of city directory pages, obituaries, yearbook entries, international genealogical index listings, and whatever else, you might be feeling overwhelmed.

It is important to remain organized. Use all of the information at your disposal to eliminate as many of the entries as possible, and to highlight certain names. Pay attention to entries or names that keep resurfacing, then make a list in order of priority, starting with the persons that you think are most likely, and ending with the least likely. If you have documents that you received from the agency or court or attorney that are whited out or otherwise censored, see if you can determine the length or... more

With the forces of good luck, hard work, and patience all combined in your search efforts to bring you to the point where you have a name to work with. You might have just a first name, a first initial and a last name, your birth name, or one of your birth parents last names or full names. At this point, your search will take a very different turn and will engage in a search like no other. Seeking clues hidden within sealed records is a difficult task, made harder by the emotions and taboos that surround the whole exercise. Tracing names, however, is something that groups and individuals from genealogists to bill collectors engage in.

When you are researching a name, 'genealogy'... more