In the closed adoption era, the adoption agencies, attorneys, intermediaries, etc advised adopters to not tell their children that they were adopted. There are many that did not follow this advise.
Many years later when agencies, attorneys, intermediaries, etc did recommend to the adopters to tell their children that they were adopted many did not follow this advice.

I do believe that there are more adoptees who know and have always know that they were adopted there are still those who don’t know the facts surrounding their conception and birth.

As a natural parent, you have no way of knowing whether or not the adoptee you are seeking knows that he or she is adopted or not. It is understandable that you don’t want to be the one to tell the adoptee this news so when making contact you need to be very careful.

Now, taking the above into account, one option for natural parents making contact is to contact the adoptive parents first to be sure the adoptee knows that he or she is adopted. However, it is important to remember that this can back fire. There are many adoptive parents who are not in favor of reunion. Some don’t understand the need to know or they may be to insecure in their own relationship and fear losing the child.

If this is the option that you choose, you may want to consider having an adoptive parent make that first call. This may make it easier for the recipients of the call to relate and explain to them that all will go well in reunion.

Natural parents who relinquished a female and who has married and changed her name may be the only avenue for you to get her current name. If this happens it is important to not tell the adoptive family the true nature of the reasons you are looking for the person. Many natural mothers say that they are planning a high school reunion and want to be sure the person is included in the mailing list or that they want to renew their friendship with the person.

There are a couple of catches using the above two scenarios. The adoptive parents would not know the name of the person or persons on the reunion committee. High school reunions take years to plan so even if the person graduated3 or 4 years ago you are still safe in using this. However, if you use this, you should find out for sure what high school she went to. One way to do this would be to contact the board of education in the city and ask what school district the area was in at the time the adoptee would have been in school. It is important though to know that the adoptive parents address and know that they have resided at that address for a number of years.

When a natural parent is making contact it is important to approach in a gingerly manner. You may want to ask if they were born on such and such date in the city or birth. If the response is yes continue with an explanation of how you have been looking for someone who was born on that date and wonder if they could be the one you are searching for.
If the adoptee knows that they were adopted they will probably realize what the call is about and no doubt will say something to indicate that. However, they may not have a clue what your call is and if this happens you are at a point where you have to decide whether or not to ask them if they are adopted.