3 Register with the International Soundex Reunion Registry (ISRR). Information regarding this registry can be found at www.isrr.net

4 Adoptees should talk as much as you can to your parents. They may know more than they would volunteer, but might share with you if you ask. It is understandable to be scared of hurting them so you may want to explain that your searching has nothing to do with them but everything to do with yourself.

Also talk to other family members such as aunts, uncles, and cousins to try and get additional information.

5 Adoptees please consider the social climate of the time and place you were in at birth. If the adoption was a private adoption, who may have been the intermediary? Could a priest have helped your parents? Are you close to a relative you can ask? Are your parents friends with someone in a position of influence? Do they have any close friends that are attorneys? Do your parents have friends with adopted children and they all maybe used the same lawyer, intermediary, or agency?

6 If you are an adoptee you should request non id from both the agency/attorney and the court in which the adoption was finalized to increase the odds of what you get. I encourage live appointments where possible to build rapport and to give that other person a chance to "slip" -- on purpose or by accident and give you the info that you need. There may be a very few good souls who will put some info or clue on a table and then have to go to the bathroom, leaving you alone with it. I would also ask point blank for "photocopies of the original records with identifying info deleted, not a summary". The reasons for this are manifold: one -- someone could miss something that should have been whited-out; two -- summaries are just that -- short and sweet, retyped by someone in a rush to get it done; three -- when stuff is whited out from a typed document you can often figure out how many digits or letters were removed by lining the covered area up visually with the line above it.
Natural parents can try getting non-id but in many cases they may be told it is not available to them since they gave up an interest in the child. Some agencies and attorneys are open about this some are not.