13 If you are an adoptee and do not know how long your natural mother kept you, try contacting the primary newspapers in your town of birth to try to get your birth notice. Often, if it was known the natural mother intended to relinquish a child the hospital would not give the birth info to the newspapers -- some actually would stamp "DNP" on the records (Do Not Publish) so no mistake would be made. HOWEVER, if no decision had been made at the time of your birth it is possible it made it to the paper. A long shot, but worth a phone call or two.

14 If you are a natural parent, do what you can to keep a working phone number with your name in the town your "child" may look for you -- the name you went by (maiden or assumed) when you had your child. Maybe you have a friend or relative there you trust. The city part is not crucial, but it could be helpful if your child is not online and thus does not have access to "whole country" searches with a name. Make sure you are listed in all the major look-ups on the Internet.

15 Natural parents should consider keeping informal "tabs" on the other natural parent to the adoptee so when the time comes they can be easily located.

16 If you are on an instant message service with member directories, either adoptees or natural parents can look at cities people live in their profiles as well as at their ages. You can locate regional people who seem happy to help in lookups. You could use this same system with no name to try to find classmates of someone you seek too, to see if they remember anyone having to leave school. Obviously use some discretion since you are talking with a stranger, but in general people are very cooperative. if you instant message them they look it up on the spot generally and if she can't instant message them send an email.