How to Find a Relative – How to Find a Family Member »
Once you make the decision to start searching for your biological parent, knowing how to find a parent as quick as possible is pivotal. Finding a father or mother is an emotional choice, so if the search is long and frustrating, your emotions will go on more of a roller coaster ride than they should have to.
So learn how to find your biological parent and get to the next chapter in your life as soon as possible.
Understand the Challenge ahead of You
The search for a parent is always going to involve psychological and emotional scars, so understand this challenge is going to be trying at times. Before you start, discuss with your family and close friends your thoughts and feelings and make them understand what it is you are going through, what you have gone through not knowing and what you are willing to go through to learn the truth.
If you still have foster parents or adoptive parents still alive, you’ll want to discuss with them what is going through your mind, too. These are the people who raised you, who took responsibility for a motherless child and gave their time and love to see you raised to adulthood.
Whatever your relationship is with them, these people are your parents and they deserve a discussion or explanation of the decision you have made to contact your biological parents. Let them know of the love you feel for them and the special bond their is between the two of you, even while you want to satisfy your natural curiosity about who your natural mother and father were and why you were given up for adoption.
Accept the Outcome
Also understand that the final step in this journey might be difficult and leave new scars. It’s never certain that the person you meet at the end of your searching is going to want contact with their biological child. Your mother or father has a lifetime of emotional baggage they have been carrying.
This person might have felt shame, hurt or loss in giving you up for adoption and your appearance might bring those emotions back to the forefront. Your birth mom or dad also might have families of their own they took the responsibility to raise, perhaps at a time in their life when they were more mature and able to care for a family. Understand these are people with feet of clay, and they might have had very good reasons for giving you up. That is, you might well have been better off for their decision, whatever you might think of it and whatever hurt it might have caused.
At the same time, many aging parents are thrilled to hear from their biological children, especially if that child has been able to grow into a mature, healthy and productive adult. You might be able to build a special relationship with a birth parent.
Learn Your Parent’s Name
To begin with, learn the name of your parent. Understand that you were given up for adoption and there are records of that adoption. A judge may have sealed court records to protect the identity of the mother giving you up for adoption. If so, there are methods you can use to petition the court to unseal those records, if needed. You should be able to learn about your adoption.
Before you talk to a judge, though, contact the hospital where you were born and the adoption agency that handled your adoption. Collect any documents either source will be willing to offer to you. Copy any documents you encounter, if allowed. Any of the information on these files could be important later in your investigation. Getting your parent’s full name, married name and maiden name is most important at this point.
Talk to Old Timers
If the person who handled your adoption is at the adoption agency still, talk to this person and see if you can learn any additional information.
Also, discuss with your adopting parents or foster parents whether they have any information that might help with your search, if these parents are willing to offer their help in your search for your parent.
Contact the Courts
The government at the state, local and even federal level can help you learn more information. Try to learn which city, county and state you were born in. Next, contact the county in which you were born to collect a copy of your birth certificate. Also ask about a petition of adoption and an adoption decree, which are two other documents which could greatly aid your search.
A certificate of birth, adoption petition or adoption decree might have the name of your biological parents. For this reason, contact any local archives that might have the information you seek.
Tell them why you want this information. People to contact include a municipal courthouse, the Clerk of Courts for the county in which you were born, the hospital in which you were born and the adoption agency in the area you were born.
Ask the Adoption Agency for More Information
Ask the agency for your adoption to provide you with any additional information they might have that will help you find your parent. Once again, this additional info might help you narrow down the search, if your biological parents have common names.
Ask about your parent’s ethnic background, religious faith, the schools they attended at any level, their medical history, whether they had other children, what type of career field they were in and what type of physical traits they might have had. The more of this information you collect, the easier it will to find your parent and know for certain this is the person you’re seeking.
I would suggest you write down each of the types of information your adoption workers might have. Pose each of these in the form of a question. That way, you won’t forget to jot this down. Remember to bring a pen and pad along with these questions.
Search at the State Level
If you can’t find information elsewhere, try to obtain your adoption information at state adoption registries. The link I provided provides contact information for each state adoption registry, as well as the method you will have to use to obtain that information (usually “court order”). You may need to petition a judge to open the documents in your case and release that information to you.
In other cases, such as Vermont, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Montana, Minnesota and a few others, an adoptee can see the records upon turning 18. About half of the states mentioned keep the records sealed if the birth parent specifically filed a veto on records requests. In Oregan, adoption records are open. Many states have a “passive registry”, meaning you need two parties to register for a match to be made. You hope to live in a state with an active registry, where only one signature is needed.
Join a Support Group
Join a local support group for adoptees. Not only will these people give you moral and emotional support during your search, to help you maintain your spirits during a long and difficult search, but they will be able to provide you with tips, suggestions and insights that only a fellow adoptee can provide.
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 11:43 pm and is filed under Birth Records, Private Investigation, Vital Records. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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