You’re adopted and you want to learn the identities of your birth parents. You were born in a state that, unfortunately, won’t release any original birth records to you without a long, drawn-out, expensive process of petitioning the court for your records. What now? When a potential client approaches me and there are no other viable avenues to pursue for the information they are seeking, there is still one avenue to explore that just might give them the answers they are looking for. That avenue involves registering their DNA. Before Ancestry, 23andMe, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, and others, man ..read more

I recently worked a case that took me into new territory. My client had reconnected with his birth mom about 20 years ago, but now desired to try and find his birth father as well. He had done some searching of his own over the years, only to hit brick wall after brick wall. So he finally decided to enlist some help. I started off by speaking with my client’s birth mom. She is elderly and told me what she could remember of the birth father. She remembered a potential name, his approximate age, and that he had a dimple in his chin. She also remembered that his mother had a traditional Native Am ..read more

If you’re considering taking steps to contact a birth parent, there is something really important you should do first. Determine your intentions. Clearly outlined intentions will not only lay the groundwork for you, but also for the person who will be attempting contact on your behalf (if this is the route you choose), as well as the birth parent you are seeking. In other words, it helps everyone involved. It’s actually pretty common for a client to ask me to help them make contact with a birth parent, only to be met with an “I haven’t really thought about it in detail” response to the questio ..read more

As of July 2023, adult adoptees who were born in the following 14 states can request an unrestricted copy of their original birth certificate.* I’ve included a link for each state that will take you to where you need to go to make the request. I’ve also included helpful information for each: Alabama - https://www.alabamapublichealth.gov/vitalrecords/assets/hs95.pdf You must be at least 19 years old to request a copy of your original birth certificate. No one besides the adoptee can make this request without a court order. $25 processing fee (plus $15 for an expedited request) Alaska - https ..read more

I just wrapped up the most delightful case of my life. A 62-year-old female contacted me in January 2022 and asked me to identify her biological parents. She came to me with her original birth name, to include the maiden name of her birth mother. She also had a fairly detailed social history for both birth parents. This woman quickly became my client. She is well-versed, accomplished, and has lived a most interesting life. She told me about living in a family who she didn’t at all physically resemble. Although she felt silly to admit it, one of her biggest desires was to find someone she looks ..read more

It might be surprising to many of you that several of my adoptee clients who hire me to identify, find, and contact their birth parents are themselves of more advanced ages. This places their birth parents in a most definite category of “elderly”. So what’s the protocol in handling attempted contact with an elderly birth parent in their 80s or 90s? What if they have dementia, are in a nursing home, or simply can’t hear well over the phone? What if their children or grandchildren are essentially their gatekeeper? Is it even worth the risk of upsetting or confusing them at such an advanced age ..read more

My favorite cases to tackle are my older clients who have finally decided later in life that they want to learn the identities of their biological parents. It fascinates me that they have lived most of their lives, never choosing to seek out the identities of their birth parents, only to take that step well into their 60s, 70s, or even 80s. I have a recent client who is 78 years old. She called me up and asked if I could help her identify her birth parents. She had registered her DNA with Ancestry and 23andMe. She had also obtained some basic information on her birth mother that she didn’t kno ..read more

One of the first things I do before I take an adoptee client on is manage their expectations. As you can imagine, many adoptees who have no knowledge of their birth parents’ identities often craft an imaginary birth mother and birth father in their minds. They imagine the situation that prompted their adoption. It’s difficult to refrain from filling in the holes when there are so many. So we discuss their imagined scenarios and often add to their incomplete possibilities. If they haven’t allowed their brain to imagine any scenarios, we begin to craft the plethora of scenarios together. Because ..read more

I have always been a fan of reading, writing, spelling, and history. They come easily for me. But from the time I received my first science lesson in elementary school, it may as well be a foreign language. I don’t like it. I don’t understand it. I memorized what I had to memorize to get the grade, but that’s it. In one ear and out the other. Even in college, I avoided all science classes for as long as I could. I finally dragged myself into Biology 101 as a junior. Rather, my boyfriend dragged me. He was my polar opposite, a lover of all things science, so I figured he could help get me throu ..read more

If you are an adoptee and you’re interested in searching for your biological parents, you’ll want to cover all of your bases. Here’s how. If you know in which state you were born and adopted, you should start by contacting the state in regards to obtaining your original birth certificate. Every adoptee has an original birth certificate and an amended one. If the copy in your possession has your adoptive parents listed on it, that’s your amended birth certificate. Some states will hand over your original birth certificate without much bother. Other states are a little more complicated and they ..read more