With an estimated 2% of the U.S population adopted, it is no wonder that so many people are searching for their birth parents. In nationwide surveys, the large majority of these adoptees and the birth parents have at some point in their lives tried to find the parent or child separated by the adoption process.

If you are one of these people searching for someone you lost in the adoption process, there are steps you can take to help you reunite.

Step 1: Begin with the Adoption Information that You Already Have
Write down everything you know about yourself and the adoption. Include when you were born, the hospital, the agency that handled the adoption and anything you can think of that might be useful.

Step 2: Go to Your Adoptive Parents
They may have more information than you may think. Write it all down, no matter how useless you may think it is. This is also the time to approach other relatives, as they may hold clues to your biological parents as well.

Step 3: Petition the Agency for Non-Identifying Information
The non-identifying information will tell you all kinds of stuff about your biological family.

• It should let you know if they are living or dead.
• How old they were when you were born.
• How many other children they had when you were born.
• The ethnicity of your biological parents
• Possible reasons why they gave you up for adoption
• Medical History
• Religion
• Possible Geographic Location

Step 4: Begin Gathering Documents
This is the time to start your online search. You can go online and search court records, birth records, adoptive records, and even do people searches. It is fast and easy. You can turn up quite a bit of information in a very short amount of time.

This will be your best shot at actually contacting your biological parents. Once you begin the online search, things start coming together fast. So brace yourself for what happens when you are ready to find birth parents.

Step 5: Register with State and National Agencies
Sometimes, the files are locked up so tight you cannot find information. However, starting in the 1990s, adoption cases became more open as women wanted to become more involved. This is good news for adoptive children as they are easier to located.

In any case, if you are looking and cannot find anything you need to register with state and national reunion registries. One of the best reunion registries to date is the International Soundex Reunion Registry ISRR.

Parents and children register hoping that the other will register and they can be reunited. While it is a long shot, if you register and your parent registers, then can reunite with your birth parents.

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Were you adopted or do you suspect you were but can’t be sure?  Do you lack the ability to find out about this from the people who raised you?  There are other ways to learn how to find a record of your birth.

Information You Need for a Birth Record

What kind of search or searches you will need to do will depend on the amount and type of information you have.  If you have everything but the truth, it may not be that hard.

Everything but the truth would include place, time and date, but lack the birth mother’s name and a birth certificate.  With that data, you can do a search of public records relating to births.

Was It a Private Adoption or a Public Adoption?

Another route to take in searching is to determine whether the adoption was public or private, open or closed.  State adoption records are generally open on some level, meaning that you may at least be able to acquire a starting point from which to work.

If it was a private adoption, this may still be on file somewhere.  You may need to track down the law firm, convent, or hospital involved.

To save a lot of time and stress, you can also choose to consign your search to an excellent online retrieval system.  This is emotional enough without weeks of frustration.  Learn how to find a record of your birth online to get your answers discreetly and confidentially.

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