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.