The most common reason for doing a birth search is locating the birth parents. If this is the case, you need to be aware of some basic regulations when it comes to searching for your birth parents.

Adoption Law Reminders:

• Each country and each state will have their own laws governing adoption. You might even run into different laws by county. The laws will effect at which age you can legally retrieve the information, what information you can obtain, and who can request the information.
• Some states have “open records.” This means that you can request to see the original birth and adoption information. At the time of writing, Alabama, Alaska, Kansas, and Oregon were such states. Other states will release the information with some restrictions.
• When seeking adoption information, you should look where the adoption took place. This could be different from where you were born.

Conducting a Birth Search

When you do begin searching, there are some things you need to keep in mind as well. Unless you have someone willing to give you the name of the birth father, the process may take awhile.

• Keep an adoption journal – Write everything you find out down. This way you can begin piecing the puzzle together. Every bit of information will help you find your birth parents.
• Try to locate the father first — The birth father is easier to find because he does not change his name. If you locate him, he may be able to help you find the birth mother.
• Register in Adoption Directories — You can go online and register with adoption directories. Several exist to help reunite adopted children and their families. They work by children and parents registering. Then hoping the other one registers as well.
• Online Databases — You can search through adoption databases. Some may tell you the name of the birth parent. Then, once you locate the name of the parent, you can search records for an address or a phone number to contact.

Preparing for First Contact

As harsh as it may sound, not all birth parents want to be found. You need to prepare for this fact. However, that does not mean you should not look or that siblings would not want to be found. A phone call or a letter is better than showing up on someone’s doorstep. It is also much safer. Call ahead and give them a chance to adjust to you coming back into their lives after all these years.

Finding birth parents is easier than ever. You can conduct your own birth search now and start looking for your birth parents today.

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Recently we started to try to find birth parents for a friend of ours. We thought this process would be simple just like the television shows made it seem. The problem was that even though we had several hundred dollars to search, we had very little information to go on. However, we were able to locate the birth parents. This is our story and we hope that it helps others.

Finding People is NOT as Easy as the Movies
We may have been a little naïve to think, that we could walk into some Humphrey Bogart office and hire a private eye to find a friend’s biological mom. We thought we could give him my friend’s name and birth date and he would come back a few days later with a name and phone number. I was wrong.

I called several places and basically got laughed at. Some were kinder than others were, but they all told me that unless I had the birth mother’s name, I was flat out of luck. Frankly, I thought that if I had the birth mother’s name I wouldn’t need them. Even so, they said it would cost a lot to find her with no information.

Time to Get Sneaky Myself
At this point, we decided we had to be our own private eye to find the birth parents. This meant that I began by questioning all my friend’s family members. Unfortunately, no one could remember the birth mother’s last name. Although, they did remember her first name, which we will call “Kim.”

We also found some more useful information when an aunt remembered that “Kim’s” birthday was two days after a cousin of ours. That meant that Kim was born on July 16. We did not have a year but this was helpful.

Searching Online for Birth Records
We went online and read articles. That is when I found out about asking for non-identifying information from the adoption agency. There we discovered that the birth parents were from Farmersville, Texas. This was huge since it is such a small town.

It also told us that she was 17 at the time of adoption. That meant we now knew the year she was born. Kim was born July 16, 1962.

When we did a birth records search online, we found only one Kim born on July 16 in Greenville, Texas. (Greenville is the city you would be born in if you were from Farmersville.) We had a first and last name. We did a quick people search and voila we had a number. We found her birth mother!

It really is that simple to find birth parents. No need to pay an expensive detective and sort through dusty old books. You can do the research yourself and find everything you need. Start looking today and you just might find who you are looking for tonight.

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Approximately 6 million people in the United States are adopted. When you extrapolate that out to biological parents, adoptive parents, and siblings, you have one in eight people effected by adoption. No wonder so many people are trying to find birth parents. Unfortunately, people are making many mistakes in the search. Avoid making these mistakes and finding answers will be a lot easier.

Mistake #1: They Don’t Write it Down
This is a common mistake that rookie private eyes make. When you are searching for your birth parents, you need to think like a private eye. Start by writing everything you know about yourself and your birth place down including the hospital, the agency, and anything else you can think of down. Keep it in an adoption journal for quick reference.

Mistake #2: They Don’t Ask the Family
Whether they are scared or embarrassed, it is a big mistake. Many times adoptive children do not ask the one person who has the most information. The adoptive parents hold all the records. Ask them! They may actually know the name of the biological parents. Don’t forget to write all this information down as well.

In addition, ask other family and friends as well. You never know who may have kept in contact or have that one memory or name that may help. It could be a date or a city. Write it all down because it could be useful later on in your search.

Mistake #3: They Don’t Ask the Agency for Information
As the adoptee, you can petition the adoptive agency for non-identifying information. While it won’t give you a name, it does give you all kinds of fun facts about your biological family. This information can help you narrow down your search later and may tell you if you have biological siblings. It can include:

• Age of biological parents at time of birth
• Age and sex of biological sibling at time of birth
• The ethnicity of your biological parents
• Possible reasons why they gave you up for adoption
• Medical History
• Religion
• Geographic Location at time of birth

Mistake #4: Don’t Use the Internet to Search Public Records
At this point, many people simply give up. They feel they cannot afford to hire a private detective to search for their birth parents. Therefore, they just give up. They do not even consider trying to do an Internet search for themselves. This is a huge mistake. You can search birth records, adoptive records, and even do a people search from the privacy of your own home all you have to do is look.

When you find your birth parents, it may not be easy but not finding them is even harder. You can start your search today by looking through adoption records.

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Many adopted children decide every day to set out to find birth parents. Unfortunately, a complication for many adopted children is sealed adoption records.

For any number of reasons, a birth parent may choose to have adoption records sealed, thus making it difficult for them to ever be found. However, with easily accessible resources available today, it is easier than every to find birth parents, even without full adoption records.

1. One way to find birth parents is with a birth date search. If you know the birth date of even one parent, you can combine that with the year and city in which you were adopted to begin to narrow your search.
2. Secondly, a marriage record search can also be a huge help to find birth parents. A marriage record could reveal location and any name changes that may have occurred.
3. Divorce records are also publicly available as well. Again, this can help to indicate name changes or possible current addresses as well.

For many adopted children, the mystery of not knowing where they came from is almost unbearable. It is for this reason that many set out to find birth parents, but the fact of the matter is that most fail. Sealed adoption records are simply too discouraging for those who are not aware that there are other options and avenues to follow up on as well.

If you are looking to help someone find birth parents or even find your own birth parents, stop wasting time with adoption records. Run one of the searches above to begin tracking down your birth parents on your own.

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