The New Normal: DNA & Adoptee Search

I feel like I'm a victim of a witness protection program called closed adoption , though I didn't ask to be... Trace

Reblog from 2014

By Trace L Hentz, Blog Editor

Whenever I have a birthday I think of all the years I searched for my parents. It's true that laws prevented me from ever finding them. Laws didn't stop me. I met my dad in 1995. We did a DNA test to prove paternity. It was 99.9% that Earl was my dad.

(2014) Patricia and I are still finishing up the new anthology CALLED HOME, very important history as a collection of adoptee narratives and the historical truths about adoption in Indian Country.  These voices of adoptees are at the heart of what I do. They are the reason there is a blog AMERICAN INDIAN ADOPTEES.

Right now Karen Vigneault and I are working with about 20 adoptees who are trying to find their families. Because of the adoption laws in the USA, we are seeing the “New Normal” for adoptees is having a DNA test.  They have no choice with the laws not allowing adoptees to have access to our own names, our parent’s names and our tribal nations, and we are still denied our basic rights as human beings and citizens of sovereign nations.

Our adoptive parents who raised us may or may not realize that we NEED information and our ancestry and medical background.  (An adoptee can love more than one set of parents and there is no need to panic!) Adoptees tell me they are afraid to search because of their adoptive parents! That fear has to stop because if you wait, you may never get to meet your mother or father!

One of the adoptees in the new anthology talks about finding new cousins who are trying to figure out who her mother is.

This is the new normal. This is not right but because of the adoption industry and their billion dollar earnings, we adoptees are still at the bottom of the totem pole as far as our rights.

I don’t know how many times I have said to an adoptee do not delay your search. If you do get a name or phone number, make the call. Have a friend with you to keep you calm. Write a set of questions. Just make contact then offer to send a letter explaining what you know about your first family. Send them your phone number so they can call you back.

Give people time to adjust to the truth that you are definitely one of their family members.

If you get your DNA results,  which is the new normal, make contact with cousins who share your DNA! Give them your birth date and let them help you try and figure out how you are all related.

The new normal isn’t fair but we’ll use this until the laws change.

Update: One of the adoptees in the book Stolen Generations is moving to Michigan to start a new life with his parents. He found them using a DNA test. Both his parents were looking for him but didn't know how. Drew found them. He's finally in reunion after 40+ years.

The 2nd Edition of Called Home: The Roadmap has a chapter about using your DNA results to do a court order to open your records.  ICWA has a provision for this. Please read this book.

Why It's Illegal for Me to Find My Birth Mother, and How I Found Her

By Trace

The idea to open your adoption is full of technicality and cost. You have to know where you were born, which state, their laws and most importantly what you can do legally to find your first family. Many states are now changing their laws, making them partly open records, allowing the mother to say yes or no to contact. It's not easy out there. In my memoir One Small Sacrifice, I described how I did it. How it took years, how my mother refused to meet me but she finally gave me information to find my father Earl Bland....I wish it were easier to do this whole process but in the end, I did meet my dad and we had reunion. I wish that for every adoptee out there...

AdoptFilm: The Right to Know

November is Adoption "Beware" Awareness Month and I wanted to share this post by Lori Lavender Luz. Her blog: http://lavenderluz.com/2013/11/the-opening-of-adoption-the-early-years.html

Here

I was delighted that Peach brought this film to my attention: The Right to Know: America’s Adoption Crisis.

 

Award-winning documentary about the search and reunion experiences of adoptees and birthparents. Hosted by Michael Reagan, adopted son of Ronald Reagan, the video features interviews with experts in the field who discuss the history of closed adoptions. Adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents share their experiences of search and reunion. Produced and Directed by Michael Branton and Elizabeth Snider (1990).

Lori posted her thoughts... Check out her blog....Trace

CT Adult Adoptees want access to OBC

By MICHELLE GOLLADAY , The Connecticut Law Tribune , July 26, 2013

"Who am I?" "Why am I?" These are two basic questions human beings ask themselves upon growing older—especially when one's birth parents are not the same as the parents he or she grew up with.

For now, in Connecticut, it's nearly impossible for some people to find answers. Adults who were adopted when they were children don't have access to their true birth certificates. Now, an organization that includes a handful of lawyers, and a legislator with a J.D. degree, are advocating for a law change that would lift that restriction.

Access to birth certificates would not only identify a person's birth parents and connect them to other blood relatives, but it would also allow them to find out about possible genetic probems and address and anticipate possible health issues.

"To cut a human being off from their genetic heritage is insane," said lawyer and psychotherapist Karen Caffrey, who has a counseling practice in West Hartford. "We have to correct this inequality and injustice to Connecticut citizens, just like we did for women voters years ago."

Caffrey and other advocates are members of a group called Access Connecticut, which is lobbying for a change in the law.

Working alongside Connecticut's movement is state Representative David Alexander, an Enfield Democrat, an adoptee and a member of the legislature's Public Health Committee. He plans to try to push a bill through the committee in the 2014 legislative session that would allow adult adoptees to receive both of their birth certificates.

"I am a captain of the Marine Corps, and initially when I joined, I had to obtain and produce my birth certificate," said Alexander, who graduated from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 2006. "My original [birth certificate] existed, it was there in the government office, and the town clerk was like, 'I'm sorry, I can see it, but you can't.'"

Alexander said he has lined up several co-sponsors, and if the measure passes the Public Health Committee, it will be forwarded to the Judiciary Committee. The bill would allow adoptees over the age of 18, and who were adopted after 1983, to get their birth certificates. "It's weird that the government and the state have complete acccess to this document, said Alexander, and the adult adoptee does not.

Two Certificates

For most people, obtaining a birth certificate is as easy as visiting a government office in the state of birth upon turning 18 years old. For those same people, there is only one birth certificate to obtain—the original documentation of birth.

Read more: http://www.ctlawtribune.com/PubArticleCT.jsp?id=1202612721271&thepage=3#ixzz2aS6M0Gs1

Sisters reunited after adoption

http://youtu.be/q-EQkiL5_38

During a track meet in DC, girls on one team noticed a girl on the other team looked strikingly similar to a teammate of theirs.  What happened afterwards was nothing short of a miracle.  Click on video to find out.

Stories like this need more exposure...how we adoptees find family is so important...this story is another example of how important it is to find our family, our siblings and our identity after adoption!  Trace

TWO WORLDS contributor publishes memoir!

Susan Fedorko had always known she was put up for adoption before she was even a year old. And she had always known she was Native American. But when she turned eighteen, she felt the need to know more about herself. She received some information about her birth parents through the adoption agency, but there was so little to go on. She gave up her search many times. For the next twenty years Susie was busy with marriage and motherhood. Finally, in 2002 and at the age of forty, she received the phone call that would change her life. Someone was looking to find her. And what she discovered was astonishing. Susan’s birth mother was the first Native American supermodel, Cathee Dahmen—an international fashion model with two celebrity marriages under her belt—and her great uncle was the famed Native American artist, George Morrison. Cricket is the incredible story of one woman’s journey to discover her roots and define her place in a newly complex and extended family—with her adoptive family, her birth family, and her husband and daughters. It’s the story of who she was “before,” who she became “after,” and how it all happened.

 

Ordering Information 6 x 9 paperback white ISBN: 9781432795009 $12.95 Instant e-Book Download $5.00 Book Information Genre: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs Publication: Nov 02, 2012 Pages: 169 Books by Susan Fedorko

About Susan Fedorko A lifelong resident of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Susan “Cricket” Fedorko (Grand Portage Band of Chippewa - Oijbwe) has contributed her writing to two anthologies on the subject of being adopted and has done numerous media interviews. This new memoir details her astonishing 22-year search for answers and describes touching reunions with both of her birth-families in two Minnesota tribal nations. Her Chippewa – Oijbwe, birthmother, a famous supermodel, died in 1997, a short distance from Susan’s current home. PLEASE SHARE THIS NEWS on Facebook and Twitter! Congrats Suzie - it's time adoptees write our own stories!...Trace

RI opens records #ADOPTION

New R.I. law allows access to birth certificate

Effective JULY 2, 2012! (With conditions, of course!)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island is for the first time allowing people who were adopted to see their birth records. The state Office of Vital Records on Monday will allow adoptees age 25 and over to get copies of their original birth certificates. For some of them, it will be the first time they learn the names of their biological parents.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee (CHAY'-fee) was on hand to personally hand over records to four people. More than 200 certificates are being mailed and 55 have been preordered for pickup.
The new policy is the result of legislation passed last year designed to give adult adoptees more information about their birth parents and health history.
Birth parents are allowed to submit forms stating they do not wish to be contacted.

From the Norwich Bulletin:

"...Formal implementation of the law, signed in 2011, was held off for a time to enable the state to inform birth parents about the legislative change. Paul Schibbelhute, executive director of the American Adoption Congress, said Monday’s ceremony was a big step in the evolution of adoptees’ rights.
“It is a basic human right to have access to a birth certificate,” he said. “All of us have the right to know who our families are.”
Schibbelhute, who reunited with his birth son in 1998, said his group has lobbied for years to loosen access to adoptive records. Rhode Island is the third state, after New Hampshire and Maine, to allow an adoptee to view their birth certificates. He said his group “continues to struggle” to get the same law passed in Connecticut..."

Read more: Putnam man adopted as child finds clue to his roots - Norwich, CT - The Bulletin http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/x2102591206/Putnam-man-adopted-as-child-finds-clue-to-his-roots#ixzz1zZHbJieR 

For those birthparents reading this: do not deny us our name, history and ancestry, even if you do not meet us - do the right thing!   Trace

Kansas adoptees are in luck!

Paula Alwin embraces her son, David Hattaway of Shawnee, who recently tracked her down -- 45 years after she gave him up for adoption. Alwin, who lives in Gatesville, Texas, has visited Hattaway and his family twice during the past few weeks, and he paid her a surprise Mother’s Day visit in Texas. See link: happy reunion

Kansas agencies aid in searches

For Kansas-born adult adoptees wishing to learn a birth parent’s identity and, perhaps, establish contact, the journey begins at the state’s Office of Vital Statistics.
To obtain a pre-adoption birth certificate, adoptees 18 and older can go to www.kdheks.gov/vital, click on the “adoption” link, then click “Obtaining a Before Adoption Birth Certificate.”
The next step is the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, which can be contacted online at www.srs.ks.gov. To obtain a form titled Adult Adoptee Searching for Birth Parents, click on the “Services” tab, click “Adoption Services,” then click the “Children and Family Services” link. That will open a page allowing the user to select “Adoption Records and Search,” which leads to online forms for adult adoptees seeking birth parents or siblings. A form for birth parents requesting contact with adult adoptees is also available.
Patricia Long, an SRS program administrator, said her office processes the forms, searches for adoption records and provides them to the adult adoptees requesting them. The agency also will conduct free searches for birth parents and for adult birth siblings the adoptee had an established relationship with prior to the adoption.
With approval of the birth parents and siblings, the agency also will provide current contact information to the adoptee. It also facilitates reunions when requested.

Read this happy reunion story: http://www.shawneedispatch.com/news/2012/jun/05/search-birth-mother-has-happy-ending/

Free Genealogy Database For Adoptees

By Elisa Black-Taylor (Greenville Genealogy Examiner)

Research for adoptees is very different from regular genealogy in that you're going in with very little information. You may only have your own date or birth and the town you were born in. Sometimes searching for a birth mother or child feels like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Today I want to tell you about a firm that has a very high success rate in reuniting families.

Research Etc., Inc. is a private investigation firm located in Scottsdale, Arizona. The business opened its doors in 1995 and is owned and operated by sisters Kristen Hamilton and Judy Andrews, along with their mother Ava Friddle.

Along with adoption cases, these ladies also handle other forms of private investigations. They're most famous for reuniting adoptee's and their birth mothers. Much of their fame can be credited to a book about many of their success stories.  Back To The Beginning: Remarkable True Stories Of Adoption Services & Reunions was published in 2008 and offers insights on what it's like for a birth mother to be reunited with a child.

Research Etc., Inc can be reached by phone at 1-800-992-3571 or by email at RSearchEtc@aol.com.

The name of the free database for adoptees is Birthline Reunion Registry and is located at http://www.researchetcinc.com/birthline.html

If you're an adoptee and wish to post your information there's a one time fee of $10. The search option itself is free.

On it you'll find birth mothers and adoptees listed along with date of birth, hospital and an email address to contact.

Birthline Reunion Registry services not only the U.S. But also Australia, Canada, England, China, Germany, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Russia, Scotland, South Africa and the U.K.

There are only a handful of states in the U.S. that have open or semi-open access to adoption records. Those states are Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Kansas, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon and Tennessee.

This means the information (most likely a birth certificate)is accessible to the person named on the document, meaning the birth parents. Once a child reaches age 18, they may also have the right to access the information through the Vital Statistics Office or other sources. Records are easier to obtain once the birth records are 50 years old.

They caution not to expect miracles and no one price fits all cases. Some cases are solved in a few hours while others may take a year or longer. The more information a client has at the time of a free consultation, the lower the cost will be.

The firm does state that some birth mother's are reluctant to name the birth father. Many birth mother's take that information to their grave.  A birth mother may not always be pleased when first contact is approached.  Research Etc., Inc. also offers services to arrange emails, phone calls or visits between mother and child.  Some clients feel the need to make arrangements personally. The firm treats each case individually and does whatever the client wishes in handling a reunion.

There are probably many such databases online. I wanted to highlight one that's free and easy to use.

Many states are trying to change the law where more mothers and their children can search for each other more easily.

There are many adoptees who cannot afford to pay for a private investigator but if you can search a free database - then FREE is wonderful! Get busy! ... Trace

Pa. man solves missing child case - his own

(CBS News) A year ago, a Philadelphia man clicked on a website for missing children, and found a picture of himself. That discovery sent Steve Carter on a search to unlock the secrets of his past.

Carter always knew he was adopted, but when got older, he started to wonder who his biological parents were. That curiosity and a simple web search took him on a journey that would change his life and even now, there are parts of his story that remain a mystery.
Read here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57419742/pa-man-solves-missing-child-case-his-own/

The following is a gallery documenting Carter's incredible life journey as featured on "CBS This Morning."

On June 21, 1977, 5-month old Marx Panama Moriarity Barnes disappears with his mother, Charlotte Moriarity, from Haaula, Hawaii. They are reported missing three weeks later. Marx's father, who is not married to his mother, launches an all-out search, but finds nothing.
Credit: Steve Carter

Google Images and search tips for adoptees (2012)

Photo: Andrew Miller/For The Times of Trenton

Carla Hill, 44, poses for a portrait at her desk at Foundation Academy Charter School in Trenton on April 20, 2012 with a scrapbook her birth mother Linda Person gave to her last year. Hill found out at 23 she was adopted and has been looking for birth family for years when a Google images search last year helped her finally find her family.
 

This is one of the great tips I found recently. Here is the link to her story: http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2012/04/search_and_social_media_bring.html

And as I posted prior, use Google Alerts with your birth info http://splitfeathers.blogspot.com/2012/03/adoptee-use-this-search-method.html

People decide to trace their genealogies for many reasons, adoptees searching for biological relatives and ancestors... A group called the Missing Connection is something I recommend you do with other adoptees you've met in your state. Here is one based in New York State and another in Virginia.

 

Genealogy group forming in Lowville

By STEVE VIRKLER , TIMES STAFF WRITER, TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2012CLE OPTIONS

LOWVILLE, NY — A group for genealogy buffs is forming in connection with an organization created two decades ago in Watertown, New York. The Missing Connection will hold meetings from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on the second Tuesday of the month at the Lowville Free Library, 5387 Dayan St.

"There is just so much information out there,” said Katharine B. Manning, who is heading the local group. Forms and reference information will be available, and guest speakers and field trips to a cemetery may be planned. There is no charge for joining the group. Manning said she got involved with genealogical searches while seeking information on the biological parents of her father, who was adopted. “I had all this information, and it just blossomed from there,” she said.

Now, with the help of Internet site www.ancestry.com and other services, she has traced her lineage back 23 generations to the 1200s. People decide to trace their genealogies for many reasons, from searching for biological relatives among adoptees to simply looking for any prominent ancestors, Ms. Manning said.
Networking among genealogists is helpful, as different people may be able to suggest alternative search methods, she said.
 

Ms. Manning said she has reserved dates for April, May and June and plans to assess the interest in continuing the group after that three-month trial period.  For more information, contact Ms. Manning at 376-1630 or look for “The Missing Connection — Lowville Group” Facebook page.

“We just want to give people resources where they can search their family trees,” said Susan J. Palma, who formed The Mission Connection in 1992 in Watertown. Palma, then Susan Boyce, started the group to help reunite adoptees with their biological parents and siblings, assisting with roughly 100 reunions during its eight years in the north country, she said.
Now living in northern Virginia, Mrs. Palma recently restarted the group there. While still available to assist with adoptive-specific searches, she decided to broaden the revamped group’s focus on genealogy in general.
 

“We just hit it off instantly,” Mrs. Palma said.
 

According to its website, The Missing Connection’s mission is to promote genealogy, provide help and educational aid to researchers and preserve the heritage, history and genealogy of families who settled in the area.
 

For more information, visit http://www.themissingconnection.org.

Adoptees have to be creative when they search! These tips are great useful ideas!... Trace

Adoptee Advice - use this search method

Search Tips: Google Alerts (ehababes)

Google Alerts can be a useful tool for individuals in the process of searching for a family member.
Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results based on your queries. You decide a search query you wish to monitor.

For example, if you are searching for a child born on December 1, 1990 in Illinois and surrendered to Easter House, you could set up the following alerts:
Born December 1, 1990 in IL
Born 12/1/1990
Easter House
Google will regularly search for your keywords and send you an email report containing links to any information that matches your alert. You should put in several variations of your information as you can not know how another person might enter it. You may write your DOB as 12/1/1990 and they would post to a registry under December 1, 1990.

Alerts are easy to set up. Simply visit the Google Alert page and start entering your keywords and phrases.

If you need help, visit the Google Alert Getting Started Guide.

Many adoptees who find their family name can then search on Facebook and Google - believe me, we can use all the help when we search!
Please post a comment on what search tips you recommend!
Trace

Toronto Birthmother story

I had to share this. A birthmother wrote in response to this: http://splitfeathers.blogspot.com/2011/04/red-road-documentary-from-canada-60s_11.html

I am so happy that this lost spirit has found his roots after living a life of not knowing where he fit in! I have never given up the hope that one day my son who was taken from me at birth will somehow find his true family. I just hope that it isn't too late for us to join each other. I have always believed that my son is out there someplace and he will come home soon. He was taken from me on October 17,1976 from Toronto General Hospital. I was told that he died at birth. I never was asked if I wanted to see or hold him. To tell him how much his mommy loves him. I was just a young mother with a child of 11 months at home and a baby that I so wanted to bring home. I never was told where or when he was buried never laid eyes on him ever. I felt that something wasn't right but I was to with drawn from the loss that I just couldn't bare the loss. To this day the thoughts of it burns at my insides. I never knew about the 60's or 70's scoop until just with-in the last few years. That is when I got my answers to what happen. I believed that my baby boy was more then likely one of the native children that was scooped that day. I hope that this man isn't bitter towards his true Mom for what he went through. May the Creator bless him with true happiness in his life now that he has found his true identity as a Proud Native Man. From this story of this man it gives me the added hope that my son to will find me some day.
Signed BM (which means birthmom)

Remember this adoptees - closed adoption was used as a weapon! First Nations Families, please start your search now...If you need my help, email me... Trace (tracedemeyer@yahoo.com)

 

Searching for Constancia Tibayon Hernandez

Please share my friend Mary Ann's story "Searching for Constancia Tibayon Hernandez" and share this link to her website. I pray newspapers will pick up the story, too!
If you can help my friend, if you know how to investigate, if you have friends in the Phillipines, please do try...
http://www.constanciatibayonhernandez.com/

If adoption records were finally opened and unsealed everywhere, so many families could reunite and hearts could heal...