The First Major Step in the Process of Finding your Birth Parents

The first major step in finding your birth parents after you have thoroughly reviewed your replacement birth certificate is to find out exactly what state you were born in. This may sound silly since you just reviewed your replacement birth certificate, but depending upon where you were actually adopted and it was in another state, your replacement birth certificate would be from your new state. You have to ask your adoptive parents what state you were actually born in. They may ask you why you want to know. The simple answer is, because you're curious or you want to know what sports team to root for. Something simple and believable. There are some adoptive parents that are extremely fearful that you will find your biological parents and love them more because of the blood relationship. In my book, "Adoptee-A Childhood of Torment", one of my cousins was adopted just like I was and her adoptive parents swore not to ever tell her. When she was 21, she found out she was adopted and never spoke to her adoptive parents again, or even attended their funerals. This is why parents are sometimes reluctant to tell the truth when confronted with this situation. Hopefully, your adoptive parents will understand that it is a basic need of an adopted child to know the truth. Once you find out for certain where you were born, you need to call the Dept. of Vital Statistics in your birth state and check to see if they are an open state, closed state or a registry state. If your birth state is an open state, then your search will become a thousand percent easier than if it were a closed state or a registry state. Let's hope all who read this were born in open states. What is the difference between an open state, a closed state or a registry state? Come back to this blog to find out.

Continue the search process

One thing I may have forgotten in the first article is the significance of the birth number on your replacement birth certificate. If you are able to get your original birth certificate, you will need this number to verify that you indeed have the original. There are always certain numbers that are not changed when your replacement certificate is published. You have to do a complete review of your replacement certificate if you expect to have any luck at all in pursuing your search. This search is by no means easy at all. Expect frustrations at every step. Lets look at the replacement certificate again. You have contacted the hospital and the Dr. that delivered you and perhaps you might even have received some information that combined with other information may lead to a significant clue in your search. You know your birthdate, at least I hope you do. That is significant. At this point I would go to the local newspaper. Most newspapers have archived old newspapers. while not necessarily at the paper itself, there my be a service that they use to archive the papers. Look for a daily docket. Your birth may be listed there. I will tell you that this is not the best source because births are usually recorded many days later. There are a million types of searched you could do at that end such as murders, accidents and all kinds of things that may correspond to the replacement certificate. I will be honest here unless you are an experienced investigator , you will in all probability come up empty handed. No matter how insignificant the data. There will be a space there for living/deceased siblings of the birth mother. This is important by knowing that there are other children out there and may prove useful in the later parts of your search. Once you have completed the search based on your replacement certificate you are now ready to move ahead to the next step. Please bookmark this blog, and by the time I'm finished, you will have a much better chance in finding the answers to your questions about your adoption. Joseph M. Sabol is a world class videographer and the author of the book "Adoptee - A Childhood of Torment." For further information go to http:// www.adopteeadoptee.com Joseph M. Sabol is a world class videographer and the author of the book "Adoptee - A Childhood of Torment." For further information go to http:// www.adopteeadoptee.com

How Do You Find Your Biological Parents?

One of the most nagging questions in an adopted child's mind is "who are my biological parents and why did they give me up? Most searches before you turn 18 are totally useless. If you are under 18, the one place I would start asking is the parents that adopted you. In almost all states, when an adoption is finalized by the court, a new replacement birth certificate is created and the very original one is sealed by the courts with all the other documents relating to your adoption. The most important document you have available to you is your replacement birth certificate. There is a ton of information on that certificate that you will be able to use if you are really, truly serious about finding your biological parents. Much of the information is copied directly from the original, sealed certificate. My first suggestion is to read that document, memorize that document to the point where you could repeat it verbatim. Why? A simple example of why you want to do this is because the hospital where you were born has to be listed there. A simple thing like that could open the door to many other clues, such as the name of the doctor who delivered you if it isn't on the replacement document and the date you were born. A hospital may be reluctant to give out any information becuase of the HIPPA privacy laws. They can give you certain pieces of information that will be helpful in your search. For example, you could ask them how many boy baby's or girl baby's were born on that day. Knowing that is a big deal. Then you can contact the doctor if he is still practicing. There are obviously some very special circumstances around the birth of a child that is to be given up for adoption. In my case, even though the doctor delivered thousands of babies, he actually remembered the case of my birth for several reasons. The medical history of my biological mother indicated that childbirth had caused the death of her mother. He also remembered that my biological mother did not want to give me up for love or money. He told me that there was a lot more screaming going on about my mother not wanting to give me up than there was about the pain of childbirth. Right there, you have some very valuable pieces of information to begin this long and difficult search. Please bookmark this blog, and by the time I'm finished, you will have a much better chance in finding the answers to your questions about your adoption. Joseph M. Sabol is a world class videographer and the author of the book "Adoptee - A Childhood of Torment." For further information go to http:// www.adopteeadoptee.com