Use the Social Media Sites like Facebook

I am hearing more and more stories about people finding lost family members including adoptees and birth families on Facebook. I am actually very pleased if the person is younger and might have a MySpace account. Facebook has an application for advanced searching that you can install, but they have not required some of the information you might need to search. MySpace has great search capabilities.

Despite the lack of good search information and tools, there is a very good chance that someone you are searching for is there on Facebook so brew a pot of coffee or tea, and start looking.In addition to individual accounts there are group or community accounts. A woman who has been looking for a long time for a birth family that included deaf members just had her find on Facebook. She knew the approximate year of graduation of one of the deaf children and which school the children had attended. She contacted a person who would have been in that graduating class on that school's site and asked if the family was known from the characterististics given in the non-ID. After a couple of tries, she got a last name and it has proven to match the family members in the non-ID. SHe should be calling her birth mother today.


I have found many people for "clients" on Facebook and after I have found them, then gone on to check pictures and family members on their accounts. MySpace lets you search more thoroughly. For example, once you have found all the Bill Williams, you can then filter them by sex, age and location.

Don't forget Classmates.com. When I have a maiden name for a birth mother I check there first to see if I can find a married name, or if I am looking for someone who may have changed their name. It is very helpful when you know a last name and general age and general area where they might have gone to school. The advanced search on Classmates is quite helpful.

If you are the one trying to be found, be sure and put yourself on these sites. Include pictures and a little story about your search. Someone may find you this way.

Good luck with your search