Adoption Reunion and DNA

I have been postponing writing on this subject for some time until I decided just how to handle this. I have been recruited to work on DNA matching for adoptees. This is a pretty complicated issue. It is not just a matter of get a DNA test, find your birth parents.

For those without computer skills and the ability or willingness to grasp scientific concepts this is a major hurdle to overcome. Part of the problem is that there are only a few very overworked search angels doing this. There are two yahoogroups - AdoptionDNA and DNA-Newbie that can help answer questions and guide you but for the timid this can be overwhelming,

Several of us have been pressuring the DNA testing companies to supply more tools and interpretations of the data. Some are coming and I have no doubt that in the future there will be more tools. However, as of today they are not there.

The tests I have been working with are tests on autosomal DNA. For this I recommend testing with FamilyTree DNA. There are two major companies involved in the testing, Ancestry.com is also entering the field. You do not want to just choose the cheapest available company for this. You want one that has a significantly large database of testers to match your test against. I choose Family Tree DNA, despite the fact that they have a smaller database than 23andme for the following reason which I feel is significant. Many of the testers in 23andme are there for medical predictor tests and are not interested in responding to adoptees looking for ancestry information. It can be very frustrating to see that you have matches to people and to not be able to get them to respond to give you the information you need to make any connection. You will definitely get more matches there, but I suggest testing with Family Tree DNA first.  A test costs about $300 They occasionally go on sale. A male adoptee can try a Y-DNA test and/or a Family Finder test which tests autosomal DNA. A female can have the Family Finder test. Y-DNA only passes from male to male, but autosomal is passed by both sexes,. This is on the cutting edge of DNA science and there are still lots of things to work out. If you have Ashkenazi heritage, then the results can be less clear. The autosomal testing which I work with , identifies "cousins" who are related. This is a bit of a misnomer as one would expect one cousin to be related to another. This is not always the case. "Cousins" are labeled with a degree of distance prediction which can range from 1st cousin on up. Anything past 4th cousin can be problematical as the reliabilty decreases with distance.

The idea is that one takes two cousins who are related to you and to each other and who share significantly long DNA segments on the same chromosome. After securing a family tree (which rules out other adoptees for the most part), then you look for common ancestors (intersections) on these trees. Theoretically you then trace down the possible descendants from there and find your line. This is very difficult (read impossible) if you have no information on your parentage at all. Also most of these ancestries are further back than the prediction so a fourth cousin, which is most probable, is probably a 5th or 6th cousin in actuality. This means that the common ancestor is in the 17th or 18th century. In these days, there were usually very big families so tracing down the branches is most difficult. Many family trees cannot be extended fully to this era..

Here is the good news. More will be coming and you can in fact collect family information that will be of use then and that helps you understand your ancestry now.

I am working on several cases, currently with two of them, I have a target (a family name or enough information on the person that I may be fortunate enough to identify them). I am going to discuss a different search where I do not have any of this information.

This search involves a woman from Texas who has no confirmed birth information. Her birth information is missing or falsified. We are not even 100% sure of the birth date. So far I have been able to identify the family line from one side of her family (we think it is the maternal side, there is no way to predict from the data). We are looking for those we think may be closer relatives for additional DNA testing to confirm this. On this side of the family we had two predicted second cousins which helped us zero in on the line. On the other side of the family,we have mostly 3rd and 4th cousins so we are only able to identify ancestors so far. Matches come  in all the time, so this will change. In the meantime, I have been able to construct a family tree of hundreds of ancestors. She now knows that her family mostly came to this country from England to Isle of Wight or Henrico County Virginia. They remained there for a generation or two and spread out into the rest of Virginia and North Carolina. Many of these ancestors followed Daniel Boone up into Kentucky. These were mostly the second or younger sons who did not inherit the plantations. Her relatives then came from Kentucky and Virginia to Texas to settle yet another frontier.

For this adoptee, this has been a big deal. She says it proves that she did not drop from the sky. It gives her a deeper identity.

This is the result of several hundred hours of research. It is not easy, but this sort of information is there. If these are your expectations, please test and go for it. The more people who test, the more possibility we have of matches. I recently found out that my brother had done the health testing at 23andme and predictably was not answering relationship queries. I am taking care of that and also making sure that our extensive New England genealogy is available for matching. Results from 23andme can be ported to ftDNA for a fee so I am doing that. This is definitely the wave of the future and you can get it on it if you are open to learning and have the right expectations.

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The Role of DNA in Birth Family Searches

Many adoptees who had exhausted other avenues for finding birth families, have been turning to DNA testing. The science is still new but can give important clues as to one's heritage. In additional to identifying people who are different degrees of "cousin" matches, it also can give the adoptee information on ethic heritage as well.


The two largest DNA companies for this purpose are FTDNA and 23andme. For this, it is beneficial to have a company that has a lot of tests recorded so that your DNA can be matched with as many others as possible. Recent tools have been developed that let you use the information from one of these services in the other. Since each service checks on on different markers, the results will be different and a comparison the two sets of results can be beneficial. 


After testing and getting results joining a forum, such as the yahoo group AdoptionDNA can be helpful as advice is freely shared among members of the group.


As more testing is done, your results are updated so over time you get more and more information. Either of these services can advise you as to what tests you should get.


You will expect to see results come back with indications of 2nd, 3rd, 4th cousins, etc. Also important is the length. Regarding FTDNA results, both the TOTAL amount of shared DNA and the LONGEST BLOCK are important, but it is the longest block that is more indicative of a more recent connection.  For example, a person could have lots of little pieces of shared DNA, depending on how DNA combines over many years-many generations, but not any large shared block, so the most recent common shared ancestor may not be as recent. A larger shared block of DNA means a more recent shared common ancestor.  Usually a longest shared block of over 10-12.cM is considered most significant for considering a closer common connection. 


There are a number of online tutorials to help you understand how this works and the folks on the forum will also help guide you through this. 


Exploring these relationships is a lot of work, but when you have no more information, it is another avenue to explore.

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Back at Last - Have You Thought About Your Library As A Resource?

I had a long vacation and just did not get back into the blog writing groove.
Have you thought about the resources your local and university library have for you. I use them a lot.
Local Library Resources -
My local library - King County Library System in Washington has hundreds of data bases. Many that with your library card id you can just log in and use. A few that because of licensing you have to go in to use.
The is usually a category list and many databases under each one. Of particular note is:
Ancestry.com (you usually have to go to the library to use this one)
Newspaper archives including state wide newspapers not found elsewhere.
Obituaries
Heritage Quest
New York Times Historical Articles 1857-2001
19th Century Newspapers
World Wide Vital Records
American Indian History and Culture
and many more sources.

In the University of Washington Library you can search on the UW collections but also on universities world wide. I have found this particularly useful for college yearbooks and masters theses.

The best part of most library websites is the ability to ask a librarian a question and receive a fairly quick response. Some libraries even have chat facilities. They can tell you where to find resources - I recently found that there are commencement lists of UW classes, they will usually look things up and copy material for you - sometimes there is a small fee for material and very occasionally for hourly cost, but they have always been very reasonable.

Most libraries maintain obituaries of people in their area. The Rochester NY library for example has life event lists where volunteers have taken births, deaths and marriages from newspapers and made a large database. It is worth contacting a library in an area you are working on to see what additional resources they have and if you are not a member of that library ask if there is a way you can get access to the information.

Librarians are for the most part great researchers. Use their skills.

Until next time.
Diane

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The Courage to Search

When someone finally reaches out and makes the search commitment, I understand that it is a decision not lightly taken.

It takes a lot of courage to really bite the bullet. We see a lot of people on lists who are lurking trying to get up that courage. In looking, you are really exposing yourself to that fear of rejection again. Is the hope of discovering the truth of your birth family worth the risk? People who have even found things that they do not like, being born in jail, parents deceased, drug use, etc., say that knowing is better than not knowing. That there is a certain peace and completeness to their life having found out.

Of course, we have lots of good reunions as well.

I search even though I am not one of the adoption triad, because I feel that this country treats adoptees unfairly. I do not think that anyone should be discriminated against by the government; adoptees and also birth parents definitely are. I have truly enjoyed doing my family genealogy. It is important for me to know where I came from. Adoptees do not have that option. I sometimes give adoptees the start of a family tree once I resolve the identity problem.

Having medical information is becoming more and more important.

But what actually spurs me the most is that nobody should have these things withheld from them.

So for those of you lurkers, dive in. It is YOUR information, you deserve to have what everyone else has in the way of access and rights.

I wish there was no need for adoption, but as long as there is, I hope to get many more calls that say “for the first time I saw someone who looks like me”.

This was written and posted on nwsar@yahoogroups.com. This is a list dedicated to helping people in the Pacific Northwest and California who are looking to reunite with birth family members.

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Another Reunion Search Story

It has been a while since I posted. This is an older case, but still one of my favorite. I thought I had found her mother and then waited 3 hours to hear from her. I picked up the phone to hear - "I just got off a 3 hour phone call with my mother!" Here is Polly Jones' story in her own words.

I have always known I was adopted.  My name is Polly Jones and I am 56. I was born October 10, 1954 in San Francisco.  After many years of waffling, trying to decide, do I look or don't I for my birth Mother.  I was adopted when I was only a few weeks old through The Children's Home Society and raised by the best parents and a loving sister who is 8 years older.  But as I got older, I got curious.  As an adult, I had decided to search and got some information from the Children's home.  My family name was Sirak and all were healthy.  My birth mother was 26 when I was born.  I also tried a search company Omnitrace who also gave me some information, I was born Suzanne Maire Ryles.  They had told me there were many daughters in the family and all close in age so they did not know which one gave birth to me.  These bits of information were very exciting to know. 

Then one day in August 2008, I was looking for a Yahoo Group and my search brought the list up alphabetically and the 1st one was Adoption Search Angels.... that had to be a sign...I searched the site and found that people wrote the information about themselves or a person they were searching for and one of the Angels took that information and really dug deep into their resources and found answers from the entries I was reading.   I took the chance.  I put in everything I had gathered and pushed the 'enter' button,,, and waited... It was not more than an hour and I had my angel, Diane Harman-Hoog.... I was ecstatic that my story was actually going to be researched. 

We communicated daily about information she had found, people I needed to call to find the right Sirak family.  She gave me so many leads to call to try to find family dynamics that could fit my situation.  I was no nervous making those calls.  All the people I called were very helpful and curious about what I was doing... all wished me good luck and gave me information on their Sirak family,,,that was my part of the search.  Added into my Angel mix was Diane's friend, Marilie Auger who did a lot of the history of the family, newspaper articles, obituaries and marriages in the Sirak family. 

Then that fateful day, after 2 weeks of emails and phone calls, I got multiple emails and calls from Diane and I knew something had been discovered. .  She was pretty sure she had found the right Sirak family and my mother's name is JoAnne. She is the oldest of 5 children, 1 younger sister 4 brothers. She gave me phone number to call in Florida  Now I had jumping beans inside.  What if I found her?  What would her reaction be?  Growing up, I always had one statement that I wanted to tell my birth mother.  "I was raised by a great family. This is what I always wanted you to know."   As I got older, I wanted her to know I have 2 daughters and a granddaughter. 

I called the number with shaking hands and it rang and rang and I got a generic answering machine.  This was not something you leaving and a message.  I called over 2 days and got the same machine.  I asked Diane what should I do.  She said to call her brother.  OMG!!  So I called James Sirak,  he answered.  I could barely speak. 

"I said my name is Polly Jones and I was working on a genealogy search for a client and I was looking for the Sirak family that has 2 daughters and 5 son's.  (we found out another brother had been born after I was)  Is this your family dynamics?"  "Yes it is." James replied.  "I am looking for the oldest sister and if I could have her name?"  James said "No, but if you give me your information, I will have her call you."  So I gave him my information and told him Thank You very much and wondered,,, will she call?  That was the longest 3 minutes of my life.  My phone rang and it was her.  She said "As soon as Jimmy told me there was a call from from San Francisco, she knew it was me." I gave her my original message after all these years and 3 hours later we were still talking...  I found out where my green eyes came from, her.  She and her husband, who had passed 4 years before, had 5 children, 3 daughters and 2 sons.  Their middle daughter has my same birth date, 4 years later.  All her girls were 2 years apart including me.  Now I as the oldest of 6... How cool!!!   All of her children have children so my gut feeling that I had siblings was true.  We said "I Love You" so many times during that 1st 3 hour conversation.  She emailed me her picture and I did the same.  Oh how we looked alike... Finally I have a family I resemble, and also for my girls.   We found out so much about each other.  She lives in Tennessee,  but she was in Florida when she got pregnant and came to San Francisco to stay with an Aunt and Uncle.  After I was born, she stayed in San Francisco, got a job and met her husband, who was from Salinas.  After they were married on October 29th, 1955, their 1st daughter Jenny, was also born in San Francisco.  October 29th is also the same date my adopted parents were wed in 1944.  After the earthquake in 1957, there left San Francisco.  JoAnn asked me how I got the name Polly from Suzanne?  My parents had changed it to Polly Ann.  Like me, we have thought about each other every day,, wondering.  Now that was all over.

Within the next month, JoAnne had told her children, about me.  They were shocked that she could keep the secret for 55 years.  Jenny told her "Where is she?  Let's go meet her"  So last September,  JoAnne and Jenny came to San Francisco for our reunion.  The first meeting at the airport, was indescribable.  We couldn't stop hugging and smiling.  It was looking at myself!  We are so much alike, same temperament, same sence of humor, same eyes.  It as spending time with my best friend.  We spent hour talking and trying to catch up on everything we had not said on the phone and almost daily emails.  Jenny arrived a couple of days later and it started over again.  We look so much alike, there was no doubt we were sisters.  

We spent time in the city, finding the apartment the 3 of them had lived in, the church where JoAnne and Richard had been married in, just reliving where they worked and walked as they got to know each other.  Pictures galore.  We had a story to tell and we did just that.  To the  people on the Cable Car, waitresses, busboys,  not every one, but a few chosen ones who were all so happy for us.  I remember a young busboy at a restaurant in Tiburon, we talked to, it brought tears to his eyes.  He had never hard anything like our story.  We were so touched by his emotion. 

We 3 all text, and email and keep up with all of the going's on... I plan to go to Tennessee this year to meet the rest of the family.  Jenny travels a lot in her profession, so I am planning a trip to Colorado where she is currently working in February or March. 

During one of our conversations while we were walking around, Mom was talking about telling her kids about me and Jenny said something about Mom spilling the beans.  I asked if I was the beans, Yes,,that was me.  So she gave me the nickname, of course, Beans.  I love it... 

Suzanne Marie Ryles, aka Polly Jones

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One Child's Solution to the Family Tree Project Problem

Marianne recently completed her search after many years. She had to get the assistance of the state as an emergency medical search. From information provided by the intermediary the birth family was able to contact her. She has 7 siblings on her mother's side alone! They have even met in person and Marianne is receiving some answers about her medical and family history.
When I started working with her on her search over a year ago, I told her I would do some genealogy searching for her when we found her family. I was able to fulfill that promise and just sent her 15 generations of her family history. This is her reply:

"WOW!  THANK YOU so much!   From a twig to a TREE!   When I was a little girl in 4th grade I got my first F.  "ROOTS" was in full bloom on national television, and everyone wanted to suddenly find theirs!  Our teacher assigned us to research and write out our family tree, and do some sort of art project to go with it. 

Well I went home and told my adoptive parents about this assignment, and they happily shared information about their family.  They took out the family photo's and showed me their grandparents, aunts, uncles great aunts etc...It was all very interesting and fulfilling-for them.  I meanwhile, felt more and more alien with each generation they discussed. 

All of a sudden at the age of 10, I felt more alone then ever. 

I put together a very nice report,(in my opinion). I took a small fallen branch with still smaller branches, and made photo ornaments to hang on each branch, with my mother and fathers pictures at the top.  I turned this in with a written report, citing when and where people were born,etc.   The teacher had us all read our reports out loud.  When it came to my turn she told me that mine was incomplete.  She would let me do mine the next day when I had finished it.  She wanted me to put MY info on my tree. 

Well at this point, call it rebellion-call it feeling very strange trying to be someone you truly were not, call it whatever you will, as I STILL don't know what to call it- I had no place of birth, my birth certificate was blank on identifying information.  I was always introduced by my parents as their adopted daughter,  When I would ask about my ethnic origins my  (a)parents would tell me, that I was something -ish, they didnt remember.  This made me feel like anything that mattered to me or my identity was insignificant in comparison to my adoptive identity.  (Yes- i was 10 and yes- I had these feelings)

 I was really 'feeling adopted' with this "ROOTS" assignment.  Okay Teacher-you want MY family tree, your gonna get it!   I turned in my family tree, as I saw it.  I took a coffee can, painted it pink, filled it with sand and stuck a single twig in it, with my picture atop. My report read something like, My name is Marianne Biondo.  I don't know what name I was born with.  I dont know where I was born, and I think my birthday is right, but I'm not sure.  I don't know where my roots lie.  I am a something-ish.  This is all I know about my roots.

 I got an F.  But even today I am proud of that F, because that was all I truly knew about my "roots".  That F was honest with no bells or whistles."

I thought many of you adoptees would identify, but Marianne had the courage at 10 to speak out. It is incredible even today how insensitive teachers can be on that issue. My grandchildren still get assigned that project and I always wonder if the teachers have any idea how much they hurt the adopted ones.

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From A Birth Parent - Why Your Parent Has Not Searched for You

The following is submitted by Pris Sharp. Pris is a mother of loss as well as mother of an adoptee. She is a highly respected Search Angel and is associate with the yahoo groups "theregistry" and "nyadoptees" who can assist you in your search. Pris actually wrote this article last year and I have been sending it t people who asked me this question.


 Here come the Holidays again.  I know many of you become depressed that your birth family is apparently not looking for you.  But, there are so many reasons why and not one of them means your mother doesn't love you or yearn for you.  Most likely your mother married and/or moved away and does not know about the state and on-line registries.  Perhaps she never told anyone, as we were counseled to do, and does not want to risk exposure.  More than 90% of the mothers we find do not search or register anywhere; those who say they wanted to had no idea how to go about it, where to start.  Many of them are afraid because we were told that once we had relinquished our babies we had no more rights ever, for eternity; some of us were even threatened with criminal prosecution if we ever tried to find our children or interfere with their new lives.  We were constantly reminded of what terrible, immoral women we were, that we would be shunned and shamed if people knew, even our own children.  I was told, "Don't ever tell anyone what you've done, especially not a prospective husband, because no decent man will want to have anything to do with you!"
  These were all means adoption agencies and adoptive families used to pry our babies away from us and keep us away from you.  It was a cruel, vicious business that has and will impact everyone for many years -- mothers and children especially.  I don't know of one mother who came away emotionally unscarred.  It lasts a lifetime; there is no relief -- not even having more children repairs the hole our baby lost to adoption leaves.
  Most of us slunk back home in shame and fear and tried to heal and gradually got on with our lives.  I moved 3,000 miles away because everywhere I went, whenever I would see a baby about my daughter's age, I would begin crying.  Some of us went on to prove the old adage, "The best revenge is a good life."  We became successful businesswomen, super-achievers, as if to say, subconsciously, "I am *not* a bad person and I will not accept your blame!"  Others could not recover from the trauma and sunk into depression, alcoholism, drugs.  A very few became what I call "serial birthmothers" -- getting involved in more inappropriate, doomed relationships , having one or more babies and giving them up to adoption.  These women tend to be scarred with a lot of guilt and definitely will not search. 
  So many mothers, when they are found, say, "I thought you would be mad at me.  I didn't think you would want to have anything to do with me."
  This is what we have to keep reminding the NY and other state legislatures when they claim original birth certificates (OBCs) of adoptees are sealed "to protect the privacy of the mother."  It's a privacy cruelly *enforced* on us, never asked for, never wanted. 
  The best thing you can do when your search seems to be stalled is get involved in the efforts to restore OBCs to adoptees and tell them when they try to tell you "Your birthmother wants privacy" that you want to hear it from her own mouth and don't need anyone presuming to speak for her, thank you very much!

For more information on adoption and how mothers were treated in the “Baby Scoop Era” (end of World War II to 1972), go to www.babyscoopera.com

For information on how to get involved in legislative efforts to unseal OBCs, go to:

In NY State:  www.unsealedinitiative.org
In PA: Pennsylvania Adoptee's Rights www.adopteerightspa.org or on Facebook or http://groups.google.com/group/AdopteeRightsPA
In NJ:  NJCare on Facebook or http://nj-care.org/


Search on Yahoo Groups for other geographically specific groups Theregistry will help anywhere.

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The Search is Over - Greg's Story

The success of Greg's search was greatly due to his perseverance to get the truth. Greg is his birth name. It took many pieces to get Greg's answers and help from all over the United States. Greg asked if he could tell his story in his own words as he wants to share how he feels about having been an adopted child with no answers. So here it is:


The search began twelve years ago, was revisited six years ago, and concluded this month. The big question that needs to be answered, " Why search at all?" Pragmatically thinking in my case I was chosen by people who wanted me. They were able to want me because the state had me, and the state had me because the people that conceived me didn't want me.

Where did the search start? Six months ago with the registry of New York, a Yahoo group. Six years ago with the Alma society. Twelve years ago with the Hugs organization. But the search really started in a doctors office in Oakland where I was being tested for allergies. I was 5 and kinda hanging out in the kids toy area of the lobby. 40 years ago a popular toy was the wood bench that you would fit different shaped articles in and then bop it with a hammer to get them through the opening. As I was looking trying to get a full set (communal toys are often incomplete, remember that phrase) There were about 3 different "sets" but none were complete, so I decided to make a set, and was able to save one piece. There was a circle shape in the 'bench' but no dowel, there was however a star shaped dowel that would fit within the confines of the shape. It worked, the other kid in the area said, "You fixed it! Can I play with it?" I handed it over, went and sat down, and waited for my turn in the doctors office. To the kid it worked, to me it did also, just not correctly.

Was I looking for a correct fit? No, I know the sacrifices and the love of my family that raised me. I also knew the shortsightedness and quick fix mentality of the family that abandoned me. Please do not be offended, the truth is the truth, and no amount of political correctness will reveal more truth than the blunt honest truth. Just like communal toys, this communal child was incomplete. I do not know why, but I knew the difference between a volunteer (the family that raised me) and an obligation (the family that abandoned me) I knew and saw through my friends and family that there was something a little more that there was blood in the game, And whether real or imagined I thought that the bloodline made a difference.

The first and second searches were wrong time, wrong place types of deals, I was often hooked up with "free or low cost persons" who guaranteed contact, but ignored the basic non-identifying information, often telling me "your mother's name was princess snowflake, and your father was Shaka Zulu" or something that ridiculous. It was an ever frustrating experience, and although I do not fault people for making a living, I didn't think that someone should charge an illegitimate child to find out who his parents were. Really, hasn't the child been through enough? One of the pieces of information mentioned the birthmother had moved to New York. So 6 months ago, I joined the NY group. I was helped by several people most notably and most helpful Diane Harman-Hoog.

The secret to the search is fresh eyes and pointed questions. If you paint a government worker into a corner with information about your search, they will often reveal more than just the simple information that you requested. One of those things was a psychological profile done 9 months after my birth. The psychiatrist listed my first and middle name on the evaluation, and mothers maiden name. This was huge information, because in prior searches the birth mother and birthfathers last names were transposed. The middle name was also key, because it was the same as the birthfather's middle name. Through the process of elimination, we were able to crosscheck hundreds of bits of information and narrow it down to 12 names on the birthmothers side, and 4 on the birthfathers side. Then 2 months passed with nothing. Two months compared to 43 years seems like not a lot of time, and it wasn't but it felt like an eternity. We had a stalemate, then a searcher who seemingly was throwing spaghetti off the wall e-mailed me the name of my birthfather, I looked at my notes, and the state of birth, the date of birth, the age of his father and time of death all were wrong, But the middle name was right. So I called for a week, he finally answered, I believed that he knew who I was, and when he answered he confirmed it. From him we got the first name of the birthmother and were able to close the search in about 12 hours time.

What did I hope to get out of this? I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that I wanted to be wanted by the ones who were supposed to have wanted me. So that would be a fairy tale ending. We live in the real world sometimes its great, sometimes its less than that. For now I'll have to be content with the star shaped dowel through the circle. I know plenty of people got their noses out of joint when Rules of Engagement made a comment about "used babies" I didn't. That statement didn't offend me, in fact it kinda described how I felt. Thank you for your time, and good luck.

Greg found his birth father with one adopted son and a daughter in Utah. Greg particularly feels pain that his father rejected him but yet went on to adopt another son. From my point of view, perhaps it was an attempt to make amends in some sort of way.

His mother was a nurse and was tracked down through rather sketchy information on his non-ID as well as through a news article about her getting her nurses cap at a ceremony. He also has two male siblings from her. She died in 1990. Greg was able to get a picture of her by asking the nursing school if they had one and they were kind enough to send it. She was a beautiful woman.

The most recent development was that Greg was able to find her nursing school roommate and learn a little more about his mother. She was also found through a news article.

Please note that Greg kept up the search despite the fact that his parents had two of the most common last names which slowed us down for quite a while. He will always grieve for the mother he never knew and for what might have been.

As a curious last note, Greg lives quite near me, far from where he was born in California. I used to live even closer to him when he was a young boy and his soccer team played my son's soccer teams. I hope to actually meet him one day.

Greg was willing to come out and tell us just how he felt and feels in the hope that other adoptees will identify with his feelings and also know that many searches are solved.. I would like a birth parent to share their feelings as well in a future blog.

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Help Emergency Locators Find Matches for Medical Emergencies

EMLA is a volunteer organization that specializes in helping find family members when a medical emergency is at hand. Some examples are when a donor is needed or when an adoptee has a medical condition and the physicians need family medical information.
Thanks to short sighted legislation that seals adoption records from even adult adoptees, 5 million or more Americans do not have a family medical history available.
One of our own Search Angels has just found her birth sister and has learned that her birth brother died from ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). In Googling the hereditary component of the disease I found the following write up

Q. Is ALS hereditary?
A. ALS is directly hereditary in only a small percentage of families. The majority of patients with adult-onset ALS (90%) have no family history of ALS, and present as an isolated case. This is called sporadic ALS (SALS), and although there is likely a genetic predisposition involved, SALS is not directly inherited in a family. Rare exceptions are when familial ALS (FALS) is masked due to an incomplete family history, such as if the patient is adopted or the patient's parents died at a young age. The remaining 10% of persons with ALS have a close second family member with ALS, which is referred to as familial ALS (FALS).
Currently the best tool to distinguish between SALS and FALS is the family history. A neurologist or genetic counselor will ask whether anyone else has ever been diagnosed with ALS, and if anyone else in the family had progressive walking or speech problems. If so, they will likely ask additional questions to see if the health problems were related to ALS or any number of other causes. They will also inquire about the ages that family members passed away to see if any close relatives passed away at a young age, meaning that a long health history is not available. It is very common to have limited information on one's family, but most families can still be reassured since the majority of instances of ALS are not hereditary. Older relatives are often good sources of family history information, and medical records can often be obtained with the help of a hospital's medical release form.

There are many diseases where the hereditary component is much more crucial to treating or diagnosing the disease.

Adoptees should not have to die because they were adopted. Help EMLA underwrite the costs of subscription databases by buying their cookbook. If like me, you do not cook, Joan, the moderator of several reunion adoption lists, suggests that you buy it to give to your lawmakers who have refused to pass adoption record reform laws. It contains not only recipes but heartwarming reunion stories.

EMLA posts this information in their flyer;
The Angel Food Volume II, our second cookbook of favorite recipes from the
EMLA! Search Angels, associates, & friends, is the perfect gift for your
family members & friends. The Angel Food II cookbook contains over 700
delicious recipes, cooking tips, successful reunion stories & more. 100% of
proceeds from the sale of this cookbook go to funding AFS/EMLA
http://adoption- free-search. org/ so we
can continue to help adoptees and birth parents with medical issues.


The cookbook can be purchased by emailing
npeuraharju@yahoo.com
The cost of the cookbook is $10.00 plus $5.00 postage in the US.

All money goes directly towards covering the cost of databases and other computing services. Our Search Angels on many boards use these services to help you. Please help us continue to afford it. All of the search angels donate money as well as their time. Please contribute so we can provide these and more outstanding services for you

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A Thrilling Search - Patty's Search

Patty has been searching for her birth family for several years. All her life she had wondered about her birth family. She loves her adoptive family, but for an adoptee, there often seems to be the feeling of a disconnect in one’s life. Any one who does genealogy should understand this need to know, but with an adoptee it is even more urgent as an adoptee has no family medical history to report. In the area of something less tangible, unless an adoptee has children, they have never seen someone who looks like them. Remember the thrill you had when you saw a picture of Great-Aunt Sarah and realized you had her smile or the inner grimace when you had Uncle Roscoe’s ears? Those identifications are all part of the human experience that defines our existence. In addition, in most states, an adoptee has no access to an original birth certificate or to information that identifies her origins. There are a number of legal ramifications involved, but why should this significant minority of 5 – 6 million people be denied what every other citizen has?
Patty like hundreds of other people discovered Search Angels. These are people who donate many hours of their time and other resources to reuniting families separated by adoption. Patty was able to get some information on her birth mother’s name and eventually a possible birth name for her father. She contacted a few close relatives of her mother’s and was shocked to find that she was born in prison. An aunt by marriage told her that she had heard that her mother killed a man in a poker game and was sentenced to 5 years in the Kentucky Women’s Correctional Institute. It turned out that her mother had died at the age of 66 in Indiana.
Patty felt discouraged and even though she had become a leading Search Angel herself, she dropped her own search to help hundreds of other people find their birth families. At the same time, her mind kept coming back to her own search. Like many adoptees, she had fear about what she would find. She would make jokes about what she had found and used the experience to assure others tht she understood and that knowing was better than not knowing.
In the world of adoptions, there is such a thing as a non-identifying document. While the people who are entitled to them vary from state to state and the content is dependent on the state laws as well as the mood of the person who extracts the information, this is a document available to many adoptees. Patty had always advised people she worked with to order theirs, but Patty had never had the nerve to order her own. A few months ago she did just that and was shocked and disappointed that it contained far less information than she already knew. This made no sense since she was born in state custody. She shared that information with her fellow search angels and one of them decided that Patty needed some answers.
Search Angel Diane is a genealogist who came into the field of adoption reunion through trying to find a cousin’s birth child. She is passionate about the belief that adoptees are not treated as full citizens in this country. She donates time and money to rectifying this. Diane says:
I had no idea what I was getting into when I started looking for my cousin’s child. The impact of sealed records on a person’s life had never occurred to me. When I heard of people dying because they could not get their medical history, stuck in another country because the amended birth certificate given to adoptees had different information than the person’s government file, unable to participate in genealogy and to identify with the people that made up her past, I knew I had to use my computer research skills to fix what I could.
Diane had become a good on-line friend of Patty’s and when she saw the comments Patty made about her non-non-ID that she got that was basically a form letter with not much filled in, she decided that she needed to at least try to help.
She volunteered to see what she could do. She started by doing a family tree that went back many generations on Patty’s mother’s side. Her people were some of the first people to settle in Kentucky. They came from North Carolina and Virginia. Patty’s son was able to find more information about her European roots as well. After she got the mother’s side done, she made a list of possible relatives who were still alive. She also cross checked with existing family trees on ancestry.com and low and behold found a Cousin Billy also doing a genealogy on this family. They corresponded and he went to the library and sent them some news articles on the crime, on deaths in the family, a list of how all the family died who were buried in the Baker Baptist Cemetery in Crittenden County Kentucky, family pictures, marriage licenses for great grandparents, etc. Cousin Billy’s great grandfather and Patty’s great grandfather were brothers.
So the next day he went to the library, and when Patty and Diane opened up an email clipping he sent they were astounded. It was the article on Patty’s mom’s trial. She claimed that the man attacked her and that it was self defense. One of Patty’s birth brothers, Donald was a witness. She did get 2 years in prison for killing the man instead of the 5 years Patty had heard from a relative. The sweet part for Patty was that the article ended saying that the lawyers were trying to get an appeal approved so that the baby would not be born in prison. The other really, really important part is that the article gave her mother’s name as Kathleen Campbell and said that it was her third marriage. Patty had thought her father’s name was Campbell, but we had no proof. So not only was that the case, but her parents were married. The next email had an article on the death of Patty’s toddler sister a few years previously and listed the family members so we had a list of siblings. (attachments enclosed at end of article)
So here we were, her mother was not a hardened criminal, her father was a Campbell and Patty’s brother Donald was a witness and could also confirm Patty’s dad’s full name.
So we were riding high. I looked up her brother and he had died last year. He lived less than an hour from Patty. He looked like a wonderful man and his memorial site had comments from grandchildren about how they would miss him. This was an awful shock to Patty as you can imagine. She had known he had existed but had delayed contacting him. We were fortunate that his obituary listed family members. Marianne found Facebook accounts with pictures for Donald’s daughter who is the spitting image of Patty and for Patty’s birth sister, Sandra. Sandra looks more like Patty’s mother. The only person Patty had ever seen who looked like her was her granddaughter.
Patty had to wait a few days before contacting them as her emotions are fragile at the moment. However, Sandra will be able to confirm which Campbell and then she will have all of her birth family as well as genealogy. Sandra even had a picture of herself and Donald as little kids on her Facebook page.
Patty’s mother died in 1993 and we feel so sad for her. She had a hard life but I have talked to a number of family members who have said that she was a considerate person sending Christmas presents and crocheting a scarf for her sister. As the Search Angel, think Patty would have liked her. Patty is a fun loving and generous soul which I expect she got from both her birth mother and adoptive family. If Patty’s father is still alive he would be 89, so he is probably gone, but she has a large family of siblings and nieces and nephews out there to get acquainted with.
Kat liked what she saw from her point of view of growing up in a poor farmer/coalminer family of what she perceived as the good life and enjoyed drinking, partying and playing cards. She ended her life as a waitress. She had married again and we believe she may have had another son. We are checking on this now.
Patty is also dealing with the fact that there was and is mental illness, such as bi-polar disease in the family as well as the fact that for the last several generations, family members died very young. Even the ones who had left the environment seem to have been affected. As of her great-grandfather’s generation, the life span seems to be what one might expect for a family in this environment, but after that point, the age of death is low with many childhood deaths. However, now she has that information and her new found Cousin Billy has been finding death certificates so we can see the cause of death. Now her doctors can be told. Billy has our honorary Search Angel award for his willing assistance.
So the moral is don’t delay contacting people and if one approach does not work try another. I have solved several searches recently through those family trees so check them out.

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