Search Overview
- Access to Adoption Records
- Search Overview
- Search Tips
- Search & Reunion eBook
Getting started with search is the biggest hurdle. This overview is intended to help you consider the many options available, from the first decision to search to taking your petition to the courts if necessary, to obtain information.
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- Make the decision to search
It's important to remember that search is your decision to make, and you don't need to justify that decision to anyone.
- First Steps to Take in Search
Once you make the decision to search, there are several things you might want to do as first steps.
- Gather information
New searchers are now faced with perhaps one of the most difficult stages in the search process: the beginning.
- Find and Use Reunion Registries
What they are, how they work, and where to find them.
- Obtain Adoption Records
- Birth Certificates: In any adoption-related search, birth certificates help establish a starting point.
- Laws Regarding Access to Adoption Records: Alabama, Alaska, Kansas, New Hampshire, and Oregon are "open records states," meaning that adult adoptees can receive copies of original documentation about their adoptions just by completing an application process. Other states may also provide for the release of original information with some restrictions.
- Petitioning the Court: Petitioning the court to open your records is something every adoptee should try.
- Birth Certificates: In any adoption-related search, birth certificates help establish a starting point.
- Share Your Story
Telling others about your search is not only a great way to release some of the pent-up emotion, and share the outcome of your search, but your story could also provide much-needed suggestions for others.
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Visitor Comments
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Adding your comments contributes to the adoption community. Please keep all comments on topic and civil. Visitors are invited to comment and vote for or flag comments based on appropriateness and helpfulness. All comments must adhere to our commenting rules and are subject to moderation.
Arline Hunter
- 2 months ago
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Alert Adoptees,! please use your own opinions when it comes to someone telling you to wait ,don't rush,right-Not at all .People past 50 are in the process of aging and it keeps moving ,noe of us like it but thats life.Many mothers age and die way before their adoptees si searching not thinking they would be permently gone when they decided to search.A person that tells you to wait is not in your shoes and are not on the same page ,they don't have a clue unless they are an adoptee them selves,even the ap's that raised you the adoptee is not maybe thinking you need your records and they are critical ask the surgeon general,he said having your med history can save your life,all your 1st mothers blood with your 1st father both have every thing you are made of including the (primal wound)separation from 1st mom,mothers mught not be able to reach you not having high tech and searchers leaving her clueless,most every mother in the eorld loves their newborn and never forgets ,Her.
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