Genealogy Chat

Wondered what your thoughts were to trying to contact with my adopted sibling? The SW advised me that she had never sought contact so I thought that she may not even know that she is adopted. She would be 35 now.

nudged for Emmy baby and have sent you a PM

Found the site again i mentioned earlier, adoptionsearchreunion(.)org(.)uk. remove brackets. From what i can make out the biggest change is ANY blood relative,parent(s),grandparents,siblings,uncles and aunts can apply for an intermediary to assist them in making contact with an adopted child.It does also say that a blood relative may seek assistance even if other relatives have requested no contact,however in those cases it looks like a more involved process by the intermediary provider and not a certainty that a request for search help would be granted. The local authority is not compelled to provide an intermediary service but is at least required to provide information about providers of the service. The only thing i can't see is if an adopted person has the same right to register for no contact as a blood relative. I stand to be corrected on that point,should anyone know differently.

what difference on 'real terms' are the new laws going o make to adoptees/birth parents ? Anyone know? Alice

Just had another thought about this,would a 'no contact' entry be reversible? Picture the plausible scenario, Birth mother was married and had a child but the father is not her husband.The husband knows he is not father and by whatever means makes mother a no contact required person,even though this is not her wish.Some years later the husband dies,the mother due to circumstance (the bereavement,financial or residential problems or just the world we live in)does'.t reverse the no contact option. She may be open to the contact with a long lost child,but have lost the oppurtunity. I foresee many cases where this may happen. Obviously there are cases where BM would want to remain beyond reach. Yes there are two sides to every coin,but does this seem like progress? Glen

I did visit a site a few days ago from a link on a post,somethings gone pop and it's not in my history now,but it was something like http//adoptionsearchregister. and i can't remember the rest. It does contain some info about the law change but i think everything still has to be finalised on the site.I do recall seeing a section where if you had a child adopted to another family you are able to register a no contact wanted entry,and any future contact from an adopted child is then blocked. I know that in many cases BM does not want to be contacted but as things stand at the moment surely we have a better system than the method proposed. The 'official' method at present seems to be the fairest as intermediary people should really make contact,unofficially of course many adoptees use a different route,some with success and some without,and a birth mother still retains the right to say yes or no. However would it not be better to experience that than be told that your parents had decided (possibly long before)they did not want contact? It's obviously a very emotive issue for everyone concerned,but to find that no contact wanted through the 'new' system is going to be a harsh way to find out?

to Jess BBBD re law change Does anyone know precisely how it will work. I thought that things could already be 'done' through a third party i.e. Social workers, Norcap or similar. Am I being 'thick' - how is it going to be better - is it going to be better? I spent some time on the 'am I the only one concerned' thread last week. Have now been reading up some of this thread which looks as if it is very helpful - so many sad stories as well as good ones. To the contributor who talks about the wrong date birthday card..... My mother - gone now - seemed to have no memory of the name she had given my full sister - I never did get to the bottom of it - I had been told one name by a neighbour, but the birth cert. had a totally dif. name. Mother simply insisted that the times had been so awful that she had blotted out everything. She did not even mention another younger half.bro. who turned up several years after mum had died, so missed her altogether, much to his distress. If she had told me about him I could have looked for him myself. As it was he was very shocked to find that he had numerous 'halves', both older and younger than him. He had thought of himself as the once off mistake of an innocent young girl. I have put out dozens of messages trying to find my full sister, some of you may have seen them - all I can say is that I do not want to misuse any sites, or get us 'searchers' a bad name. But hopefully someone somewhere will make a link. My sister may not want to know, but I cannot make that judgement for her, or of her. Because I do know, the responsibility is mine to let her know that information is there if she wants it. Both of our birth parents are gone now, and if she tries to search from addresses on her original birth cert. she will now get nowhere as it is sixty years on, and there are no people left there who would have accurate information. If she searches through our mother's husband's name, she probably would get nowhere too, as he was not our father, and is also gone. There are probably more adoptees in my age group - war baby - than at any other time, so there are quite a lot of needles in this very large haystack. If you know an adoptee whose birth date is 22nd September 1945, she could be my sister. I have a copy of her birth cert. Hang in there searchers - Its thirty years now and I'm still searching.

Further to my last message, I was advised that the laws were changing re: birth family contacting adopted siblings.

Dear all, I was quite overwhelmed to read the messages below and wanted to say how fantastic I thought your idea was, is this the only website where people who have been adopted can share their thoughts, if so, I can imagine that it has proved a very valuable resource? I picked up the thread as I my Mum had a daughter adopted before I was born, I have been able to locate her records and a social worker and located her registration but as her sister I won't be able to contact her, although we think about her often. I have added her name to my family tree in the hope that maybe she will access this website but she may not know that she is adopted and her given name at birth, I live in hope that we'll be able to meet one day as I am very close to the rest of my siblings.

found your site to night and it cheered me up to see some of you have been successful in finding birth parents; up to now i have been unlucky in finding any leads even though I have names addresses and dates of birth. Some people that I have sent messages to have been really rude and then you get the opposite and the rest are really kind. Sandra

Just thought i'd throw a question in here. I have managed to contact 2 half brothers and a half sister who remained with my BM.My half brother has told me a name for my father,but none of my siblings know anything other than his name and a rumour that he served a prison sentence.We don't even know if this was prior to or after meeting my mother.All we know is that he was in a certain part of the country in early 1966. Another GR member has a trying to find post for the same name and says he had several children but never married,however i have not had a reply to my message (sent pre xmas). Can anyone suggest any tips how to try and find out any more info.Still waiting for adoption file (now 8 weeks) but might not have any info. BM passed away 15 years ago and her husband 3 years later. Fingers crossed.

Francis ~ you father was what he was surely? You now wanting to go back and try and find out who he may have been (in another life kind of thing) Wont change what he was , nor account for his behavior. You say he cut himself off from both families....Cutting himself off from his birth family wasn't optional, he was adopted and that is what it means to be adopted. How did you find out , or do you just suspect he was adopted? There is no reason on this earth why you cant find his adoptive family ~ you know his name (presumably) ..... jess x

My father died without telling me that he was adopted. I am sure he must have known and that knowledge would have contributed to his aggressive behaviour, excessive drinking and poor communication skills. He cut himself off from both his birth and adopted families and we never met. He was born in 1923 and adopted in 1927 in London, when adoption first became legal. I want to get to know my real father and I feel that if I can find out who he really was, or to meet any of his adoptive family, this will go some way to putting right the trauma that he went through in life, plus the trauma that I feel. However, the right to know who he was died with him. I think the law is wrong and that that immediate next of kin should be able to access this information from official sources. Has anyone else hit this brick wall and had any success in finding out? Please share with me. Frances now living in South Africa

I thought you all would be interested in this new website. It makes interesting reading. http://www.adoptionsearchreunion.org.uk On a personal note I have found my adopted brother after 15 years of searching for him. However, he doesn't wish contact. Cheers Gerry

Bumped for Natalie

Hi Jess, Thats what I thought, didn't think it was 'normal' reckon its being delivered by a snail and a sedated snail at that ;O) Sheila

4-6 'what' sheila? lol i cant see why it cant be applied for in the normal; way, 7 days or so from the GRO

Hi Folks, Just wanted to check something out a fellow adoptee has just ordered her original cert from Southport and has been told that she will have to wait 4-6 for this is this normal? I was able to get mine locally and my sisters were sent out no problems, just wondered if anyone else had to wait this long as GRO seem to be operating normally at the moment. Sheila p.s Happy New Year to you All!!

Hi Again Old Crone, It may be best to talk again with Carol and Billy and see what they want to do next. It would be hard for Billy if Carol goes ahead and is able to trace him, if he does not want contact, although he may come around if he knows he has been found. Did the child have a middle name if not it may be still easier to try and find a marriage for his BM and contact her. Let them mull things over and decide where they want to go from here. I would be curious to know when they obtained the birth cert though. Best Wishes Sheila

Hm! Could not get Carol today, so spoke to her daughter Anne. To my GREAT surprise, Carol already has a copy of his BC. I don't know until I speak to her, exactly when she got this copy, but it definitely does NOT mention anything about adoption! Sadly, the surname is as common as muck - not quite Smith, but almost as bad! On a hunch, I looked on Friends Reunited, and am pretty sure I have found Birth Mother - right age, right school. I shall hold this info close to my chest until I speak to Carol although I am pretty sure she would not wish to contact BM. Billy wants to 'Let Sleeping Dogs Lie'. I asked Anne what his reaction would be if his son turned up on the doorstep, would he reject him? Oh no, said Anne, its a bloke thing I think, he doesn't want Mum to do anything because he has 'dealt with the unhappiness and put it away'. So, for now I am going to find the information about the new law and give that to Carol, and see where we go from there. Thankyou Jess and Sheila for your help and interest - I will let you know what happens - I am interested to know WHEN Carol got the copy BC, as they are adamant that the boy was adopted out. Olde Crone