How to Find a Minor Child's Birth Parents
- 1). Check your adoption documents to find the names of the minor child's birth parents. If you find the name of even one parent, it can be useful while searching databases. Use the name of the birth father to conduct the search. This will bring faster results because men don't change their names, unlike women, who may have different married names. Consult database search specialists to do the search for you.
- 2). Get in touch with the adoption agency or hospital from where you adopted the child. Try to locate information regarding the child's birth parents from these sources. In many cases, such information may be denied to you without a court order. Check if these sources will provide nonidentifying information on the parents, such as religious background, ethnicity, professional life or education, which you can use to narrow your search.
- 3). Check your state's laws regarding the release of relevant adoption records. Look for the index of state laws at your local library. Get help from the librarian in locating these laws through an inter-library loan if required. Most states require a court order to open sealed adoption records. Obtaining a court order may be difficult for a lay person because of the tendency of government servants to stick to the laws that govern the process of accessing adoption records. Hire the services of an attorney to pursue this court action on your behalf. If you cannot afford high fees, get in touch with your local bar association, and find out about legal clinics that provide adoption litigation services at minimal rates.
- 4). Contact and join adoption support groups for assistance with search methods and latest information regarding current laws governing the search for birth parents. These groups will also provide the much-needed emotional support during the process of the search.
- 5). Hire the services of an adoption search consultant or assistant to help you with the search. Some support groups provide this service, too. Check if they have volunteers who take up this search, or ask for references to find a good consultant. Most consultants will charge a substantial fee for searches where you don't have the names of the biological parents.
- 6). Ask your adoption support group if it maintains a reunion registry and sign up for the same. If it doesn't, get information about how to sign up for the state's reunion registers. These registers contain relevant information regarding date and place of birth and physical descriptions and will provide good results if the birth parents of your adopted child are also registered and searching.
