One of the most common roadblocks in searching for your birth family is simply not knowing where to start.

While your heart may be brimming with hope and anticipation, your mind might be racing to find ways to piece together the often sparse information available. Oftentimes, the likelihood of being able to access your adoption records and locate more data about your biological relatives depends on the type of adoption you experienced. It can be much more challenging to find your birth parents in a closed adoption than in an open one. But what if there were voluntary adoption records you could easily access from the comfort of your own home?

Perhaps the best news you could receive once you have set out on your journey to find your biological family is that they are also out there searching for you. And that they have willingly left you their contact information in a convenient place for you to access with just a few clicks. Well, you may be delighted to learn that the Global Adoption Registry, Adopted.com, can offer you precisely that. They bring together vast numbers of people from around the world who, just like you, are hoping for adoption reconnection. And this platform is incredibly efficient at making small miracles happen simply by matching the information voluntarily (and confidentially) shared by people who are longing to find one another.

What are voluntary adoption records?

Unlike official adoption records, which are produced and stored by state institutions and can only be accessed in certain circumstances, voluntary adoption records are provided voluntarily. They are simply information offered by the members of Adopted.com regarding an adoption event they were a part of. A search profile can involve the birth name and date of the adoptee, the place of adoption, the details they possess about their birth parents and any other data that may be available. An algorithm then cross-references the records that members have volunteered, and finds matches between two or more birth relatives who have registered to the platform in search of each other. Thus, this system removes the roadblocks caused by excessive bureaucracy, making it easier for you to find adoption records online. And one of the main benefits of using Adopted.com is that any time a match is found, you can be sure that both parties are interested in reuniting with their birth family.

Hoping for an adoption reunion but don’t know where to begin? Adopted.com helps make reunions possible. Create a free profile today and take the first step toward your adoption reunion.

Adopted.com’s 10 magic questions

The story of Adopted.com began 19 years ago with our founder’s dream of allowing adoptees and their biological families to create their own safe, confidential, yet easy-to-access adoption records. This would help them find each other without having to cut through miles of bureaucratic red tape. What resulted was the largest International Online Adoption Reunion Registry in the world, with more than 1 million members and countless successful and uplifting reunion stories. Anyone can register for free to the platform and their Adopted.com journey always begins with no paperwork, but instead, 10 very easy questions that anyone can answer online.

The first thing you need to do as a newly registered member is to complete your 10-question, specifically designed form to make the most of any amount of information you may possess about your adoption and birth family. Whether you are an adoptee, a biological parent or another close birth family member, you are likely to be able to answer at least some, if not all of these questions. If you are unsure of the response, you have the option to provide multiple answers or to reply that you don’t know. Here is what the survey contains:

Questions about who you are and whom you are seeking

You will initially be asked about your family relationship with the person you are seeking (don’t worry, if you are searching for more than one relative, you will have the opportunity to fill in a different form for them as well). Then, you will need to define your role in this search - whether you are the adoptee, a birth relative searching for a child given up for adoption or someone acting on behalf of an adoptee (e.g. a parent making the query on behalf of their minor adopted child) or looking for someone who has been adopted.

Questions about the adoptee’s gender and birth date

Both the adoptee and their birth relatives are likely to know the gender the adopted child was assigned at birth, as well as the date when they came into the world. Therefore, this information can be particularly useful for the matching process. It helps filter out people who are seeking biological family members of a different gender or born at a different time. However there are many cases where a birth parent does not know the gender, and the form is able to accomodate this specific concern as well.

Questions about the time and place of adoption

Providing information regarding the date and country where the adoption took place can further narrow down the possibilities, making a potential match more accurate. Only a limited number of adoptions take place in a certain state in one day, which makes it an excellent data point. Interestingly, this system also connects people who may have been adopted out-of-state or even out of their country of birth, when they are not aware of this fact!

Questions about previous contact with your birth relative

After the adoption, you may have occasionally received communications from your birth relatives over the years or you may have even met or spoken at any point. However, for various reasons, contact may have been lost. If this is the case, it is a piece of information you both possess and it can be used to help you find each other once more. Whether or not there has been contact is one way that the results are narrowed down even further.

Space for a personal message

This is one of the most important sections of your voluntary adoption record - it is where you can briefly reach out to the one you seek and share any additional information you may possess about yourself, about them or the adoption event (e.g. names, places or intermediaries). This is not only meant to be a heartfelt greeting but also a way for your birth relatives to be sure that no mistakes were made and that you are indeed the one they have also been searching for. This also provides data that can be incredibly valuable if the other party searches by keyword, and finds a unique word such as the name of a person, city, or organization that you have included in your profile.

Once you have submitted your answers to this questionnaire, the Adopted.com proprietary algorithm will instantly cross-reference the data against those provided by other users and if it finds a full or partial match, you will be alerted immediately. You can then send your birth relative a private message and start a conversation.

Remember, if you don't wish to go further, this system even offers you the option to communicate only on the platform, and not necessarily take the connection any further if you choose not to.

What if I don’t get any matches?

If you have registered to our platform and filled in the form but no matches have been found on the spot, don’t give up hope. Adopted.com has 3 ways to search for your birth family and profile matching is merely one of them. The other two are:

  • The Namesearch feature, which allows you to search by name or other relevant data not only within our own database but in some historical records as well.

  • DNA matching, where your genes speak for themselves. To connect in this way you don’t need to know anything about your birth family, you can simply upload your DNA data from any major testing source into our system. And if any biological relatives have done the same, you will receive a lead that you can explore further.

If you have exhausted every option and are yet to find yourself closer to the reunion you seek, your journey is still far from over. Every new day brings another opportunity for your biological relatives to join our platform and be instantly matched with you. As long as your profile is active, our algorithm will always be able to find it.

In the meantime, you don’t have to weather the difficult wait by yourself - there are many others who share your experience and are here to provide mutual comfort and support. The Adopted.com Community is a place where everyone is familiarly acquainted with the rollercoaster of emotions searching for your birth mother and father can bring. They have weathered many a storm and have cried countless tears of joy and sorrow together. They can bring hope and insight and virtually hold your hand through the toughest times. And if you’d like some companionship, they will be there for you every step of your adoption reunion journey, wherever it may lead you.