Finding Domestic Biological Roots of Adopted Children

In order to find out more about an adopted child's biological parents, an adoptee and/or their family will need to know what their names are. Birth parents may actually be able to help searchers out with this part of the operation, though, for they too may be looking for the children they gave up for adoption.

As far as domestic adoption goes, a number of organizations can help in the search for birth parents. If that strategy proves to be a dead end, it may be time to overturn a seal on the record of one's domestic adoption. An adoption record will contain details on a child's original place of birth, date of birth and the true identities of a child's biological parents.

In most states, an appeal to a court will be needed for specific identifying information on birth parents, but for general questions about the physical characteristics of the parents, even to the extent of their race/ethnicity, adult adoptees may be allowed permission to reveal their adoption records.

Beyond merely finding out the name of a child's birth parents, an adoptive family might also seek to learn more about his or her whole birth family. While this moves a bit beyond the conventional frame of domestic adoption and though it may be relatively time-consuming, a little genealogical research might help satisfy some people's curiosity. Searchers should see what they can glean from public records, and if they find the whereabouts of the birth parents or close relatives, they may even desire to meet with them.

Although families are encouraged to not give up hope in trying to find out more about domestic adoptions, they also should prepare for negative outcomes. A search may very well turn out to be fruitless or the child's biological parents may be deceased, and thus, the child may never meet them.

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