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Archiver > NYBROOKLYN > 1999-06 > 0928786260


From: Elizabeth Connor <>
Subject: Re: [NYBROOKLYN-L] re: adoption
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 16:11:00 -0400


I reviewed a book for Library Journal on this topic but perhaps it's not
the one you remember:

Library Journal, 1998 123(3):134

Searching for a Piece of My Soul: How to Find a Missing Family Member or
Loved One.

This reasonably priced book provides useful information for adult
adoptees interested in finding their birth parents and/or other missing
relatives. The author discusses managing expectations and
overcoming obstacles related to initiating such a search, and
developing an action plan. Other insightful information includes several
pages of Internet resources, sample letters, and classified ads
for contacting birth relatives, changes in adoption information
legislation, addresses of various adoption and search agencies, addresses
of nationwide Family History Centers, state motor vehicle
registration offices, and other related information. Sixteen pages are
devoted to the text of the Rev. Thomas F. Brosnan's address to the 1996
National Maternity and Adoption Conference. The
book's narrative style, lack of index, and undocumented references
limit its usefulness for ready-reference purposes, but the author's
personal experience finding missing family members is
inspiring. As with Richard S. Johnson's Find Anyone Fast (LJ 11/1/97),
this is better suited for circulating collections.

--Elizabeth Connor

--On Saturday, June 05, 1999, 8:23 PM -0400 aj <>
wrote:

> Hi,
> I promised a few folks that I would look for a book that I read a
> few years ago that had a very good tip for how to find an adoptees
> family. Since I can't remember the name of the book I did a search for
> it on the computer card catalog at the library. I didn't find it that
> way so I went to the stacks and searched and still didn't find it. So I
> then got two reference librarians to search their computer, while I
> scanned Books in Print. Still nothing, I'm sorry to say.
> For anyone who's interested it was a non-fiction book by a woman
> private investigator (I think). I think she worked in the south, perhaps
> Kentucky or Tennessee.
> The information from it that is relevant to searching for an
> adoptee's family is this. Determine the date of the adoption and the
> court where it took place. This is often the point where one loses track
> of an adoptee because the records are sealed afterward.
> When you think you have the correct date and court, get a copy of
> the docket for that day or days. This is, I think, public info in all
> places, and should contain the names of anyone heard in court that day.
> I've done years worth of this searching but without having had to
> use this record, so I don't know all of what it contains. In any manner
> you can, rule out the folks that appeared in court that day for anything
> other than adoption. Search newspaper files and try to get info from the
> court as possible, about the cases that are public info. Probably only
> the adoption cases will be completely unavailable to you. When you have
> ruled out most of the names because they were in court because of a
> will, etc. then the remaining names are your possibles.
> It might be a big job to track down a lot of people whom you
> couldn't rule out, but you're a 'genealogist' and know about tracking
> people. ;-) And besides, you now have a much shorter list than before.
> I hope this method helps someone. While I was doing my searches I
> read everything I could find on the subject and this is the only real
> tip I came across that helped one to bridge the gap created when an
> adoptee goes into a courthouse as 'Smith' and comes out 'Jones.'
> If anyone wants to, please let me know if I can help with anything
> else. Oh, and please comment on this too. We might all learn methods for
> eliminating people from dockets, etc.
> best,
> Al Johnson
>
>
>

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