Tracking down family due to Adoption

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Runk

Runk

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Veteran 10k Posts A Star Wars Fan
Sep 12, 2003
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Hi all,

I have a very good friend who was adopted out of NSW back in the 70's who's trying to track her biological parents. She's never done it before and has no idea where to start.

She's thought about hiring a Private Investigator but I'd imagine they'd be costly.

Has anyone had experience attempting something like this and as such know where to start?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Runk out!
 
Mrs B was adopted. I'm pretty sure she should start with the state government department that handles those sorts of things. Child welfare or protection or whatever. I'm pretty sure they have to hold those records for a long time. Having said that though, doesn't necessarily mean they still have them but she should definitely start there rather than throwing money at a pi who would probably start by doing the same thing.
 
I guess the first thing to do would be to get any information that you might have, talk to parents etc. see if they know anything. That’s usually the best place to start for any ancestry work.

http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/Pages/births/adoptions.aspx <- it’s possible that this might help get some information. I’m not sure exactly how it works but I think in some places there’s like a double blind way of communicating (so you only receive information if both parties have agreed to it).

Also contact whatever agency might’ve been involved at the time. They also might have paperwork or contact details.

Legislation varies by state, but I think secret adoptions in Victoria aren’t exactly secret anymore. Perhaps other states have changed theirs too.
 

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The scary thing is not having any idea about your genetic history in terms of cancers etc. Wifey couldn't give a s**t about knowing them and having a relationship with them. All she wanted was to find out if she had a history of breast/ovarian cancer, Alzheimer's etc she should be mindful of. Unfortunately neither of them wanted to make contact so that was that.
 
Beerfish said:
The scary thing is not having any idea about your genetic history in terms of cancers etc. Wifey couldn't give a s**t about knowing them and having a relationship with them. All she wanted was to find out if she had a history of breast/ovarian cancer, Alzheimer's etc she should be mindful of. Unfortunately neither of them wanted to make contact so that was that.
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Yeah and I completely get that. My friend has had next to no interest in finding out about them for years. She's 43yrs old, has 3 daughters ages 14 to 10. Stable marriage. She is a fitness freak and does body sculpting. So she's got a lot on her plate all the time.
She was very much of the opinion 'Well they've never tried to contact me, why should I try to contact them?'
Plus we, her friends, have become more of a family for her as a result so she's heavily invested in us all and us in return.

It's funny, if it were me I'd want to know who they were and try to contact them and when I brought it up with her one day she didn't seem that interested. But I did some initial digging anyway and told her I would, but couldn't really get anywhere without her assistance.

Anyway today she tells me 'You know how you asked me about finding out who my parents were?' I'm all 'Yeah of course.'
She says 'I'm ready.' And she is too.

So here we are.
 
I think people who adopt REALLY want kids and I know wifey grew up with two of the most fun and loving parents a kid could wish for so she never really gave a toss about these other people that gave her up until she started thinking about breast cancer etc.

Good luck with it.
 
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