Native New Yorker, Adopted Person and Experienced Searcher,
Shelly Lester
offers her "Words of Wisdom" for doing your own search.
For further search help email her at: monschild@aol.com

1. Make it easy to find yourself - list your phone number under your maiden name and/or birth name if you are an adoptee; list your phone as your name when you relinquished. My Mom was in the phone book!

2. Register with the International Soundex Reunion Registry (702) 882-7755, and the state registry in the state where you were adopteed or relinquished. Write for Non Identifying information from the agency used and the state. Visit the agency!

3. In NYC there are birth indexes for both the NYCity and NYState births - NYS in the National Archives on Houston and Varick Streets and NYC in the New York Public Library on 42nd and Fifth Avenue.

4. Keep a log of everything you do for your search - jot down every insignificant detail - it may be a key that will open a door later on.

5. Be kind to yourself and others - a smile gets more out of someone you want information from than a fist slammed on a desk - tried both :>)

6. Take a rest but do not give up - you will find if your information is correct - took me four and a half years - I had my birth name (Female Hopkins), that my mother was 40 and Lutheran and a housewife - which the latter was not correct.

7. Check the old phone books for your birth name in the year you were born and the year you were adopted - my birth mother was in the book. Do an address search (reverse phone book) to find out if she lived with someone.

8. If you are an older adoptee, the census is wonderful.

9. If you are a younger adoptee the census is good, but you are looking for grandparents.

10. You need at least two pieces of information to confirm a find. I had a couple of false hits because I wanted to find so badly. Some people may fit the mold but in the end you need proof.

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OTHER STATES WITH PENDING LEGISLATION

California: www.calopen.org

Colorado: Colorado Coalition for Open Records -- contact Richard Uhrlaub at bballmon@aol.com

Connecticut: contact Paul Schibbelhute at Pschibbe@aol.com

New Jersey: For information on legislation contact Peter Franklin at pfrank66@hotmail.com

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American Adoption Congress

The American Adoption Congress is composed of individuals, families and organizations committed to adoption reform. They represent all those whose lives are touched by adoption.

The American Adoption Congress web site lists court cases by state, a report titled "The History of Sealed Records" by Samuels and much more. Visit the AAC web site at www.Americanadoptioncongress.org

AAC's 28th International Adoption Conference
Mile High Expectations Conference
April 26-29, 2012
Hyatt Regency Denver Tech Center
Denver, Colorado
Check the site for information on Regional and National Conferences

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GOING ON AFTER REJECTION
by Sandy Cox
Wilmington, Delaware

Once hurt, you're likely to be hesitant about taking another chance for reunion... that's understandable. Here are some tips on coping.

Allow yourself to be disappointed.

Don't punish yourself with expectations of what you think you should be feeling.

Remember that everyone gets rejected sometime in life.

Realize that the rejection usually has little to to do with you. It has more to do with the person who rejected you.

Don't be superstitious. Rationalizing that "this was meant to be" is not a positive approach.

Time does make all wounds easier to bear, and the person who rejected you could change their mind after a while.

You never completely recover from rejection...you accommodate. You become a different person by living through experience.

Also, it really helps to talk to others who have experienced the same rejection and work through your anger and grief, which are natural reactions.

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Barbara Pasternak

marched FOUR TIMES from

New York to Washington

for Open Records!

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In Memoriam

JEAN PATON

1908-2002

She was ahead of her time in 1954. Challenging the shroud of secrecy surrounding adoption with her book THE ADOPTED BREAK SILENCE, Jean Paton founded Orphan Voyage and the first reunion registry in the USA. She helped thousands search and never stopped speaking out about adoption rights. Jean died recently after a brief illness.

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Remembering marchers from New York to Washington DC, birth mothers Marilyn Burson and Sharon Bell. Marching to protest laws that present birth parents with a life long sentence of separation from children surrendered to adoption.

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This will soon be changed to include New Hampshire