Want to Find Your Birth Mother, Father or Adopted Child or Sibling and Don’t Know Where to Start?

Adoption Search Angels volunteer their time and talents to help families  separated by adoption find each other. They seek answers for a birth mother or an adoptee reaching out to birth parents. Generally, they are not professional detectives or people finders, although some have developed exceptional search skills. Many Search Angels themselves have been affected by adoption and understand the need to search for those lost to adoption and through their search skills, they help the community.

Adoption Search Angels can achieve miracles when they volunteer, but you need to be fair and realistic too.

• Adoption Search Angels do not usually research for minor children(under the age of 18).
• A good Adoption Search Angels will not make contact for a searcher without permission. You should ensure that the Search Angel is a professional intermediary with experience if you decide to have them make contact.
• An Adoption Search Angels will not pressure any individual to make contact once the lost family is located.
• An Adoption Search Angels should not charge for their services. (Volunteers can ask for reimbursement for phone calls, copies, postage, and bus fare or for any other legitimate expense incurred while doing the search.) If you ask a search angel to make copies of documents, mail you papers, make long distance calls, or incur other expenses on your behalf, be prepared to pay for them in advance. Search angels donate their time and talents, but please don’t expect them to absorb any expenses.
• An Adoption Search Angle can help with online search tools, (recommending better registries, looking through registries, checking online public records, doing name searches), library lookups (City Directories, old phone books, old newspapers, birth records if available) and Local legwork and phone calls (visits to addresses you may have, city halls, schools if you know the name to check old yearbooks, etc.)
• Some Search Angels have purchased a series of records or databases, usually specific to a certain state, but in some cases, for entire regions, counties, provinces, or countries. Others have access to school yearbooks from one or more schools. Other search angels can have access to lists and data bases that the average person will not.
• Follow your Search Angels instructions. Being that adoption searches are very emotional situations, your Search Angel will usually move along at your pace, so if you lose interest, your search can stall. If you want to keep it moving, don’t be a pest, but don’t drop the ball.
• Make sure you did your homework first and look into getting your OBC, get non-identifying information, ask family members what they know, add your name to reunion registries etc.

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What Not to Expect from a Search Angel:

All of their time! Search Angels are more than likely helping many different people at the same time, so please be respectful of their time.

Do not expect them to cover all costs of the search. Again, they can ask to be reimbursed for services outlined above.

A happy and quick outcome. Do not begin any search if you are not ready for the answers that may be found. Be prepared for anything and everything.

What an Adoption Search Angel Needs to Help You

To help your Search Angel help you in the most effective manner, please be prepared. Have as much information as possible and do NOT hold back. Line up your ‘ducks’  and make a list of the facts known. Send everything the first time, don’t send it one fact at a time & say “I have more later.” 

Get get the non ID from the agency state and agency if possible before contacting a Search Angel.   Nine times out of ten, that’s the first thing any Search Angle is going to tell you to do.

These three (3) solid pieces of information are what is required for people to be  found most of the time.

• Full NAME(if known)
• AGE/birth date (if unknown, guess about how old)
• LOCATIONS/city/state where they were last known to be.

The more you tell your Search Angel, the easier it will be for them to help you with your adoption search.

Find a Search Angel to Help You Search

There are many sites on the Internet listing the services of Adoption Search Angels. Some are listed by state; others are geared for a specific purpose such as needed emergency medical information for chronically ill adoptees or birth families. Some Search Angels are specific for some states or even specific to some adoption agencies, so look around and find what works for you.  You’ll also want to make sure you “hit it off” with your Search Angle as you take this emotional journey together. Trust is a big factor for many searching, so make sure you feel good about the team you create for yourself.

Lists of Search Angels:

• G’s Adoption Lists Search Angel List 
• About/ Adoption.com’s Search Angel List & Program
• Geographical List of Search Angels 
• The Seeker Search Angel  List 
• DNA Testing Specific Search Angels

Ask for Help from a Groups of Adoption Search Angels

• Research and Reunion Team  Facebook Group:

Research & Reunion Team helps search for Adoptees/Birth Parents/Birth Family, Lost Friends and Classmates. We also specialize in Facilitating Reunions. Our Team is a group of Experienced Search Volunteers and will not charge for any Services.

• Search Squad Group on Facebook 

Search Squad is a FREE locator group for Adoptees/Birth Parents/Family, lost friends and Genealogy

A review of a Search Squad experience can be found here.

• Adoption-Free-Search Facebook Community Page

Adoption-Free-Search provides search services free of charge to those members of the Adoption Triad that seek out those services. All within the guidelines of our core ethic, while maintaining a presence that will lobby for changing adoption laws throughout the United States leaving no adoptee without a minimum of accurate and complete family medical historical information to the fullest extent possible.

•  The Volunteer Search Network

The Volunteer Search Network is a worldwide group of Volunteers who have come together to offer our services to people touched by adoption who need search help. We are a diverse group made up mostly of triad members, some have found, some have not, but all of us want to help. We make no profit on services, it is at a cost only basis. Our Volunteers charge only for what it costs them to help you. This help is available only for adoptees, birthparents and their family members who are looking for lost relatives. We do not locate infants to be adopted.

• Spokeo Search Angels:

Spokeo Search Angels are volunteers who donate their time and resources to help individuals touched by adoption, foster care and other family separation, search for their family members while providing guidance and emotional support.

• Emergency Medical Locators for Adoptees (EMLA)

Emergency Medical Locators for Adoptees (EMLA) is a nonprofit organization that conducts free biological searches for those who are in critical need of their family medical histories in times of life-threatening medical crisis.  If it is a Medical Emergency for an adoption/adoptee to save a life, fill out the form on EMLA’s website.  http://adoption-free-search.org/registration.htm

Read more articles and posts about Adoption Searches here.