Former Hudson Valley Adoptee Born December 25th, 1976 Searching for His Birthmother

While most of the world sees adoption as a good thing, which is forever finding families for unwanted children, I view the system a little differently. As a birthmother who fights for Adoptee Rights, I often focus more on the legislative injustices, systematic corruption, and the loss that is an automatic part of adoption.

In my experience, the positive side of adoption has been often been linked to adoption searches and reunions; the point where the continuous separation of family stops and there is real hope of a future fully intact. I’m not a search angel, but I do sometimes end up participating in adoption searches because they are so very joyful. There is something truly magical that happens when you have a whole group of people trying to help another human being find their family. Searchers have no agenda of their own- they simply have the desire to help. Plus, for those of us who have searched and found our own loved ones… sharing that joy, reliving those incredible feelings, and knowing that another family has the same opportunity is incredibly enriching.

Help Needed in the Hudson Valley

The other day I received a Facebook message from a man I have never met before, but who is, like many people I know, an adopted person. What really pulled me in on Frank’s search, is that by the looks of it, Frank was born in our own Kingston, New York. Frank, like many adult adoptees, wants to find his birthmother. He has been searching for quite a few years with no luck. He contacted the Woodstock Times about a possible story and they gave him my name.

So, here we are and I invite you to share this journey.

In fact, I am openly begging for help because as I was told Frank’s, and his mother’s story, my spider sense really started saying, “Someone in the area will remember this young mother, this family, this story.” And so, I am asking you, my local Hudson Valley friends, neighbors, networks, to search your memories and see if any of the following story rings a bell. Ask around, share this post, pick a few brains, and help me help Frank. We can do this if we try. I know we can. Frank is counting on us.

Why Frank Wants to Find His Birthmother

The desire for an adoptee to find their original families is 100% normal. Most people, who were not adopted, take it for granted that they know their whole stories, or as RunDMC rapper and adoptee Darryl McDaniels says, “their chapter one”. I have communicated extensively with Frank and I have to say that he is in a realistic and healthy place to find his birthmother and whatever his truth might be. And while current NYS adoption laws do not make it easy for Frank to meet the woman who gave birth to him, there is nothing illegal or immoral in finding one’s family. Frank has taken many steps already to find her by registering with New York State’s adoption registry ( which has a really bad success rate since they are understaffed and underfunded) as well as leaving “breadcrumbs” of his search all over the Internet. Until NY changes it’s antiquated adoption laws, there is little else to be done in those venues.


Like many adoptees when they are ready to search, Frank is settled and happy. He has a beautiful wife, owns and runs a small business, and they have also recently welcomed the birth of their first child, a real cutie name Violetta. It’s very common for an adoptee to seriously search when they have their own children. It’s easier not knowing something when it’s just you involved, but now important issues such as medical history suddenly affect more than just the adoptee. It now relates to the next generation. Also, a child is usually the first person in the adoptee’s life that actually looks like them. This too can begin to re-establish the desire for family connections and the yearning to find the root of the proverbial family tree. In his own words:

“We are extremely happy with our lives and expect nothing from my birth mother- I only want the opportunity to get to know her a little before it may be too late. It would fill a hole in my soul that formed when I was about one year old. It would mean the world to me to give her a hug and tell her that I love her for trying so hard to do the right thing for me.”

Frank’s Adoption Story

Like most adoptees, Frank’s adoption story is made up of glimmers of truth. Adoption is always shrouded in mystery, secrets, and often the root of it all is shame. Most adoption stories are very similar and often I think it is because the tale told is the accepted version of what people want to hear, and therefore the same tales are passed down through agencies and social workers. Part of a search is to find the morsels of truth.

What we do know of Frank’s mom, I really find heart breaking and it motivates me all the more to find her.

This is what we know for sure:

• Frank’s mom was 17 or 18 when she became pregnant with him in March of 1976.
• We know she was from a Catholic family of 6: Four girls and 2 boys. She was the 2nd youngest of the bunch.
• There is reason to believe that her family was not well off financially.
• She was supposed to have been 18 years old at the time of Frank’s birth. There is a very good chance that she went to Kingston High School and graduated in 1975 or 1976, though any of the area high schools could be up for grabs too. Frank says he has a gut feeling that she went to Onteora high school. Maybe she lived in Woodstock or Phoenicia.
• At that time she had already graduated high school with good grades.
• According to the non-identifying information Frank has, she was a 5’2 Caucasian that weighed 115 lbs with a slender build. Fair skin, brown hair, hazel eyes.
• She reported to be an ethnic blend of Scotch, Irish, Bohemian & Indian.
• We are told that she was interested in tennis, quilting & photography.
•  Franks father was supposedly a year or two older than his mom and worked as an orderly at a hospital. It is unknown whether they had a extended relationship or not. It is supposed that he abandoned her when the pregnancy was revealed.
• Like many families, the unplanned pregnancy was not considered a blessing and her family did not want her to have the baby.

Matthew the Surprise Christmas Baby

We know that Frank was born on Christmas day in 1976. There is a possibility that his mom left the area for his birth since she had arranged for a private adoption from the very start. She did not have the support of the biological father and without the support of her family, even in the later ’70’s adoption was what nice white girls did. It’s likely that his mother was pressured by her Catholic family to relinquish Frank to adoption at birth. His amended birth certificate says Frank was born in East Hampton, Long Island, which fits into the private adoption scenario, or perhaps he was born in Kingston, NY which is what his Adoption Certificate states and what he was told all his life.

In any case, after his 12-25-1976 birth, Frank and his mother were discharged form the hospital on December 29th, 1976. Even though she had agreed to give up Frank while pregnant, when the time came she changed her mind. It seems she couldn’t bring herself to go through with it since it wasn’t what she really wanted to do. We believe that she returned home to her large family in Kingston with a newborn baby boy around Christmas 1976. Frank’s name, at that time, could have been Matthew. Bottom line, she wanted to raise and parent her baby.

Kingston to Warwick to California to Warwick?


Soon after his birth, Frank’s biological mother, and very likely her entire family, moved to Warwick, NY. At least this is the information that the social worker passed on to Frank’s adoptive parents, who then passed it on to Frank. Maybe they moved to get away from the perceived embarrassment of pregnancy out of wedlock? We don’t know, but even if that is the case, we need to remember that something that seems shameful usually feels very different 35 years later.

After the move to Warwick, it is believed that his mother moved to California for a few short months with Frank in an attempt to raise him. The story is that she brought him to a sort of “hippie commune” so she could try to work and earn some money while she knew he was safe and was being watched by others in the commune. It’s unclear exactly how long she tried this system, but it ultimately failed. She then is supposed to have returned to Warwick and more or less immediately went into Social Services to get the ball rolling on adoption. It sounds like she had tried everything she knew how to in order to keep Frank and make a good life, but she simply ran out of options and truly surrendered to the adoption.

Retired Social Worker Christine Moore

Frank has been in touch with the now retired social worker who remembers his mother. Her name is Christine Moore and she too worked locally in the Hudson Valley, but she could not say anything identifying because that is the “professional” stance on adoption. Part of the adoption mythology is that women who relinquish want privacy, and “move on with their lives’. This is not true and historically less than 1% of relinquishing mothers don’t want to be found. If you happen to know a retired social worker named Christine Moore, please pick her brain!

Visits to Dr. Lat in Kingston


We also know that Frank was seen as a baby by pediatrician in Kingston named Dr. Mercedes Lat up until his adoption. Frank’s records show that he received immunization boosters from Dr. Lat on March 23rd, 1977 and on July 6th, 1977. Frank has already called Dr. Lat as she still practices in Kingston. She, of course, has no recollection of a baby she saw only two times over 33 years ago. Dr. Lat was very responsive , however, and said the only thing she could be certain of was that she was a good mom, as all the moms she worked with back then were. All loving moms who did the best they could. There are no reports to Child Protective Services (CPS), in any event.

The important piece here is that Frank was going to a pediatrician in Kingston up until he was about 6 months old. It seems unlikely that his mom would drive almost 67 miles from Warwick all the way to Kingston to see a pediatrician. So Kingston becomes our focus point again and probably where Frank and his mother lived for the 1st six months or so of his young life.

After a Hard Year, the Final Surrender

After struggling to keep him for almost a year, Frank’s mother was finally forced to permanently relinquish him. There is good cause to believe that money was an issue. For example, Franks’ story goes that when his new adoptive parents picked him up, he was wearing shoes that were a couple of sizes too small and his toes were showing. His records show that a final immunization that was set to be given on November 27th 1977 but was filled in as blank, so he was gone from her life before, on, or soon after that date.

I know how impossible it seemed to be able to give up my child after only two days, I can only imagine how awful it must have been for them both after almost a full year of bonding. Obviously his mom cared very much for Frank; one of the things we know is that she insisted that Frank not follow common adoption practices of the time and go to Foster Care for the first six months. He had to be placed directly into his new home or she would not agree to the adoption. His biological mother also insisted that he be placed into a “Christian” home, so we can suppose that religion was somewhat important to her as well. In either case, “Matthew” was gone and now 1 year old Frank found himself in a new home with new parents around the time of his first birthday.

The next quote is direct from Frank:

“I am not naïve regarding the possible consequences of my search…I am well aware that it may result in very negative outcomes ranging from learning nothing at all to finding her and being rejected to finding out that she is dead. I’m prepared for any and all of these scenarios and would be overjoyed if I could find her and perhaps talk to her for a few moments…learn about my brief history…find out her version of what went down, etc. Give her a hug. These things are important to me and I will pursue them for better or for worse. I owe it to myself and my mother to try…”

Do You Know This Kingston Family? Does this Story Ring a Bell?

Adoption searches are often moved along by tiny bits of truth pulled from the depths of memory. I know somewhere in this narrative there is enough truth that something will ring a bell. We have a family of 6 children living in the area, not so long ago. Between siblings and neighbors, someone remembers this young mother who tried so hard to keep her baby. Someone remembers a Christmas baby name Matthew who went away and was never seen in Kingston again. I KNOW that someone remembers something. Frank and his family are coming to NY in June and one of the primary reasons for the visit is to do some serious ground work for his search. I can only hope that with your help, we can find his family and maybe, that visit will be an adoption reunion instead of a search.

How You Can Help this Man Find His Mom

If you have any clues or leads or even just a “my cousin had a friend and I think the younger sister had a baby.. their name was…” you might hold the key to Frank’s adoption search! Please feel free to leave a message here in the comments of this blog . I promise that this one time I won’t give you embarrassing names if you use the anonymous settings. You can also send an email to fixadoption at gmail.com and I promise not to reveal any sources either.

With Frank’s permission, we have a page on Facebook. Please come on over and even just by sharing the page to your local Hudson Valley network of friends and family, you are helping to pave the way for Frank.

Every human being longs for the comfort of their mother. Every person has the human right to look into the eyes of those from which they came. Even a little baby has a right to know their medical history. And somewhere out there is a mother, slightly over 50, who wonders what happened to that little boy that she so valiantly tried to parent.

With your help, we can make a miracle happen. Thank you.