Anyone know how to find birth parents for free?

Question

It all happened 40 years ago. Things were different back then and I can't find any records. I know there should be some way.

Answer 1

Country and/or state?

UK? Scotland?  Ireland?  Australia? Canada? United States?  Outer Mongolia?

No-one can give you any advice relevant to you unless you tell them where in the world you are as different countries have different laws.   All Yahoo English-speaking questions get lumped into one giant pot and can be seen and answered by anyone in the world who speaks English and 9/10 people who answer your question may be from the wrong country and feed you complete misinformation.

You really need to be adding more info to your question.  Speaking for myself, I'm in the UK and could bore you with a long list of English adoption laws but it won't do you any good if you're in Canada, so I'll just save on my fingers typing and not bother. You usually have to go through the local social services department.  Whether it costs or not I don't know, but surely you need to be prepared to put up cash at some point if it is something you really want to know.  If for example the council told you there was a £20 admin fee to find and obtain your original birth certificate, would you refuse to pay them and say "okay, forget it then" ?  I hope not, because you sure as h**l won't get this information for free online by googling it or anything.  If someone somewhere says you need to pay for a search of the adoption registers (you usually can't do this yourself) then for gods sake, pay them.  That's assuming you really want this info.  If it was me, money would be no object.  I don't understand all YA users obessions with the word "free".  Most of us live in a capitalist world, and you don't get much for nothing these days.  You may well have to pay.  On the other hand, you may not.  One things for certain, you won't get anywhere by sitting on your computer.  You need to pick up your phone and start calling people and making appointments with adoption counsellers or whoever it takes.  In the UK, you can start by googling the General Register Offices Adoption section (gro.gov.uk) and go from there.

Answer 2

Contact the adoption agency. There are records somewhere, definitely.

Answer 3

You didn't indicate where the adoption took place...

This site includes adoption privacy laws by state in the USA:  http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/l...

This one should be a good start for finding the record you need:  http://adoptionrecords.org/

http://reunion.adoption.com/

If the adoption happened in Australia, try http://www.adopteeconnect.com/p/a/2/

If you have more specific information, post or email it and someone will likely try to help further.