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Amazon Book Review - Now in its third edition, this widely acclaimed resource provides an honest and detailed guide for adoptees and their birthparents. It offers a wealth of ideas, advice, resources, and encouragement to anyone considering embarking on his or her own journey of discovery. Drawing from personal experience as well as from extensive research, author Jayne Askin presents creative ways to overcome obstacles and attack problems that occur during the search process.
 

From Booklist - An adoptee offers compassionate and comprehensive guidance to locating "adoptees, birthparents and adoptive parents." Strauss proceeds from the view that seeking reunion with relatives estranged by adoption is a good thing, and she marshals impressive reasoning and evidence to support her case. She discusses the laws that make adoption records confidential in the introduction and thereby sets the stage for the search strategies that follow. As Strauss points out, the history of adoption is neither simple nor consistent, and the nature of adoption today is very different from what it was when present adoption laws were enacted. The more a searcher understands the nature of adoption practices and laws, she says, the more likely his or her search is to succeed. Strauss interweaves the story of the search for her own birthparents with the strategies for finding birth relatives, and whether or not one agrees with the practice of adoptees or birthparents initiating searches for lost relatives, she tells that personal story compellingly. Thus, Strauss' effort offers considerable insight into the motivations of a particular adoptee as it encourages and counsels others wishing to undertake such a search themselves. Mike Tribby

Using real-life examples, this compassionate guide helps adoptees and their birth mothers decide whether or not to try to locate each other, prepare for a reunion, survive the emotional turbulence of the initial meeting, and avoid common pitfalls. Since the legal issues surrounding the process can vary greatly from one state to another, the book includes an overview of pertinent laws, along with practical suggestions for navigating through them.

A how-to book to guide adoptees, birthparents, adoptive parents and siblings to find family members, documents and information.