How do you get help from the adoption angels?

Question

Both of my parents were adopted, and though I've been able to research my mother's biological line (she was adopted by family), I have not been able to locate my father's. He is deceased (when I was a child) so I can't use his DNA to find anything :( I have a few tiny leads based on things my mother told me, but I don't even know if they're accurate, and since he was born close to the orphan train era, I'm not sure if I'll be able to find anything without help.

He also adopted a daughter, and I'd like some help finding her and her mother.

Answer 1

Hi, Janettee. Try this link:

https://www.wikitree.com/contact/adoption/

You’ll get some very pointers from those folks.

Comments

Great, thank you!

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Do you have any suggestion as to which form to fill out? I'm not the adoptee, a member of his birth family searching for him, OR a genealogist looking to help others. I wish there was another option for descendants of deceased adoptees...

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I would suppose the first one, since you are not the adoptee. Does the adopted daughter have a profile yet? I couldn’t find one.

I’m hoping one of the Adoption Angels will weigh in, as I’m not sure I can give you all the assistance you need.

Fill out the form and see what happens. Best of luck! And... keep us posted on your progress. I know I want to hear how this turns out for you.

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Yes, she has a profile, but it’s unlisted since she’s (hopefully) living. Her name, and her mother’s name, though, are listed under the Family Life section of Calvin’s profile. I will definitely update once I know anything further  Thank you again!

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The form has a place at the bottom for notes.  You can explain there that the adoptee is dead and you are a descendant.  There is a waiting list right now as we have more requests than Angels to handle them but as we solve cases we pick up new ones.   As a descendant you would have DNA from your ancestors.  So I would ask the closest generation to the ancestor to take autosomal tests that cover both sides of the family.  Also if you have a death certificate some US states now allow you to request the sealed original birth certificates.  Rules vary by state, but it is worth looking into.  

Hope that helps!

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Thank you. I'm unfortunately the only living biological relative that I know of, but when I'm able to, I'll definitely get the most comprehensive DNA. If only I'd been born a boy so I could get the best results for my father's side :( In my state it's limited, and I haven't quite figured out how to get started on my father's original birth certificate. I do have his amended birth certificate and a copy of his death certificate, but since he was born in the 1930's they may not even HAVE an original. I hope I get lucky.

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Where was the adoption done?

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I’m not really sure. His adoptive parents live near Woodward Oklahoma so maybe there?

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https://adopteerightslaw.com/oklahoma-obc/  

Generally the adoption decree is where the original records are bound.  

Oklahoma is more restrictive than some of the other states.  

Autosomal DNA is the test you would take.  It covers both mother and father lines but you have to figure out which people are from which side.  

There are sales periodically and you can often get them for around 50 to 75 dollars depending on who you choose to test with.  If you choose to test with Ancestry you will need to upload the raw data to FTDNA and or GedMatch as Ancestry circles and what they provide is not useful for proving a verified DNA match.  To do that you have to be able to see the chromosomes and SNPs.  https://isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA_testing_comparison_chart

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Thank you for this information!

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Please contact me, I may be able to help you.

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I too wish there was a spot on the adoption angels form for descendants of deceased adoptees.  Congrats on finding your sister and the progress you have made in your search!

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There is.  Use the notes at the bottom.  We work with descendants all the time.

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Thank you Laura Bozzay, I'll look into that.

Answer 2

I didn't realize I hadn't updated this post! So since this post, a LOT has happened! First, I found my adopted sister! She was little though when our father divorced her mother, so she doesn't remember an awful lot.

Then I received a donated DNA kit, and got the results just before my birthday, yay!!! I don't fully understand DNA though so I'm not entirely sure of what I've got. I have found (and mapped) about 20 of my matches, who all connect to each other, but I'm not sure where I fit in. I have several more matches who connect to those, waiting to be connected.

Comments

Congrats on finding your sister!  If it helps to hear about a success story, I was recently able to figure out the identity of my mother's father (not an adoption, but we knew nothing about him) using her FTDNA/GEDMatch matches.  The details are on her profile; I'm in the process of adding in formal WikiTree DNA confirmations.  It was a slog initially, but then at the end all the pieces came together very quickly.

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Thank you! That's actually exactly what I need to do - I have a known FIRST cousin on my mother's side who is a match, but no other known relatives :)

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Awesome!  That's actually incredibly helpful, because it will allow you to filter out people who match your mother and let you focus on relatives of your father.  Good luck!!

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Yes. Now I just need to figure all this DNA matching stuff out LOL. I'm really new to this - only had DNA results for a month and it's so much to learn. I think I'm starting to figure it out a bit though - one really helpful thing is that I have about 20-30 people in my matches WITH TREES (or who were claimed by people who had trees "that's my first cousin") which has been INCREDIBLY helpful as I can find all of my matches and where they belong. I don't know my place yet but I know how they all fit each other, which is super amazing. I've got my own Ancestry tree just for my matches, without me to confuse myself, and I add each new match as I find a name that's already in the tree. I'm at about 700 people in the tree already!

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You've made a really good start!  I wasn't on Ancestry, so I actually ended up initially pretty much doing everything by hand.  I printed FTDNA trees when I had them, wrote out trees connecting different people to their MRCAs, and tried several different ways of organizing my information in Excel.  Manila folders everywhere.  Yours is a much better approach, I think.  Eventually I ended up with about 5 clusters of related people and started looking at descendants of their MRCAs on FamilySearch.  I was expecting a huge slog there but got really lucky.

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Oh my that sounds like WAY too much! MUCH easier to copy trees over from Ancestry LOL. Of course the ones that aren't on Ancestry have to be copied and pasted, but I haven't done much with those so it's not too big of a deal. I have 3 triangulated (they're siblings and I'm in contact with their cousin) matches on FTDNA, but for the most part I'm working within the Ancestry matches and then checking things out on GEDmatch to compare to Ancestry (several have GEDmatch which helps me to get more info).

Answer 3

This link will take you to a folder where I have placed two documents on what I do as an adoption angel and how to look at your matches in GedMatch.  Hope this helps.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3uby7emx0cqte86/AABYA2DrgRabl72DanTIUmowa?dl=0