Adoption investigation advice!
Ok Reddit, I’d love to hear some off the wall theories or advice 😅 I will try and keep it as brief as possible, but there’s a lot. My best friend since kindergarten (we are now 30) was adopted. I’ve watched her for years look for her biological family and honestly yearn for them. It’s been heart breaking, and she’s like a sister to me. In the last three years, I have actually found out a LOT of information. (Don’t worry, all information has been public record, either found on Facebook or Google). She had been looking for her mother since the age of 15. At the age of 18 or 19 she even had a lawyer get involved with her adoption paperwork to help. There was zero info found about her bio mom and two possible names for her bio dad. Although the lawyer only gave her one. So coincidentally, we met someone who knew said (maybe) dad. This person said “oh so and so used to hang out with him” and we knew who “so and so” was so I looked at this persons friends list and I FOUND her bio mom. It was hard for her to accept that one Facebook search led to her. But the resemblance is undeniable! And her hometown was where we grew up. The hard part is that bio mom has two other daughters. One of them is identical to my best friend. One 2 years older and one 3 years younger… so she is the middle child. Weird right? We know there are a million different reasons why someone puts a baby up for adoption. But the middle child? I also found out this last summer that bio mom actually passed away. Beforehand, my best friend wanted to contact her, but never did because she didn’t want to destroy or hurt the family unit bio mom had built, as we were told that no one ever even knew about her or her birth. And now, she obviously wants contact with them, but also understand they need to grieve and process the loss before she wants to bombard them with “your mom had another daughter in between you, and never told you”. And also, it was a closed adoption, and we knew she didn’t want to be found. But, does that technically mean the rest of the family should not be found? Especially now? Finding all this info started the beginning of me doing all the investigating. My best friend has asked me to and given me full permission to do what I need to do to find out circumstances around her adoption, find out more ancestry/ health background information, find out exactly who bio dad is, and eventually connect her with her family. The thing is, we are hitting walls at the end of public information. I have reached out to several PI’s to inquire for some help or resources with no replies. I have also paid for subscriptions for more info with no more info found. I would love to do all the digging as I am so invested now, but I also don’t want to cross any legal boundaries. My state does not have any certification or requirements for becoming a PI, just an association I think that’s a little too expensive for myself at the moment. I also have access to her ancestry account and have messaged her closest DNA matches with no info back yet. I feel like the next step is to start reaching out to people in bio mom’s close circle. I would do so with respect and honesty and make it clear that the goal is not to destroy the way someone looks at her bio mom, but mostly get answers. The risk of this would be a. Being blocked b. Having the daughters find out. Are there any other risks I’m not thinking of? Are there any other resources that are legal and free or inexpensive that could help piece the puzzle together? We are also not able to go to our hometown to look through physical newspapers and public records at the library any time soon. We feel like more answers are so close, I just want to go about it respectfully and responsibly.
Thanks for reading! 😅 and for any feedback!