Maternity Homes
(this page is under construction; some links are not complete)
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This book is a "must read" for anyone who has been touch be adoption.
Many of us have hit one brick wall after another. Reunion.com has an adoption forum. Thanks to that forum, I was able to reunite my neice with her birthmother.
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The addition of this new section has been a tremendous amount of work. As I searched for the most recent and up-to-date information on the internet, I encountered almost as many dead links as I did brick walls when I was helping a birth mother search for her adopted daughter.
I will add more information about the many maternity homes around the country then and now. Since some of the homes were excellent, while others dealt in the black market, you may find some of these homes listed under more than one category. I have included Butterbox Babies here as those babies were born to women in the Ideal Maternity Home and Sanitarium.
The Ideal Maternity Home and Sanitarium, located in Nova Scotia, was responsible for the illegal adoptions of many Canadian born babies and the deaths of many others.
The Willows, located in Kansas City, Missouri, was one of the better homes for unwed mothers.
Back To The Adoption Experience Homepage.
A fee of as much as $10,000 and in many cases much less, would guarantee delivery of a baby. It didn't matter who you were; no background checks were made and records were often falisfied.
Over-crowding in orphanages in the east lead to the transport of hundreds of children to the midwest. Most never saw their parents again.
You can read about these trains and the agencies who provided the young travelers who rode them, carrying few belongings and not knowing where they would end up.
Registration Day (Reg Day) happens once each year; it's purpose is to encourage and support. Any birth family member or adoptee can register at ISRR.net for free.
There are many search angels. Some work entirely for free, some work on a no find-no fee basis and others charge very reasonable rates. This page coming soon.
Search and support groups exist all over the internet. Many such groups work certain state and others work nationwide. Some groups are more active than others. In this section, I'll provide links so you can join the groups which are best suited to your individual search; there is no fee.
We strive to make your search successful. If you don't find what you need on this site, please consider a subscription to Ancestry.com. The free trials at Ancestry are different from what they once were. No credit card information is required, all you need to do is register for the free trial. Ancestry.com has an adoption forum where you can post and receive replies. Ancestry.com Free Trial
Census records, and in particular the 1930 census, are one of the most easily used tools for beginners. Ancestry.comis the only place where all census years are easily searchable. Search US Federal Census Records
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You will find the following databases very helpful: Canadian Census Records
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The Adoption Experience is a new addition to ISTG and these pages will be under continual construction as more research is completed. We all seek to know our heritage and those touched by adoption are no different. If anything, they are more pressed for time because it is their hope to reunite before death claims the people they seek.The search is difficult at best. They begin with little information and to be honest, they are not even sure that information is correct. Birth parents, especially birth mothers, were told not to search. They were most often hurried "away" and left guilt-ridden for the rest of their lives. The Girls Who Went Away, by Ann Fessler, will help all of us understand the truth.
Adoptees often know even less that the birth parents and while the brick walls ahead may be tall and thick, successful reunions happen every day. You are not alone and help is available. Don't become discouraged if you find your parent isn't looking for you - remember, they were told not to search. While you are here, reading this webpage, your birthmom may not even have a computer and if she does, she may not know how to begin. Keep an open and a positive mind; most birth parents, moms in particular, are scared to even hope you would want to meet them.
I just want to add that I will update this page as often as I can. The comments made here are not testimonials from someone else but my own personal thoughts and experiences. I was helping my sister-in-law search for her adopted daughter after 41 years and in the process mentioned it to one of my sisters. My sister then mentioned that her son's wife was adopted and wanted to find her birth parents. I said I'd be happy to help if I could and I got all the information the adoptee (my niece by marriage) knew. As I was helping another search angel by scrolling through the thousands of posts in the adoption forum on Reunion.com, I spotted a post with my neice's birthdate in it. It also had the same city of birth and it jumped right off the page at me. That was the beginning of a successful reunion between Julie and her birthmom.
As time goes on, I will add new helpful links to this site. I hope to add pictures just as we have on our immigrants page and I also would like to add stories that may be submitted.
If you are searching for someone in another country, I want to tell everyone about a new
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genealogists in more than 20 countries, find genealogists who read and speak other languages
and ask a genealogist in over 1600 cities to do a look-up for you. While these folks usually deal with older genealogy, they might have access to current information, directories and phone books. It's a free service and worth a try.
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