Finding an adopted relative?

[luvmarypoppins]

It's not for me, its for my aunt.

She told me such a sad story and I never knew this about her. She is not a blood relative, I just call her aunt since I was born, she was my moms best friend.

She lives in NJ and had a brother who had 3 children. The children were taken away from her brother after her and her sister asked to foster/adopt them. She said the laws were different back then.

I did a little research and see that NJ adoption records are permanently sealed, only opened under court order.

Somehow her oldest niece who is in her early 50's found her and now it is all their hearts desire to find the 2 missing brothers. They were adopted as young children and the only rumor my aunt had was that she thought one was adopted by a doctor in a certain town in NJ.

I dont know where this would go, if the brothers want to see their sister or even each other, what they were told by their adoptive families etc.

My "help" would be limited to online research etc. Anyone ever do this, where could I start. I do have a cousin who is a lawyer in NJ and a friend who works for the court system. I could ask them for advice if needed but dont want to share this with them yet. They are just a resource that could be of help.

I would just love to help my aunt in any way I could. She is legally blind so cant do any of this stuff herself and I dont know how much the sister of the brothers has done. She is ill also.

Any ideas or suggestions, or maybe this is just impossible?

 

[chager]

I would start with a site like adoption.com and try the boards there. Good luck!

 

[Dominus]

I too was adopted and found my b-mom. The internet is a great resource. Gather all the info you have names, dob, city and county of birth, anything. There are adoption registries for all states. Find one(or more) for NJ, put the info up in an ad, and if the siblings are also registered the site should match you up. Sometimes it's just a matter of the right person responding to the ad. That's your best bet if you don't have much to go on. Aside from that, try the state birth records.

 

[browneyes106]

Dominus gave you some good tips. Contact your cousin and ask him/her any questions about the adoptions. Maybe try contacting the niece and ask information about her adoption and how it was carried out.

 

[agnes!]

The upthread posters have a lot of good advice.

I would also add that Google is your best friend. Do simple searches of all the names involved, do searches of the newspapers where the births took place (many newspapers are available online in places like NewpaperArchive.com, etc.) and where the adoption/taking-away took place. The court system might be closed to you but public information is *not*.

Also ask any relatives/friends who were around then if they remember any details of the courts case/adoption. Perhaps the doctor isn't from New Jersey, maybe he actually lived in Ct and the states have gotten a little confused in some people's recollection.

Ancestry.Com has family-name boards. In addition to the adoption boards, you can always post a query on your friend's family-name's board about how you're searching for your her adopted relatives.

You need every single scrap of info you can think of (birth-names, *all* the relevant jurisdictions, birth-dates of the missing brothers, dates when events occurred, etc.)

Good luck,
agnes!