Genealogy Chat

My mum was adopted as a baby and managed to get her adoption documents recently. Her natural father was already married with children at the time, and as far as I know, nobody in his family kwows about my mum. I think I might have found some of his relatives, but don't know if I should do anything about it, because if tehy don't know, it might ruin their lifes knowing that they have a sister and that their dad was cheating on his wife.Please give me your opinion. Claire

If I was you Caire I would forget about what you have found and let sleeping dogs lie, you could hurt a lot of people, but this is only my opinion. Sylvia

Your mum can put her name on the Government Contact Register. Her sibs may know about her and be looking for her. Also - she should have had counselling when she got her adoption file, and been told that (for a fee) extremely discreet enquiries can be made, to see if the siblings know of her existence. My personal opinion is that this should be left to professionals to deal with as they are impartial and can minimise any hurt and possible damage. OC

If your mum is wanting to make contact then I think that it is up to her to go through the 'proper' channels of having someone experienced in these things to make the contact for her. As you say, his fanily - or indeed the father, may not know anything of her existence. Please think carefully about this and don't do anything rash for the sake of all involved. Your mum will need time to come to terms with the new information too. This is just my opinion, there are lots of people on here more experienced in these areas. You could do a thread search on adoption to find advice. Good luck. Dawn

Claire, there is another thread on this board tonight with useful information on adoption that may help you. Dawn

Claire i would get your mum to put her name on her adoption file to say she would like contact but get in touch with afterdoption .com or norcap to say you would like a family medical back ground. I would go by your gut feeling regarding this; if you feel you should get in contact do this; but dont expect them to get back to you; if they do this is a added bonus. Good luck i hope it goes well. Sandy

Claire Are you 100% it's the right family? Suppose it's the wrong one and you go barging in on strangers? Think of the stress you could cause to an innocent family! Leave it to the pro's is my advice. Calm down, take a deep breath and wait untill the excitment has cooled... Good luck though :-)) Gerri x (hark at me! I was last in the line when they were dishing out patience!! lol)

It's always recommended to use an intermediary service for adoption related contact. They will contact the father direct and take it from there. Have you established whether your mother's father is still alive? Is his wife still alive or have separated or divorced... if so this will lower the impact on his family. If your mum decides to make direct contact with him I think it should be done to him personally and not through other family members. I was faced with this dilemma a few years ago but the people involved had all passed away and so no-one got hurt. Mine was not adoption related and I did contact my siblings who were shocked at first, but now fully except the fact that their father had had other children 'elsewhere' :-) Cheers Gerry

Thank you all for your answers, I think I will make sure that this is the right person, obviously, then depending on whether is is alive or dead, I will tell my mother and discuss it with her, because at the end of the day, it is HER thing, and I have to respect it, although I am really curious to find out more... Thanks to you all! Claire