Genealogy Chat

I've been helping a few people find family members they have lost contact with, and managed to find quite a few.

However, I have now been asked by a 'cousin' who was adopted, if there is any kind of law that says 'first contact' has to be via someone like Social Services, or if they can just make contact themselves. There is no doubt that this cousin has found the right person as their birth parent, but they don't know what to do next. Is there anything from preventing him just contacting the person through GR and saying that they have a positive match? He's heard through the grapevine that the birth parent wants to find their son, but doesn' seem to have twigged that he is also listed on the GR site.

Has anyone here actually made their own contact without any intervention from Social Services? How did you aproach it and how did it go? I don't want to advise him to do it if it's a bad idea, but it seems silly that they are both looking for each other and are not in touch, when all it would take is one message.

Happy to listen to all advice from any angle, so that I can pass it on to him.

Many thanks
Gerry

Not sure about that one, Gerry. I always understood (as an adopted person) that I could initiate contact with my birth mother or father through my social worker (who is also my godfather, as it happens) but that my birth parents could not contact me.

Saying that, I know there have been changes to the law recently and I can't quite remember how things stand at the moment re. birth parents being able to contact their children.

I did actually do a search for my birth mother's name and it appears that she may possibly be a member of this site but I'm unsure about what the reaction would be to any contact and don't know for sure if I want to explore all that side of things.

I suppose your cousin could send a short e-mail saying they are looking for their birth mother and wondered if the Mary Smith (for instance) in her tree matched the details he had been given. That way she could either not reply or say it was not the Mary Smith she had if she didn't want to be in contact.

I am of the understanding that it as to be a socialworker or a third party, That is how its being done for me

Gerry,

If the -adoptee is over the age of 18,,and has all their information facts,there is no law from preventing a third party or themselves from making contact,,,,


,,,,SS,like to do this themselves as often -sensitive material that is not shown to the adoptee is contained in their file,,,,