Advice please......

mectavba

Hi folks,

I'm an adoptee who has very supportive adoptive parents when it comes to me one day finding my birth mother.

To date I have made the steps of registering on the national adoption contact preference register and also contacted the agency, I was adopted through. I got an acknowledgement letter from them, but nothing since. That was over a year ago.

Today, I read the Irish Times article by Cian Traynor and it got me thinking about it again. The guy that featured has done a massive amount of research himself. I have always been aware of this route but for whatever reason not really got about doing anything about it.

Anyway after visiting some of the websites that were linked to the article i got googling a few things i.e. the name i think i have for my birth mother (it is quite an unusual one). I thought I had done this before and got nowhere.

Heal of the hunt, by typing this name into the area of Dublin I think/know she was from I got one result (only 4 in Dublin). Then by googling this name with her married name (i presume), i have found some photos of this lady. Without it being a looking-in-the-mirror experience, you could certainly say there is a resemblance.

I am well aware that I am completely jumping the gun here and before anyone gets too worried I am not going to go contacting her purely on the basis of this. However, it has made me think that it might not be the absolute needle in a haystack search I thought it might be.

So I guess what I am asking is what do I do next??
I am thinking 1. Go find my birth Cert. 2. Find my birth mothers marriage cert. I have read through the info on how to go about this so not asking for specific info on that.

I work in town, so is it worth my while spending a few lunchtimes up in the Irish Life Mall doing my research or does it take a few full days? Bear in mind, know my birth name (first and surname) my birth mother's name, her age, area of the city she came from....all assuming the info I have is correct.

I know I am getting ahead of myself here, but say I find my birth cert, then the marriage cert and it confirms my above theory...what do i do next????

Thanks for reading and any replies would be most appreciated.

kathy finn

hi, first of all if u ar waiting for the adoption agency to do a search u could be on a waiting list for up to 3 years.
if i was u i would cheak all the info u have in the irish life mall and if ur correct send a letter to ur birthmum saying someone she knew from ur year of birth is trying to make contact with her.
please make sure u ar contacting the right person.
good luck....kathy

mectavba

Thanks for the reply.

I went to the Irish Life Mall, got my original Birth Cert. Nothing I didnt know already on it except the spelling of my Birth mother's name eliminates the woman I referred to above.

What next? Do I look for my mother's birth cert or start trawling through the marriage certificates?

kathy finn

look for her birthcert which will give u the name of her parents and where they where living at the time of her birth, from their start to look for her marraige cert. good luck

tyview

Hi, as Kathy said, look for her birth cert first so you can get her parents names and then look for her marriage. It shouldn't be too hard to find her birth cert if you know roughly what age she was having you and then the marriage cert once as you'd have her surname and parents name. From there you could look for any more children under her married name which would give you another maybe more recent address for her.

I know when I got my bms maiden name I googled (just to feel like I was doing something) but its pretty pointless I reckon unless they are on facebook or would have another reason to be on the net.

mectavba

Thanks again for the replies.

I found her birth cert today, which was easy enough because I knew what age she was when I was born.

As I said on a previous post, her christian name is quite unusual. This is probably an advantage in trying to track her down, I know. But it is an Irish name that can be spelt as Gaeilge or in its anglicized form.

On my birth cert her name is the anglicized version, on hers it is as Gaeilge.

I am presuming that the mistake is with the registrar on my birth cert. Or could it be that she decided to change how she spelt her name at some stage?

Also...I knew what christian name she had given me, but didnt know what second name and nor did my adoptive parents. They decided to use the christian name my birth mother gave me as my second name. However, it turns out that the second name my birth mother gave me, was the christian name my adoptive parents gave me!!!

whitemoon

Hi, new to this so not sure if going the right direction on this, please bear with me!! Am trying to trace BM for my husband, found his original birth cert without much difficulty in the Irish Life and am going to try and locate his BM's birth cert which seems to be the best way to go from reading posts on boards. If and when I find it how do I go about locating her marriage cert to determine her married name? any help would be gratefully appreciated.

tyview

whitemoon wrote: »

Hi, new to this so not sure if going the right direction on this, please bear with me!! Am trying to trace BM for my husband, found his original birth cert without much difficulty in the Irish Life and am going to try and locate his BM's birth cert which seems to be the best way to go from reading posts on boards. If and when I find it how do I go about locating her marriage cert to determine her married name? any help would be gratefully appreciated.

Hi Whitemoon,

When you get her birth cert it will give her parents names. You can then do a search in the research room in the marriage books. The marriage books have an entry in the wife and husbands name separately in the books. Any possible matches you get, you'll then need to order the cert and check the parents names on the marriage against her birth cert. Hope that helps!

whitemoon

Tyview,

Thanks so much for the info, will head in to Irish Life next week n see how it goes.

aprilbaby

Heya,

I put in my contact preference register form 6 yrs ago and heard nothing back from it. Then about 2 years ago I made a formal request to the HSE agency. I was told it was a 2 year waiting list and in the meantime went into the Irish Life Mall. I actually got called up before the 2 years. I think it helps if you ring once/twice a year so they know you haven't forgotten you're on a waiting list. Now I have a social worker who is fantastic and I've just sent the first set of photographs to my biological aunt who is acting a go between as my birth mother is reluctant to get involved in the trace in the moment.

Before I started the trace I was very apprehensive about the HSE service but apart from the first meeting, I've had such a positive experience. I guess it depends on what social worker you get. I feel like I can talk to mine and I don't have to hold anything back and she fills me in on everything as it happens. Personally, I think you're better off waiting for the HSE service while doing what you can while you're on the waiting list. But I guess it also depends on your own reason for the trace and how anxious you are to get a result. My SW said to me, the slower the process, the better the outcome and I think she's right.