Practical Guide to Tracing Birth Relatives
We have produced a free Tracing Guide to help you think about the issues involved in searching for and contacting your birth relatives, and to describe the various methods and resources you can use to find out about your origins and how to use the information to trace your relatives.
I would like to search for birth relatives: How can I do this?
Some adopted people want to search and make contact with birth relatives from the outset and others make the decision to search for birth relatives after they have obtained the background information from adoption records.
The information contained on the original birth certificate and on the adoption records should provide sufficient information to enable you to begin a search for birth family members. The adoption agency or local authority you have been in touch about obtaining information from adoption records will be able to advise you about how to begin a search for birth relatives.
Listen to an expert: Tracing your family
Here you can watch Julia Feast explaining how to start tracing birth relatives and how contact registers can help.