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Trying to find my fathers birth mother

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  • 16-09-2010 7:20pm
    #1
    DebDynamite
    Registered Users Posts: 2,666 ✭✭✭


    Hi all

    I wonder if someone could please help me. 6 years ago my father asked me to help him find his birth mother. We wrote a letter to the The Registrar in the Adoption Board in Ballsbridge looking for information. In the reply we received, they said that unless his mother had placed herself on the list to allow her child to trace her, there was nothing they could do. We took this to mean that she hadn't placed herself on the list and could find nothing on her so were unable to help us further. We just gave up then.

    I've been thinking about it lately and would love to help him find his birth mother while she's still alive (that's if she is alive). He's quite a private person and wouldn't show much emotion so don't want to mention it to him again if there really is no hope. I was actually surprised he even asked me to help him in the first place.

    Could anyone please tell me where to go from here and maybe share their own experiences. He was adopted in the 1950's if that helps.

    Thanks in advance.


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    #2
    Ostrom
    Registered Users Posts: 3,483 ✭✭✭Ostrom


    DebDynamite wrote: »
    Hi all

    I wonder if someone could please help me. 6 years ago my father asked me to help him find his birth mother. We wrote a letter to the The Registrar in the Adoption Board in Ballsbridge looking for information. In the reply we received, they said that unless his mother had placed herself on the list to allow her child to trace her, there was nothing they could do. We took this to mean that she hadn't placed herself on the list and could find nothing on her so were unable to help us further. We just gave up then.

    I've been thinking about it lately and would love to help him find his birth mother while she's still alive (that's if she is alive). He's quite a private person and wouldn't show much emotion so don't want to mention it to him again if there really is no hope. I was actually surprised he even asked me to help him in the first place.

    Could anyone please tell me where to go from here and maybe share their own experiences. He was adopted in the 1950's if that helps.

    Thanks in advance.

    Your father, as with every adopted person, is entitled to know the agency through which his adoption was arranged, and access to any non-identifying information that may be in his records with the former agency/society (in practice, unfortunately, it is rarely as simple as that).

    Our first step on a trace is to write to the adoption board requesting contact details for the society that facilitated the adoption - many are not still active, and are now under the charge of the HSE (some continue to function in an administrative capacity and control disclosure of information). If the former agency is inactive, you will be given contact details for the department to which your records went.

    It sounds unusual that they gave you a reply like that, where did you write to? Did you just ask about the contact preference register? - If so, that would be a reasonable reply, but not under any other circumstances. I would write back formally requesting the above - you can use the template in the tracing guide in the forum sticky. Your father is entitled to this information.


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