Document - Based Search
When a child is adopted from China, the orphanage, or agency responsible for facilitating such adoptions provides the adoptive parents with numerous documents to finalize the adoption including a Certificate of Abandonment, health reports, immunization records, a finding ad, and sometimes a birth certificate. In addition, the child’s orphanage file contains additional documents such as the Finder’s Report, and sometimes a Police Report. The file may also contain hospital records if the child was ill shortly before or after arriving at the orphanage. Adoptive parents typically have the original documents translated into English, by one or more individuals, and then look for clues in the documents that could point to the identity of the child’s biological parents. This type of search is called a document-based search since it is driven by the legal documents provided to the adoptive family during the adoption process.
Chinese Birth Family
Search Network
Welcome to the
Chinese Birth Family Search Network (CBFSN)
This website is designed to act as a clearing house, pointing to the best resources available to plan, launch, and perform a Chinese birth family search.
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We recommend you read ABOUt this organization and then review the roadmap before accessing other information on this site.
This book was written by Wesley O. Hagood to benefit the 120,000 Chinese adoptees and their adoptive parents, who began adopting these children (mostly girls) beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to this day.
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The book provides detailed information about the three primary types of search that can be used to locate Chinese birth family members and recommends how best to search. This information can be used to expedite the search and prevent the searcher from wasting precious time and resources spent on activities that almost certainly will not result in a successful search. Rather, searchers can pursue their own search in a more effective manner, and eventually succeed in less time and at a lower cost.