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.