The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or the Mormon church, keep the best genealogical records in the United States, and quite possibly in the entire world. Their main genealogical library, or Family History Center, is located in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is a goldmine of information for searchers, including, but not limited to, county histories, newspapers/periodicals containing obituaries, vital record announcements, etc. in microfilm collections, the Old Parochial Register of Scotland (lists extracted entries from the Church of Scotland baptism and marriage registers), the Australia, New South Wales Pioneer and Federation Index (lists birth, marriages, and deaths available from the Australian Civil Registration office), Obituary Index, Patriarchal Blessing Index, LDS Ward Records, Church Census, Utah Immigration Index, military records in book and microfilm, birth indices, the Social Security Death indices and further Military records on CD-Rom, with computer workstations set up for viewing. The best part of this wonderful resource is that you can order pretty much any of the FHC holdings through a local FHC and have it sent their so you can use it. There is a list of all the Familty History centers in the U.S. and Canada here.

Now, there are several things you need to know before you set foot in a Family History Center. First off, the Mormon Church is one of the few that have a formal position on closed adoption records, and they support them. Blabbing about your adoption search will put a quick end to your progress in most cases. The second thing is that even if you do not mention that your search is adoption-related, when you ask for a certain resource, particularly a birth index, their suspicions will be raised. You might be told that a given resource does not exist, or that all adoption entries have been purged, or you might be told to leave. FHC helpers and attendants in general, have been trained to vehemently maintain that their resources do not contain any information that will help you to find a living person. It's all a bunch of hooey. You need to learn what the holdings of the main FHC in Salt Lake are, how to order them, and how to use the CD-Roms to your advantage. If you must ask the attendants for assistance, try to keep it basic, and if it appears that they are not going to be helpful, as politely as possible terminate the conversation and give it another shot on your own. If you encounter severe resistance, go to another local FHC. Some are much better than others.

There are guides available that cover how to use Family History Centers. Check at your library, contact your local genelaogical society and the FHC's themselves for versions of these guides. Also, many groups schedule yearly genealogical trips to the main library in Salt Lake. Again, contact your local genealogical society, and check your library for postings and bulletins about such trips, as well as workshops. Also, I recommend that you visit here for various FHC related information.

Yearbooks

Yearbooks can be very useful, especially if you have just a partial name, or just a first name. Many libraries contain the complete collection of both highschool and college yearbooks for the cities in the area, often going several decades back. If not, you can contact the Public School District. Most school districts have archives where their yearbooks are stored. Here is an instance where your non-identifying information will come in handy. Use the ages of your birthparent(s) to determine the dates of their school enrollment, use the physical descriptions to narrow down your choices, and use the 'interests, sports, and hobbies' to clue you in to clubs or teams they might belong to, or the information given about what they might be majoring in in college.

Online Phonebooks

If you have a particularly unusual name, or you arrive at the full name of a birthfamily member, or you're just curious as to how many person with the name live in Arizona, or any other state, online there is a national telephone directory called Switchboard. Canada also has one that covers all provinces except Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada411. There's a good index of international phone directories that currently covers over 40 countries, and has links to additional international resources for locating individuals overseas.

General Genealogical Resources

As we have already discussed, once you have a name, an adoption search will become much like any other genealogical search. There are thousands of genealogical resources available to the intrepid. Yes, many resources will focus on tracing ancestors several times removed, resources hundreds of years old. But many other resources will contain information that applies to the way records are kept today, or the way they were kept when you were born. By simply using an Internet search engine, such as Alta Vista, and plugging in the word 'genealogy', nearly a quarter of a *million* entries pop up, and yes, you can make great strides in your search if you have a name to work with. Many large cities have separate sections in their public libraries devoted to genealogy. Many cities and towns have genealogical societies that meet monthly. Read the Usenet newsgroup, soc.genealogy.*, and the FAQ's associated with it.

Connecting the Dots

Now that your search journal is stuffed full of copies of city directory pages, obituaries, yearbook entries, international genealogical index listings, and heaven knows what else, you might be feeling overwhelmed. It's important to remain organized. Use all of the information at your disposal to eliminate as many of the entries as possible, and to highlight certain names. Pay attention to entries or names that keep resurfacing, then make a list in order of priority, starting with the persons that you think are most likely, and ending with the least likely. If you have developed any kind of rapport with your adoption agency, contact them with the name(s) that you have and see if they are willing to confirm or eliminate some pieces of information (although take everything they say with a grain of salt). If you have documents that you received from the agency or court or attorney that are whited out or otherwise censored, see if you can determine the length or number of spaces of the names that are whited out, and compare them with the information that you have. If you are unable to determine who the name that you have belongs to (birthfather or mother), keep in mind the ethnicity notated on your non-ID (although, again, take it with a grain of salt) and see if anything there gives you a clue.

Future posts will cover making contact with your birthparents, but even if you call up individuals with the intention of just gaining some genealogical information to further your search, you may inadvertantly end up with your birthmother or father on the other line. I know, it happened to me. So be prepared and discreet with every phone call that you make. If it becomes clear that you are speaking to a relative, you might want to wrap up your conversation and get off the phone to compose yourself and ponder your next step.

Continue to next section, Choices in Searching

This post was authored by Shea Grimm except where otherwise indicated. It may be copied and distributed freely, in whole or part, as long as it is not sold, and as long as this notice is kept intact.