Finding my biological family in Colombia (birth mother, options, parents, name change)

[kevin15776]

I've had a great life and consider my adoptive parents to be my real parents. They're all I've known and I couldn't ask for better parents. However, I'm still curious about where I came from and recently went through my files to find my parents actually kept my Colombian birth certificate complete with my birth name, hospital of birth, birth mother's name and citizenship number, etc. I believe Colombia updated their citizenship number system and so the # I have for my birth mom is outdated. Even so, does anyone know the next step to take in my search? I've contacted a company that supposedly helps connect adoptees with their biological families but I'm hesitant to shell out hundreds of dollars to them. I'd rather just perform the search myself but am not sure where to begin. Any advice would be appreciated.

[Honeycrisp]

What about the agency that you were adopted thru?, would contact them, I think there's also adoptive groups where ppl in similar situations could give you help as to how to get started etc. Likely your bio mom has moved and possibly had a name change (alth. I think sometimes they keep their maiden names or hyphenate them) but someone at her location may know her family. Unfortunately I know nothing about Col. adoptions but would try the agency (unless it was a priv. adoption, then it may be different). Best wishes

[lae60]

I would suggest that you look on Yahoo groups for a Columbian Birth /Adoption group. I adopted my 2 kids from Guatemala and there are several groups that consist of families that adopted from Guatemala. Many of the families have used searchers to find the birth families. They give recommendations about which searchers are good, and which are not. I am guessing that there are similar groups for your country.

[kevin15776]

I was adopted through an organization called FANA and they state on their website that they do not help in searches for biological parents.

[HighFlyingBird]

I found one of my children's bio families in a latin american country by using a "searcher". We got her contact info through a facebook page for adoptive families through that region. So social media might be your best bet to both find info, but also find a reputable searcher. The reason why we couldn't just look them up in the phone book is two fold. 1) its dangerious business...the b-moms didn't always tell people so it has to be done with care so they aren't "outed" unfairly. 2) it isn't like the US (at least our country of birth) where you can easily look people up.

Good luck