Found wife's birth mother

[dinska]

Originally Posted by historyfan

I would find mailing address(es) online and write a very short letter with your contact info, but mail it in a US Priority Mail envelope. It will cost $6 something but will not get lost in the mail.

Phonecalls could go unanswered or the wrong person might answer.

I wish you peace.

Yes do this, my late mother's father died when she was a baby and she was estranged from his family because my grandmother had her own ideas about how to move on. When my mother tried to make contact with his family she called one day having gotten a number from one of their friends (in a stroke of luck my mother's boss knew her father's family growing up) they had people over or some kind of get-together and they didn't want to talk. She was crushed and never tried again. Of course her reaction was a little silly but maybe she was just afraid to try again, who knows? In any case make it as comfortable for both parties as possible and phoning early in the contact is a bit unreliable for this sort of thing.

[susankate]

I'm adopted and when I decided to go looking (about 7-8 years ago), I found a grave, my birthmother had died at a fairly young age (under 40). I had a feeling that due to her early death, it was unlikely that her extended family, eg uncles/cousins, would know anything about my existence because I was born overseas while she was on a working holiday (she had no other living children (she had stillborn twins)) so wasn't sure how to make the approach. In the end, I did find the right approach (which was sort of unique to my situation so won't go into here).

When I got my OBC from NZ, I got a little booklet called "Approaching your birth parents" which you might find of interest because in the last portion of the booklet, it talks about the ins and outs of each approach:

http://www.cyf.govt.nz/documents/abo...ts-04-2005.pdf

Even though it is about contacting birthparents, it would still be of help regarding contacting any birth relative.

(NB: When you bring up the PDF, you will find a blank green page so you will need to scroll down a little to find the actual booklet).

[ScoPro]

Thank you for the links.


Several weeks ago I made a post on the page under Mrs. ScoPro's birth mother's family portrait. Within a few hours an unrelated person emailed me and said she could put me in touch with a "cousin".

We connected with each other, and the "cousin" said his part of the family was unaware of my wife's existence. The cousin's wife even remarked that my wife bears a strong resemblance to the birth sister, with whom they haven't been in touch for years.

After some online discussion and exchanging contact information, we have agreed that he will approach Mrs. ScoPro's new found half sister (his cousin) first to see about initiating contact. I just sent him a packet of photos & copies of the adoption papers that he can forward.

We'll just have to wait & see. It all may come to nothing, and we certainly don't want to cause any distress.

[suzy_q2010]

Best wishes for an amicable result, ScoPro.

Please keep us updated.