[geogdeb]

Hi Everyone,

I got some pretty exciting news today. News that may be pertinant to many of you who are searching. I am searching for my son born in Georgia (08/15/1979) and adopted through LDSSS (or LDSFS). I have been seriously looking for almost 3 years and have run into dead ends at every turn. LDSFS has been particularly hard to deal with. However, I finally contacted a lawyer about unsealing my sons adoption records so I could at least find out what state he was adopted in and maybe have identifying information released to a confidential intermediary. After all, that is what the Georgia Adoption Reunion Registry (GARR) does for birthparents. The problem I have run into is that the GARR cannot access sealed records. They already have information in their files about children, birthparents and adoptive parents that were adopted through the state, but they don't have information from private adoption agencies like LDSFS. Therefore they could not conduct a search. I always thought it was strange that even though the searches were mandated by Georgia law (since 1990) LDSFS maintained that they had there own policies and did not have to follow that law. The workers at the GARR were even ignorant of policies that extended beyond the state agencies.

Anyway the lawyer emailed me today and told me that LDSFS had to comply to Georgia law and do a search for me!!!! I emailed the head of the LDSFS in Georgia today and told him what my lawyer said and included the code number and exact wording of the law. He hasn't responded yet, of course, but I am sure that I will hear from him by next week.

I hope this is helpful to at least some of you. I have found that finding any information in the adoption community is hard and I want to make sure that I don't hide any of the information that I have that might be helpful to even one person in their search.

Good Luck,

Debbie