[ggfriend]

I am assisting a friend in locating his birth mother (Jane), father and any other family. Please contact me if you have any information.

[BabyGirlM1963]

Hi gg

Has your friend contacted Joy O'Neill at the Philly Orphan's Court? If not, her contact info is:

Joy O’Neill
Philadelphia Family Court
Adoption Branch
1801 Vine Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-686-4194

[ggfriend]

This is a new lead for me. What kind of information can Ms. O'Neill provide? What kind of information can we request from her? Thanks for any tips you can offer.

[BabyGirlM1963]

Hi gg, because his adoption was finalized through the Philadelphia courts, she can get him started with getting his nonidentifying information that he is entitled to by law. If he'd like to continue on to do a full search, he has two options at that point:

1.) If the non-identifying information has a lot of leads that may help him do his search on his own (rare, but it happens), he can join the Pennsylvania Adoption Reunion Registry group at Yahoo. Their address is:

parr : PA Adoption Reunion Registry (PARR)

and there are free search angels who would help him do his search on his own. Even if the information doesn't have a lot of leads, I'd recommend he join that group anyway

2.) If the information is really scanty, she's authorized by the state to do a search for him and contact his mother if she's successful. This unfortunately does cost money but for a lot of Philadelphia adoptees this is the way they need to go. Last I heard the fee charged by the State of Pennsylvania for this was $150 but it may have gone up. She's very competent and professional though and I've heard only positive reports of her work

I hope this helps. Also please tell him to be sure he's registered with the International Soundex Reunion Registry if he hasn't already done so. That's free!

You can download the forms for him here:

ISRR - International Soundex Reunion Registry

I hope this helps, and if you have any more questions please don't hesitate to ask!