[Brenda Wallace]

We adopted our daughter at birth and were told that she was bi-racial (aa/ca). Three months later when her adoption was finalized, we received her birthparents medical and family history. (It was a closed adoption and we are not even supposed to know who her birthparents are). Anyway, in her profile her birthmother listed American Indian as her father's heritage. We have one picture of our daughter's birthmom, and she looks unmistakebly American Indian.

So, here is my question...

I would like to find out more about my daughter's AI heritage (tribe) and am also interested in knowing whether her biological grandfather is/was full-blooded, half, quarter, etc. We want to incorporate this heritage into her upbringing as we have her AA heritage. BUT, I also realize that with AI children, the tribe must first approve of the adoption before it can be finalized - and that obviously did not happen. My biggest fear is that if I search her IA heritage, I will be opening a big can of worms and could possible lose my daughter. Is that a possibility? How would one go about researching this, if at all? Some thoughts and insight, PLEASE

Bren

[tampa]

hi brenda, we also adopted our son at 3 months and were told he was mestizo, which is american indian and spanish, he is now 19 years old and entering college, on his approval we were trying to find out more for possible help with college, now when we contact catholic charities/tampa, they clam up. i have all the none id, info on him that was filled out by his birth mom, but they refuse to help as far as further searching goes into his heritage. go figure, his birth mom had several siblings, some that were nurses and had families of their own, we were hopeing someone would respond to our numerous postings through out the web. but nothing in the last couple of years. i truely hope you can get farther then we have, we also have talked to indian affairs in d.c. they said that we would need his ibc. no luck hear,..... good luck and god bless, tampa
and if someone is reading this and something sounds familiar his birthdate they put on was 2-29-84, TAMPA, Catholic Charities. don't know if date has been changed post any replys to Tampa