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Article: The search for siblings.(national registry to help adoptees find birth families is being proposed)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Insight on the News
- Article date:
- September 21, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 News World Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Would a national registry help adoptees find birth families -- or hinder their search?
Adoptee Jim Rockwell of Cornell, Mich., first learned of his 13 birth siblings at the age of 61 through dumb luck. "I walked into the county clerk's office, asked for my birth information and the dear, dear lady gave me everything" recalls Rockwell, now 72. "She said she thought at my age, I had the right to know."
Without the clerk's extraordinary decision to hand him his file, Rockwell is sure he never would have found his siblings, who live in four other states. His adoptive parents had died before he decided to search for his birth family, and he later learned that ...