Searching for Your Chinese Birth Family

This book was written to benefit the 120,000 Chinese adoptees and their adoptive parents, who began adopting these children (mostly girls) beginning in the late 1990s and continuing to this day. Most adoptive families are provided very little information by the Chinese Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA) about their child's early heritage. According to the CCCWA nearly all of these children were abandoned by their birth parents. Although some children were truly abandoned, in most cases other factors contributed to these children being relinquished for adoption.

Many Chinese adoptees desire to re-connect with their first families but do not know how to go about searching in a manner that will result in a successful search. This book was designed to address that challenge. This book is the first and only book on this topic.

At age five the author's daughter, Mia, who was adopted from China in 2003, asked her adoptive parents to help locate her Chinese birth parents. Although her adoptive parents did not know whether it was possible to find Mia's birth family they agreed to help. Fifteen years later, during October 2020 Mia discovered the identity of her biological parents and siblings.

The book presents all the lessons this family learned during their search. It provides detailed information about the three primary types of search that can be used to locate Chinese birth family members and recommends how best to search, if Chinese adoptees and their adoptive parents hope to perform a successful search. This information can be used to expedite the search and prevent the searcher from wasting precious time and resources spent on activities that almost certainly will not result in a successful search. Rather, searchers can learn from this family's experience, pursue their own search in a more effective manner, and eventually succeed in less time and at a lower cost.

2021, 81/2x11, paper, index, 142 pp.