Saturday, January 03, 2009

Birth Parent Analysis

I am frequently asked how likely it is that a birth parent search would be successful, or how reliable a child's finding information might be, or if a particular orphanage is involved in trafficking. Over the years I have accumulated a huge amount of data concerning China's orphanages -- press reports, finding ads, and personal experiences in many of the cities. This data allows one to place the finding of a particular child against the forest of every other internationally-adopted child found in that area.

A few years ago I was asked to locate the finding ad of a Guangdong Province girl. After locating her ad, we detected another child, whose ad was published in a different newspaper, but who was found a few yards from the first child on the same day, and who had an identical birth date. We alerted the adoptive family of this second child, and told them there was a distinct possibility that she was a sibling.

A year later we performed a research project to the orphanage that this child came from, and the adoptive family of the second child joined the project also. We put both families in touch with each other, and subsequent DNA testing determined a probable relationship between the two girls.

This is one example of how looking at the "forest" from which our children come can allow us to make exciting discoveries.

The Birth Parent Analysis reports will look at several data sets. First, we look at the overall orphanage statistics from 2000-2008. How many children were adopted? How many of those were boys and girls, healthy and Special Needs? We then look at the finding location distribution. Against this background we look at the finding location of your child -- were other children found at this location? If so, when? How many were found in the general area? Are there local press reports that shed light on these patterns?

Combining all of this analysis will allow adoptive families a clearer picture concerning birth-parent search probabilities and finding location accuracy. Armed with this information families can decide if searching for more information will be fruitful.

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More information on Research-China.Org's Birth Parent Search Analysis can be found here. Data is available from 2000 forward in most cases. There is no charge if we are not confident that our data is complete for your child's orphanage.