DNAConnect.Org is in the Air!

We announced on this blog a month ago the creation of a new searching tool to be utilized by adoptive families and Chinese adoptees interested locating birth families.

DNAConnect.Org has a simple purpose -- to allow DNA to be efficiently collected in China. As most readers are no doubt aware, in the past many opportunities have been lost to collect DNA from a birth family that is met in China, either while an adoptive family is on a "Heritage Tour" with their child, or when found through a "searcher." In the past, the high cost of buying a DNA kit, maintaining the contact information for the birth family, etc., have made collecting "non-familial" DNA unpractical.

Thanks to the generosity of the Chinese adoption community and others, we have raised funding to purchase the DNA vials in bulk. We have transferred some of those kits to China, and over the next few months will begin collecting DNA from known birth families in China. We have sufficient funds to process these samples for submission into a large U.S. DNA database, and are hopeful that matches will occur.

In order to foster transparency and increase accountability, we have recently added a Board of Directors. These four individuals are prominent members of the adoption community, either as adoptees, China adoptive families, or as members of the larger internaitonal adoption community. DNAConnect.Org's board will oversee fundraising, marketing, and community awareness. In this way it is hoped that DNAConnect.Org becomes a community effort, whose goal and objectives is simple: Provide our adoptive children with as many options as possible to search for and find biological relatives through DNA testing. 

As adoptive parents, all of us should realize that helping our children in this effort is one of our primary responsibilities. In the coming months we will be updating our DNAConnect.Org Facebook page with successes. We will detail where the DNA is being collected, how many matches are being found, etc.

We can use your help. Please spread the word in your adoption communities. "Like" us on FB, talk about us on your FCC groups, orphanage newsgroups, and other China adoption groups.  And consider being a financial supporter. 

The success of this project rests with the adoption community.  By supporting this project you will allow DNA to be collected and contact information with family members in China maintained.  If you are among our first supporters, you will have a "donation brick" placed on our wall of honor as one of the first supporters of this vision. 

DNAConnect.Org has the potential of changing the face of relative searching. Please join us in helping to "pay it forward."  The beneficiary may one day be you.