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Adoption searching, looking for an adoptee, birthmother or birthfather and
offering a free adoption search registry is only a few of the investigation
services offered by Worldwide Tracers and the Adoption Search Bureau since
the company began in 1980. Worldwide Tracers has located missing people and
solved adoption searches in every state of the United States and 68 foreign
countries. A total of 17,000 cases have been solved, the searchers have the
lowest search fees in the industry.
By Karen M. Thomas
Dallas Morning News
DALLAS - Jane Hart was pregnant with her third daughter when she caught a glimpse of her silhouette in the mirror one morning.
There, staring back at her, was the pregnant shape she imagined her birth mother had when she carried her more than 33 years ago. But something was missing. No matter how hard she tried, Hart couldn't picture the face of the woman she had never met.
"It just frustrated me because I knew she must have looked like this, but I couldn't see her face," the Richardson, Texas, mother says.
Four years ago, she joined thousands of other adult adoptees in search of their birth parents. Whether they connect through a growing number of support groups, Web sites, books, workshops or private companies, their desire is the same - to find the missing links to their identity.
NATIONAL DEBATE
In recent years, a national debate has erupted over a child's right to his or her identity and the privacy of birth parents. Learning the identity of a birth parent or what happened to a child placed for adoption allows adoptees and birth parents to heal, say those who support openness.
But there is plenty of opposition to the new openness, too. Some critics say that when birth parents or adoptees do not wish to be found, their privacy ought to be protected. They say to do anything less would be disruptive to the lives of others.
New genetic research and medical technology such as egg donations have added fuel to the controversy. The debate will only deepen and become more complicated in years to come.
"You have all these new medical breakthroughs bringing all this to the forefront," says Tammy Kling, who recently wrote "Searching for a Piece of My Soul: How to Find a Missing Family Member or Loved One" (Contemporary Books, $12.95).
HELP IS AVAILABLE
Three decades ago, when Hart was born, adoption was a dark family secret.
 Over the years, the secrecy has slowly lifted. Agencies that once would give little or no information about an adoption now help reunite birth parents and adoptees. There are support groups to help those involved in adoption. There are Web sites, how-to books and workshops to help those searching. And for those who can afford it, there are companies that specialize in finding missing family members.
At Worldwide Tracers in Mansfield, Texas, the walls of Pat Rutherford's paneled office are covered with photographs and stories of reunited families.
While the private investigation agency offers other services, such as trailing a cheating spouse, finding children taken in spousal kidnappings and tracking down deadbeat dads, adoption reunions hit close to home, says Rutherford. A father of six, including three adopted children, Rutherford says he learned in his own household his children's need to know more about their identity.
For a flat fee of just under $500, Rutherford says his agency will search for a missing family member until it finds him or her.
Down the hall from his office, Kyleen Wright works most of the agency's adoption cases. She listens patiently to birth parents, adoptees and even siblings in search of relatives they have never met. She spends time searching databases. And she ponders over widely varying state adoption laws, trying to figure out ways to unseal records that were meant to be closed forever.
"For me, it's like a ministry," she says. "I think I'm doing something healing. I have this one client who is 74 years old. Obviously, her mother is probably dead. But there might be siblings. When she talks about it, she just sobs. She says she didn't realize how much she wanted to know. You just don't realize how important this is to people."
MAKING THE CONNECTION
When the agency is able to find a family, information isn't just handed over to the searching party.
"I do the connecting, so to speak," says Rutherford. "When we started this, we decided we didn't want to hurt anyone. So if you're a birth mom, I would call you a tell you that the child you gave up 25 years ago was looking for you. And if you didn't want to talk to him, I would ask why not. Sometimes, it's because a spouse doesn't know or whatever."
"We give them time to work through that. I can only think of one case where that didn't work, where the mother said she didn't want to see the child and meant it."
Photo above: Pat Rutherford (left) and Kyleen Wright of Worldwide Tracers.
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P.O. Box 511 Mansfield, TX 76063-0511
International (817) 473-0449
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