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I will start with the good part of the story. In Virginia where I was born and adopted, if you were adopted through the state agency you can fill out a form and they will search for your birth parents. This was not a quick process even though I had a letter from my birth mother(BM) with her maiden name. It still took the lady about 4 years to find her. Lucky for me my BM lived only about 20 miles from me. I was able to meet her and my two half sisters. Over the few years I have know them now we have been involved in each others lives. My BM is very happy to have 2 grand kids through me. It has give me more family and I love knowing my sisters especially.
My disappointment is that my BM never kept in touch with my father. Over the last few years she has given me some details not a lot. She gave me a name (it is very common), a state he is from/maybe currently lives, a type of job, the name of his ex-wife and that he was in the military. Oh and an old picture. Searching on my own I'm not really sure how to begin. Any suggestions?
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Try and find an age on him and a hometown if at all possible, then look at school records on classmates.com facebook has groups for that as well. I found two sisters who were adopted by a different family than I was on Facebook because I found out their maiden names and approx. ages and hometown. At least men don't normally change their names upon marriage, use meta search engines (ones that collate results from other engines). I recommend Mamma.com and Dogpile.com as the easiest engines to use. try entering the same information multiple ways into these search engines, some search engines allow the usage of the word "AND" while others require "+" and others require only a space to combine words.
Best of luck in your search.
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Do you know where he went to high school? Do you know his parents' names? Does he have siblings? If so, do you know their names?
What high school did he attend? Is he listed on an alumni website for the school? Do you know his DOB, or his age? If they were together for any length of time, she would most likely remember the month. (That would be helpful in narrowing the list of possibilities.)
Is his ex-wife's name common? Can you find her?
What branch of the military? Your mother must know his hometown. Try to find out.
These--and many others--are questions that you have to ask yourself. You just have to keep piecing things together.
If you have his ex-wife's name, look for wedding announcements in the papers in his state. Some states have open records for marriages, so if you can figure out his name and his ex-wife's name, you might be able to get his marriage record, which would give you an old address.
If he was in the military, you might be able to get his some of his military personnel records. You won't get as much as legal next-of-kin would be able to obtain, but you might get some tidbits of information. (You'll need more information than you currently have to obtain this information, but it might be something that will be helpful down the road as you piece together more information.)
Ancestry.com might help you. Familysearch.org might also be a solid resource. Classmates.com is great if you know what high school your father attended. You might be able to find a picture of him.
Did you get non-identifying information from the state agency. You might find some additional tidbits of information about your father that could help you find him.
It's about triangulating information.
Most adoptees who have searched for relatives could open detective agencies by the time their done searching.
I'm 80% certain that I found my brother's mother with only knowing that church at which he was baptized, his b-mother's age at the time of relinquishment, and his family background (e.g., German, Scottish).... I looked at high school yearbooks in the area. I found a young girl of the right age who looked remarkably like my brother. There were other indicators that led me to believe I found my brother's mother.
So, with very little information, you can find someone--sometimes.
L4R
Do you know where he went to high school? Do you know his parents' names? Does he have siblings? If so, do you know their names?
What high school did he attend? Is he listed on an alumni website for the school? Do you know his DOB, or his age? If they were together for any length of time, she would most likely remember the month. (That would be helpful in narrowing the list of possibilities.)
Is his ex-wife's name common? Can you find her?
What branch of the military? Your mother must know his hometown. Try to find out.
These--and many others--are questions that you have to ask yourself. You just have to keep piecing things together.
If you have his ex-wife's name, look for wedding announcements in the papers in his state. Some states have open records for marriages, so if you can figure out his name and his ex-wife's name, you might be able to get his marriage record, which would give you an old address.
If he was in the military, you might be able to get his some of his military personnel records. You won't get as much as legal next-of-kin would be able to obtain, but you might get some tidbits of information. (You'll need more information than you currently have to obtain this information, but it might be something that will be helpful down the road as you piece together more information.)
Ancestry.com might help you. Familysearch.org might also be a solid resource. Classmates.com is great if you know what high school your father attended. You might be able to find a picture of him.
Did you get non-identifying information from the state agency. You might find some additional tidbits of information about your father that could help you find him.
It's about triangulating information.
Most adoptees who have searched for relatives could open detective agencies by the time their done searching.
I'm 80% certain that I found my brother's mother with only knowing that church at which he was baptized, his b-mother's age at the time of relinquishment, and his family background (e.g., German, Scottish).... I looked at high school yearbooks in the area. I found a young girl of the right age who looked remarkably like my brother. There were other indicators that led me to believe I found my brother's mother.
So, with very little information, you can find someone--sometimes.