Hello all, I am new as well

Hi Bush, Because you don't know your sister's date of birth it limits what you can do to a certain extent. New Jersey just changed the laws that sealed the adoptees original birth certificate from them. It doesn't take effect for a couple of years. Whether or not your sister then chooses to get hers, knows about the change in law, etc is really very much chance. You can take proactive steps. With the state of New Jersey you can use your mothers full maiden name and with the two year window they have, they should be able to identify your sister. I'm guessing though (you need to check yourself) that all you can do is put a letter in her adoption file, and, perhaps sign up on the Mutual consent registry. After that it is up to her as to whether she has registered, does register. [url=http://www.state.nj.us/njfosteradopt/adoption/registry/]State of New Jersey | Department of Children and Families | Adoption Registry[/url] You should also try to find out if St. Elizabeths in NJ is still around. Ask them about any search services they offer, whether you can put a letter in her file. The following link is the Facebook page of NJ Care which is the adoptee rights group that finally got the law changed. There you should be able to find details about when the new law goes into effect. [url]https://www.facebook.com/pages/NJCARE/153768320936[/url] I do know that the new law has a veto/contact preference option. If you think that your mom would be willing to fill out a contact preference form, then if your sister applies for her birth certificate - she will know family is looking for her and welcomes contact. That is the biggest hurdle we face, being afraid to cause our mothers harm by searching. If your mom is worried that her child may be angry - the majority of us aren't. I would encourage her to take the time to understand how many actually want to reconnect, to hear their story, to understand, just to know where we came from. Good luck, Dickons

Thank you for the info... Yeah, I'm VERY new at this and VERY unaware of what to expect. I do know that my mother has no clue that my sister and I have taken this step and that she (my mother) would not want anything to do with it. It's just how she is and how she's been all our lives. Hence the reason why we only know that our half sister was born late 74 or early 75 - I do have my mother's full maiden name and the name of the birth father. And all that info is from MY birth father who met my mother after she gave birth to our half sister and gave her up for adoption. I have done SOME research into St. E's and found out it is no longer a home for unwed mothers and/or boarding school. It is now some college prep school, but my wife and I have decided to make contact with them to see how to obtain records. Though we are only getting started, it all seems almost impossible to do this without a ton of expendable money at your disposal. We don't even know if our adopted sister wants to be found or if she's even still around. My sister and I would just love to make some kind of contact if that is possible. I'm guessing there is a very long, winding road ahead of us if we want anything to come out of this. Again, thank you for the info, Dickons. Michael

Hi Michael,I apologize for all of the choppiness but I have never done this before and I am not sure how to navigate this.Have you had any luck with finding or getting any leads on your half sister?Hey all...My sister and I found out a while back that we have a sister that our mother gave up for adoption before either of us were born. She was born in either late 1974 or early 1975 at St. Elizabeth's in New Jersey. Both of us have wondered who she was, how she was and what she was like, but we had no clue on what to do to go about finding her. AND our mother has never been very open or vocal about the whole situation. We actually learned more about the adoption from our father, who met and married our mother after she gave birth to our half sister. We decided to start a search in hopes to locate her, IF she was willing to be found. I took the step to join up here and try to learn all the avenues on how and where to look. Look forward to getting to know everyone and hope to learn a thing or two..Michael[/quote]

Hi Amy. Not yet. I thought I put this out there but her given name was Amy. Whether or not she kept it, I do not know.