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Hello all!
I've lurked here off and on for a few years, but I've never posted until now. I sent off my initial letter to the State of Tennessee last week to "determine eligibility" to have my records opened. Hopefully the wait isn't as long as I've read it described in the past!
So while I'm waiting, I thought I'd share my search saga to this point.
I started searching in about twelve years ago, placing my info in every online adoption reunion registry I could find. About ten years ago, I got a response! Hallelujah! I've found my bio fam! Except that, after establishing a relationship with them, we discovered I was not the child given up for adoption, thanks to a DNA test. Fortunately for them, the real son turned up a few years later, also searching. Despite that, I'm still friends with and communicate with my "half sister."
All this sort of discouraged me, though, so my search went on the back burner for several years. However, as time marches on and middle age begins encroaching, those nagging questions about family health history keep creeping up.
So about a year ago, I sent off for a DNA test from Family Tree DNA, their $99 "Family Finder" test. It turned up a "second or third cousin" match as my closest relative. I contacted the listed email address of the match, but it was for the match's son-in-law. He and his wife (my "second or third cousin once removed") were as helpful as could be with what they knew of their genealogy, but it only provided some obscure clues. Unfortunately, the DNA match herself cannot provide any family information due to Alzheimer's. However, armed with the info that I had, I began scouring Ancestry.com trying to trace a path. This too turned out to be a dead end, as either none of the family trees were going back far enough or had incomplete information for me to make a trace. Once again, I put my search on the back burner.
Fast forward to two weeks ago and I receive an email from a Search Angel offering to help and reminding me that I could file with the State to have my records opened.
I'm going to go out on a limb with the prediction that my bio family has a stubborn streak, because I've known this for years and simply refused to do it...I wanted to find them on my own! Maybe I'm now getting mellow with age since I've relented and finally dashed off that initial letter to Nashville.
I'll let y'all know how it goes!
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Update #2: I've been waiting to post this since last week! It looks like the wait times for Tennessee records have dropped quite a bit!On Wednesday the 6th I arrived home to find another letter from TN DCS. It was the acknowledgement of my eligibility to open my records and the Sworn Statement that I had to fill out, get notarized, and return to them. The next day I had it all filled out and in the mail back to Nashville. On Monday, I called the Case Worker and talked to her. She told me that they had received my paperwork and that I now needed to send $13.50 to cover the copying fee (at .25 a page) for my records and they would be mailed out to me. So I immediately overnighted a check to them (the overnight postage was $26.70!) on Monday. I talked to the Case Worker again today and she told me that my records went out in the mail this morning! I should have 54 pages of records in my hands on Saturday!
Oh my, your records are in the mail? I remember waiting, plotting out how long first class mail would take from X to Y to figure out, what was the earliest I could expect it in my post box...If you need any help on ancestry - give me a shout!Have you thought of how you will make contact?Kind regards,Dickons
I'm still war gaming first contact in my head, lol. I'm not sure when I will even be able to make contact, or if at all, given how Tennessee's records law is set up. I had to indicate on the Sworn Statement who I wanted contact with, then Tennessee tracks them down and gives them the option of allowing or denying contact. So that waiting game will go on for awhile, I'm afraid.I may very well take you up on the Ancestry offer; I had a lead, but couldn't find any trees that went far enough back to link from me to a birth mother to the 2nd cousin DNA match (the closest one) that I have on FTDNA. No luck running my results through any of the combined DNA databases either (the ones that you can upload to and compare across FTDNA, 23andMe, and Ancestry DNA results).
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UPDATE #4: The USPS finally got their act together and my records arrived on Saturday the 23rd. Needless to say, they have been very enlightening. Now I have to send another $135 to DCS so they can track down and contact my bio mother to see if she wants contact or not. Of course, with a little Googling, I was able to track her down in about fifteen minutes! However, I still have to jump through all the legal hoops before I can (hopefully) finally make contact.
I've just been adding up the dollar amounts in your post and it seems like to me that Tennessee is extorting adoptees! That's a ridiculous sum of money for having access to records. Plus none of it is known upfront? Oh send us a check for this and that and then this, plus this. Lord! Best of luck to you. If you know who she is you don't need the state.
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Dickons, one of the concessions that had to be made when Tennessee was writing the legalese to allow the opening of their records was that all parties had the right to file a Contact Veto. In order to get my records opened, I had to submit a notarized Sworn Statement that I would not contact any direct bio family until the State had the opportunity to locate and contact them first and give them the opportunity to file (or not) the Contact Veto. Violation carries the possibility of misdemeanor charges and fines from the state, plus would allow for me to be sued by any bio family members that I might contact that didn't want to be contacted. Yes, it's kind of a crappy deal, but I also understand where that's coming from: if I was a bio-parent that had been told when I gave my child up for adoption that the records were forever sealed, and thus a secret, I might be a bit perturbed if my past came back to haunt me.Interestingly, the Contact Veto does not apply to Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, etc. So legally I can contact them now; however, it seems to be a potentially dicey situation in light of the other legal ramifications. In my case, my job depends on me maintaining my security clearance, so even a misdemeanor or a civil suit under these circumstances could potentially jeopardize that.Wrking21, I agree, the financial cost is starting to pile up, but I think (I'm not totally sure) that when Tennessee set up the law allowing for records to be opened there was some stipulation that the process had to minimize cost to the state. If covering the overhead is paid for through the fees, I'm actually OK with that.
Last update on May 27, 9:34 am by CntrySngr.
That sucks, considering the fact that the adoption industry appealed the unsealing of records - and lost, seeing how the constitutional right to familial privacy did not extend as far as the people appealing the new law wanted it to extend. They held that a birth was both a private and public event and that the government had long held records of when, who and to what parents a child was born to (my words). They shot down every thing they said was wrong. Doe vs Sunquist - last case in the attached link is the decision - worth reading. D
Last update on May 27, 3:11 pm by Dickons.
