Growing up in the unknown

You will need to request your non id from the State of California or from the California Dept of Social Services, Post Adoption Unit in Sacramento. Please also check registry.adoption.com and ISRR.org to see if someone posted on there looking for you, and to post the info you have. I found my birth family using Ancestry DNA. I highly recommend that as well. Best of luck!

I was part of a closed adoption in New Mexico. I could not find out any non-identifying information. (I was adopted through a doctor and apparently they were the worst at giving medical information, etc.) I finally had to hire an intermediary to make contact with my birth mother before I could find out anything.

I have heard a lot of great things about Ancestry.com and similar places like Ashley said. I would also suggest just registering everywhere you can on reunion pages, there's one here on this site, Facebook groups, etc.

Ancestry.com DNA testing can provide non-identifying information in the form of your ethnic background. However, if one of your biological relatives sent in their DNA, it can also put you in touch with biological relatives. Being adopted, I submitted my DNA to Ancestry.com because I was curious about my racial background....a piece of non-identifying information, that's all I wanted.At the time I did not know that they also matched you up with relatives who submitted their DNA. As soon as my results were available I was matched to my half brother which led me to my biological family. The only problem was that in my case, I have never wanted to find them or be in touch with them.It's not that I am angry or resentful but in my 48 years of life I just never felt that need and I never understood the drive many adoptees had to find their biological families. To me they are simply the source of the genetic material that created me and nothing more. My spouse encouraged me to meet them about 5 years ago and I gave in and since then I just really want them out of my life. I am lucky that they live 2000 miles away but I have met them and I just find myself pretending like I am interested in what they have to say or that I actually enjoy their company. I am really not interested in knowing about my great grandmother or my great uncle. I don't want to see pictures of them and I don't care who I look like. I am trying to figure out a nice way to tell them that there is no connection for me, that I am not interested, I think they are getting the message. I said all of that to say that if you are going to go on Ancestry.com you really don't know what to expect. If you are looking for your biological family you might not find them and if you're not looking for them, you just might. Be careful what you wish for. And when looking for non-identifying information make that explicitly clear to the people who are helping you. There are too many times when adoptees are encouraged by organizations to contact their birth families, they are even given letters and photos, when they have no such desire to know anything more about them. Be aware that when you are looking for non-identifying information that you may find out more than what you bargained for.

interesting how would you have felt if nobody had given birth to you micheal magnus and how would you feel if you needed help in life and there was nobody to help you and you have no birthfamily

I think having birthfamily is very important you cant do much without them

let me say it again having birthfamily is very important you cant do much with out them , I don't understand why so many people think birthfamily is not important