International adoptee's search ideas

I will try to post the main points here on how I was able to track down my Japanese daughter in laws family. There are two paths to take and take both at the same time.First DNA test at Ancestry and 23andme and do a free transfer to GEDMatch. My DIL has 239 distant cousins on 23andme and about 350 on Ancestry with one 3rd cousin. You might get lucky. Contact as many close cousins as you can. Its hard when you have a lot of 4th cousins, a lot of them are likely adoptees too. Keep notes and emails and collect family trees when you can.Next write down all the stories you ever heard about your family or and thing about your adoption.Do a freedom of information act request to USCIS for your immigration package. Now your adoptive parents may or "should" have that paperwork. It takes about 6 to 8 weeks to receive it. After you send in the request wait a couple weeks and send in a status update request. It should say they are working on it. My DIL took two years waiting only to find out they never received it.This DVD you will receive will contain all the immigration information. Now my DIL was a private adoption, so it contained a release letter from the mother. So we then knew her name and had an actual home location. There was also an old Koseki that was cut to hide information. I sent a copy to a DNA cousin in Japan to look over the paperwork. She came back and said that the DIL was listed as a third daughter.Next this cousin said she would file a request to the city government to get a copy of her family records. When they arrived it was loaded with information. We scoured Facebook and google maps and everything we could think of to figure out where they went. After a while it became clear this was not going to be easy. Over the last couple of years I had asked a lot of Japanese people if they had a phone book and I was always told no. Well one day I stumbled across an online phone book of landlines. I used Google to translate it and dug down in it and found her family. The non bio father was using a nick name and I recognized it. I did more searching and found possible cousins and family that may be on the fathers side. After some calls we realized they were watching who was calling in. So I sent a telegram to their home. A week later I asked Itelegram what happened. They traced it and came back with....it was not a failed delivery, the head of house hold refused to accept it. So now I know they are there. Now its a matter of either finding the sisters or flying there and knocking on their door.There were a lot of twists and turns along the way, just keep notes and back up copies. Its likely going to take awhile and just keep pushing ahead. Maybe try to find a friend of family member that will search too., kind of a search buddy. AlanIf you need any of the links contact me. I also posted this info on Ancestry. I found when using the Phone book its best to search names using Kanji. You can also search say Aomori city rather than burrowing down into villages. It will return a bunch of results. If google results come up then no name was found. Another helpful deal for Korean adoptees is KAMRA325.org. Bella helped me out and will help you out too with DNA testing and paperwork.If anyone has family in the Aomori city area that are Kudo or Sakamoto please contact me.UPDATE, I met a distant cousin in Aomori (May 2019) and took a couple days to find the family. On my final day in Aomori I met with the Bio mother. All ended well, everyone I met was very helpful and friendly.I found the phone book and google maps lead me astray, probably 70% accurate. One finally piece of advice is look for an old person, they will know everyone. We were eating in a Ramen shop and an old lady told us she new the mother. Good luck!