This year, National Adoption Week runs from 17-23 October. The aim of this week is to educate and inform people on how adoption works in the 21^st century, showcasing the highs and lows and championing all the voices involved, sometimes those that are heard less often.

Those voices include adopted children, adopted adults, adoptive parents, birth parents and the adoption and social care workers who work so hard to place children into loving, permanent homes.

Cases of adoption – Frederick & Jimmy O’Donnell 

Finders International has worked on a number of cases where adoption has featured. In one of them, a 78-year-old man was united with his brother after living his whole life without knowing him.

Frederick O’Donnell met up with Jimmy O’Donnell (80), thanks to the work of his daughter Theresa Wardely and Finders International. Both men were born in separate mother and baby homes in Dublin, with Jimmy brought up in a Wicklow orphanage, while Frederick spent eight years in an industrial school.

Both men emigrated at different times to England. When the brothers met up, they found they looked alike and neither of them smoked or drank.

Theresa said her father Frederick always had a feeling that he had a brother that he did not know. When she was in hospital for an operation, the porter who wheeled her into the operating room had talked with her about her father’s hunch, and suggested she try looking on websites, which eventually led her to Finders and her dad’s brother.

Cases of adoption – Richard Lay

Another case we dealt with that featured adoption was Richard Lay, who died in the UK in August 2013 without leaving a will. Mr Lay had been adopted as a baby in 1945 and had not discovered that he had been adopted until his 30s.

An adopted family are the rightful beneficiaries when a person dies intestate. When Finders International investigated, we discovered there were no heirs to Mr Lay’s adoptive mother’s side, but his adopted father had five brothers.

Many of Mr Lay’s cousins hadn’t seen each other for years and the case brought them together for a “magical” reunion. In addition, the family members received a share of Mr Lay’s estate, valued at about £300,000. The case was broadcast on BBC One Heir Hunters.

Are you adopted?

If you were adopted as a child, Finders International can help you trace your birth parents. It is estimated that throughout the 1940s and 50s in Ireland, some 60,000 children were adopted. At the time, adoptees did not have access to their birth parent’s identities or any information about their medical history, and it was very difficult for adoptees to obtain copies of their birth certificates.

However, The Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill provides for structured and regulated access to information and tracing services for those affected by adoption. This operates on the basis of a presumption in favour of disclosing information if it is legally and constitutionally possible.

If you would like us to help you to find your nearest living relative, why not contact us today for a quote on this service? You can contact us by calling +353 (0)1 691 7252 or by email: [email protected]