SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWSJanuary 2, 2008
Editorial: Registry helps unite relatives
Locating long lost family members or information about birth parents can be a long and complicated process, but it does not have to be so.
Texas offers a registry that allows adult adoptees to unite with birth parents or siblings who sign up seeking each other.
The Texas Department of State Health Services manages the Texas Vital Statistics Central Adoption Registry.
Its existence is not highly publicized.
Since it was created in 1984, more than 8,100 people have registered in search of birth mothers, birth fathers and adult siblings.
According to state officials, about three times as many adoptees as birth mothers registered.
There are 20 to 30 matches made each year.
If more people knew the registry existed, there might be more people registering and more matches made.
To register, a person must have been adopted in Texas or born in Texas and adopted in another state, be a birth parent, sibling or adoptee, and be 18 years of age.
There is a $30 fee to register, but it can be waived or reduced.
Not every adoptee wants to reunite with his or her birth family and not every birth family wants to be found.
The registry, however, offers a wonderful opportunity to bring together those individuals related by birth who want to find each other.
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