During the past few weeks I have been busy with visiting my first family, getting over a cold, and then preparing for the holidays. Between all these personal endeavors I have been researching more on different ways to approach searching for birth families.

Included in my research were studies on birth mothers, as well as, different techniques on acquiring information about people in general. While I am quite familiar with genetic genealogy and several social media outlets to explore the subject deeper, there simply are more skills that I can acquire when given the opportunity to do so.

Much of what I have been exploring were based on literature I am reading. I still am dedicated in helping those I am working with now on their family trees, but some have reached a point of maturity that a DNA test is being waited on, or some legal angle is being explored before some are willing to try and reach out to people I have identified as their potential birth families.

I cannot and will not push people into something they feel they are not ready for yet. I know how delicate and important it is for many to reach their own conclusions before taking the next step. While in other cases I am simply moving forward more suspiciously. Either the clues differ from the non-identifying information, or there is just not enough documentation available to prove without a doubt that an area of a tree is correct or not.

Unfortunately, there are times when better perspective can be gained by putting aside the genealogy for a bit and reading up on a specific alternative routes of research; which includes foreign countries where documentation is just not as prevalent as it is within the United States online or local resources.

I have been dabbling here and there, in some cases, reaching out to cousins for access to their trees; although, I have shared that need to adoptees before doing so. I have identified myself as the genealogist assisting their DNA related cousins. When it comes to close relatives, I still strongly encourage the adoptee or birth parent I am helping to make contact.

I hope everyone has had a pleasant and peaceful holiday and rest assured that I am still working on your cases. I’ve just become more of a bookworm lately so I can explore as many alternative research techniques as possible towards our ultimate goal.