I have been asked to write about my personal AAM highlight of 2024. We have many emails from adoptees enquiring about records and searching. The state hasn’t made it easy for us to trace our relatives. We looked at what was out there and noticed that no one was offering workshops to help adoptees on this journey. There are Facebook groups and search angels but as someone who conducted their own search it was evident to me that many adoptees just want to know how to go about doing these things for themselves.
In my time in adoptee circles I have been lucky enough to meet some amazing adoptees with various skills so after discussion with the rest of the team we approached Nikki Paine who is a genealogical expert, Cindy Olsen McQuay who knows a thing or two about DNA, Lynelle Long who knows so much about international adoption and Dr Joyce Parvo Maguire who talks about ‘putting yourself back together after reunion’ and of course our own wonderful Jo who is also a genealogist/ researcher. Nikki put together a programme of five sessions ranging from how to access your records to how to reach out to biological family and everything in between, and we were there helping with input and ideas.
All of the sessions were free and open to adoptees only. There was a lively Q and A in each session and lots of support. Fortunately all of our contributors gave their time and energy for free which is how we were able to offer them for free.
I hope to expand on some of the workshops and to make them downloadable and accessible to any member of the community who needs it. As Paul Sunderland said in a recent talk, “We keep what we have by giving it away.”
I feel that the workshops were a perfect example of this and as such am very proud of them and everyone involved. Final thought: if this is what we can achieve with zero funding imagine what we could achieve if funded.
