Note:

*While this website is mostly geared toward Adoptees who were adopted through the Korean Adoption Agency Korea Social Service (KSS), there is also information here which is relevant to ALL Korean Adoptees, regardless of their Korean Adoption Agency. This page is relevant to KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptees ONLY!

The information below DOES NOT apply to Korean Adoptees who were adopted through:

-HOLT
-Eastern Social Welfare Society (ESWS) - formerly Eastern Child Welfare Society (ECWS)
-Social Welfare Society (SWS) / now Korea Welfare Society (KWS)!

KSS Found The Address of Your Birth Mother and / or Birth Father - Now What?

PREFACE:

Some KSS Adoptees who first officially attempt a birth family search through KSS may be shocked to discover that while their English Adoptive Child Study Summary said that they were “abandoned” and found with a “paper-slip” or “memo” in their “clothings” (sic), their KOREAN Adoptive Child Study Summary actually had birth parent information, or other information about their origins, all along.

This shock is the unfortunate result of Orphanization. Many (though not all) of us grew up falsely believing we had been “abandoned” when in fact, the term “abandonment” was used in countless thousands of Korean Adoptees’ English facing adoption paperwork to make them more easily adoptable legally to the West. The resulting long-lasting gaslighting of Korean Adoptees often makes it difficult for Korean Adoptees to even begin a search in the first place - because they may falsely believe that they were “abandoned” - when in fact, they may have been Relinquished by a birth family member who may have left information behind with KSS. If a birth family member left information behind, then KSS might have recorded this on their secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”, which they have hidden from KSS Adoptees for decades. But you can now easily request this document - the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” - AND a birth family search via KSS’ official process (see the link in the next paragraph).

And because it’s a guessing game as to which KSS Adoptee has “real” birth parent information in their KOREAN Adoptive Child Study Summary, and which KSS Adoptee does not, the only way for KSS Adoptee to find out is to officially request a birth family search AND their Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary from KSS. We describe the process of how to do that in depth on the “Illustrated Step By Step Guide” on the Step By Step KSS Birth Family Search page.

If You Have Received An Email Response From KSS That They Have Successfully Located The Address of Your Birth Mother and / or Birth Father:

This section is for those KSS Adoptees who have ALREADY officially requested a birth family search AND their Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary through KSS and have already received an email response from KSS that KSS / NCRC has successfully located the ADDRESS of the birth mother and / or birth father.

WHAT KSS TYPICALLY SAYS IN THEIR EMAIL (bolds ours):

”We acknowledge receiving your complete application and that we have started the search process on your birth parents with the cooperation of NCRC (National Center for the Rights of the Child). We will inform you of the details when we come up with any results, but please be informed that the entire process may take much time, usually 3-6 months due to the series of steps involved in between.”

WHAT THIS MEANS:

What this means is that KSS / NCRC will send 3 registered letters to the last known address of your Korean birth mother and / or birth father. Everyone’s case is different, so there is no way for most KSS Adoptees to know if their birth parents were or were not married at the time they were born - or if the parents had been married and had since divorced and were either remarried or not.

This can be a very difficult waiting process, as the process is NOT transparent to us. The 3 registered letters which KSS / NCRC sends to the last known address of your Korean birth mother and / or birth father are deliberately written in a VAGUE way, and may simply ask if the recipient is “missing someone”. We do not know exactly what these letters say, but they are deliberately designed to be vague, so that IF the wrong person receives / reads the letter, that it does not OUT the potential SECRET of the actual intended recipient of the letter.

An example scenario is if KSS / NCRC sends a letter to a birth mother, who was single and unmarried at the time she had a child she later gave up for adoption. Years or decades later, when KSS / NCRC sends a letter to this formerly single and unmarried birth mother, she may be married to a husband who does NOT know she previously had a child out of wedlock. In Korea, this kind of revelation may have serious consequences for the birth mother, who is often financially dependent upon her husband in Korea’s intensely patriarchal society. This kind of shame surrounding single unwed motherhood or having given up a child for adoption is why it is often VERY difficult for a Korean birth parent to come forward, even assuming they receive the letter from KSS / NCRC, and even assuming they are the right person who is actually related to the KSS Adoptee.

But of course, the KSS Adoptee internalizes the reasons why a Korean birth parent might not respond to a letter from KSS / NCRC. We think that KSS Adoptees should know that there are MANY possible reasons for why a Korean birth parent might not respond to a letter from KSS / NCRC, and we have listed some of those reasons below. Of course, we cannot know the specific reason in anyone’s specific case, but broadly speaking, we think this represents a broad range of possibilities for why a birth parent may not immediately come forward upon contact from KSS / NCRC.

Some possibilities for a potential birth parent or birth parents not responding to contact by KSS / NCRC could be:

-The birth parent is no longer living.
-The birth parent may be dealing with a health crisis, or just be extremely old.
-The birth parent may be poor and ashamed of their poverty.
-The birth parent may be wealthy and afraid that the KSS Adoptee will want money from them.
-The birth parent moved to another location.
-The birth parent may have emigrated to another country.
-For various reasons, the birth parent just never receives the letter - maybe they are on vacation or out of town when the letters arrive - who knows…
-The birth parent is EXTREMELY ASHAMED of having given away their child for adoption, and is AFRAID to come forward for fear the KSS Adoptee will be angry and will not forgive them.
-The birth parent is remarried and the child that was given away is a secret.
-The KSS / NCRC letter was mistaken as spam and thrown away.
-The KSS / NCRC letter was read by the wrong recipient and drama ensued.
-The KSS / NCRC letter was read by the wrong recipient and…( ? )
-Due to KSS file falsification / sloppy record keeping, the supposed “birth parent” in the file is either the wrong person who is not related to the KSS Adoptee at all, or is a relative of the birth mother and / or birth father, but not the actual birth mother or birth father themselves.
-In some really egregious cases, Korean birth parents were told that their child died but were secretly sold to Korean adoption agencies by Korean doctors or midwives, and the Korean birth parents believe their child is dead. Such birth parents would have no reason to respond to a letter inquiring about someone they were “missing”.
-Some birth parents may simply find it simply too painful to confront their past.
-While Korean Adoptees are conditioned to believe that we all had birth parents who lovingly gave us up for a better life, in real life, situations could be a lot more complicated. In Korea, upon divorce, it was the father who had provenance (“custody”) of the children - not the mother. Often if birth parents divorced, the children went with the father, and if he remarried, he might decide to give the children up for adoption. The same could happen with a mother who had the children, and remarried - the children might also be given up then, too. We know scenarios in which children have been given up out of spite during marital fights. So there is no predicting what the ACTUAL relinquishment scenario may have been. It was not always one birth parent who relinquished children with full consent of the other, and it was not always a birth parent who relinquished children - children were often relinquished by grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, etc. and it was not always with the consent or knowledge of both birth parents. So depending on WHO relinquished the child for adoption, and WHAT information they left behind about WHOM, there can be a LOT of possibilities for WHO lives at the address to which KSS / NCRC may be sending letters. It may not necessarily be the birth parents themselves, but possibly an extended family member or even friend of the ACTUAL birth parent/s.
-And let’s face it, not all birth parents are great people who WANT to be in reunion.

RELATED CONTENT: Trigger Warning: Possible Real-Life Relinquishment Scenarios for Korean Adoptees

DON’T ASSUME THAT JUST BECAUSE A BIRTH PARENT DOES NOT COME FORWARD AFTER ONE BIRTH FAMILY SEARCH ATTEMPT BY KSS / NCRC, THAT THE BIRTH PARENT WILL NEVER COME FORWARD.

Depending on the situation of the birth parent, or whoever it is whose address that KSS / NCRC sends registered letters to in an attempt to make contact on behalf of a KSS Adoptee, a KSS Adoptee should NOT assume that just because a birth parent does not come forward after one birth family search attempt (each bfs attempt = KSS / NCRC sending 3 registered letters to the last known address on file) - that a birth parent might not EVENTUALLY come forward.

*A KSS Adoptee can try writing a more personal letter and getting this translated to POLITE Korean by a Korean translator, and sending that translated letter to KSS, and ask KSS to send that letter along with some photographs to the Korean birth parent.

Birth family search can often takes a great deal of PERSISTENCE and sometimes CREATIVITY. Birth family search is only over when we stop trying.

KSS ADOPTEES CAN REQUEST DELIVERY RECEIPTS OF THE 3 REGISTERED LETTERS SENT BY KSS / NCRC ONCE THE FIRST ROUND OF LETTER DELIVERY HAS BEEN COMPLETED:

Once KSS / NCRC has completed their process of sending 3 registered letters to the last known address of the Korean birth mother and / or birth father, IF the process is unsuccessful, then KSS will email the KSS Adoptee and tell them that their case is “CLOSED”. However this is HIGHLY misleading, as a KSS Adoptee can request a NEW birth family search through KSS ONCE PER YEAR.

Please note however, that if KSS tells you that they have NO birth parent information in your Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary, then KSS / NCRC effectively CANNOT do a birth family search, as presumably they have no information to search with.

LEARNING THAT A BIRTH MOTHER AND / OR BIRTH FATHER HAS PASSED AWAY:

A hard reality is that sometimes KSS Adoptees find out from KSS after doing an official birth family search that their birth mother and / or birth father has passed away. Unfortunately, KSS typically does not provide information about where the birth parent is buried or if they were cremated. This is part of the tragic nature of a closed adoption - that Adoptees do not have rights to know about their own origin. There is unfortunately not much a KSS Adoptee can do in order to find out more information about their deceased birth parent, unless the KSS Adoptee is able somehow to find and connect with a living birth parent who knows more details. That in itself is often not easy, as Korean birth parents who are no longer together are often reluctant to talk at all about their former partners or spouses.

Get Your Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary TRANSLATED Right Away.

Assuming you have requested and RECEIVED your Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary from KSS, you should be sure to get your Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary TRANSLATED right away.

We cannot more strongly advise that you get this document (or any important birth family search related document) translated PROFESSIONALLY by a good Korean translator, and NOT use any of the automatic translation apps, such as ChatGPT, Google Translate, or Papago. We consider the automatic translation apps to be RECREATIONAL ONLY, and for IMPORTANT information related to birth family search, you could seriously screw yourself over by being too cheap to pay for a REAL translator to translate your most important adoption documents. (We also know that not everyone can afford a professional translator - but even those who can afford it often won’t pay for something that is REALLY important to pay for).

For a KSS Adoptee, the Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary is one of the most important documents you should get professionally translated.

If you are a member of KSS Cribmates, we can refer you to a translator. Or if you are a KSS Adoptee, you can contact us via email for a referral: paperslipadoptee@gmail.com - we do NOT take any commission from any translator.

Getting A Birth Parent To Come Forward May Take A Lot of Work Over Years of Time. Or It May Never Be Successful. Or It May Happen Very Quickly.

Because of all of the myriad complicated reasons we describe in the previous section above, whether or not a birth parent comes forward and when is extremely unpredictable. This can be a very difficult process for a KSS Adoptee as the KSS / NCRC process of reaching out the birth parent/s is NOT transparent.

We know of KSS Adoptees who have tried over years of time to get a birth parent to come forward - sometimes with success, and sometimes not.

Sometimes it takes writing a more PERSONAL letter (translated into POLITE Korean) to the birth parent/s in order to convince them that it’s SAFE and desirable to come forward. And frankly, the Adoptee her- or himself has to be emotionally prepared to meet a birth mother or birth father before it may be right for them to do so.

Birth family search takes a LOT of grit and determination. It is not an easy process, and understandably, many people quit when they hit obstacles in the road.

But we encourage those who are capable to persevere and to keep pushing for information.

Birth family search is really only over when we stop trying.

IF You Meet A Birth Parent, Be SURE To Take An Independent DNA Test.

Due to the sometimes extreme levels of falsification in KSS Adoptee paperwork, we cannot more STRONGLY RECOMMEND that ANY KSS Adoptee who plans to meet potential Korean birth parent/s be sure to take an independent DNA test against the potential Korean birth parent/s. This is because KSS DOES NOT DNA TEST Korean birth parents BEFORE putting them into reunion with a KSS Adoptee.

We know FAR TOO MANY STORIES OF FALSE REUNION where KSS Adoptees who have been put into reunion with a supposed birth parent have later - after YEARS - found out through DNA testing that they were NOT related.

DNA TEST YOUR POTENTIAL KOREAN BIRTH PARENT/S IN KOREA AT KGI OR DOWGENE:

Please help avoid this tragic situation by independently DNA testing your potential Korean birth parent. You can do so in Korea at KGI (Korea Genetics Institute) or DowGene. These test are around $350 each and are one-to-one 4 day turnaround tests. You will need a Korean translator to be able to take these tests and receive your results.

DNA TEST YOUR POTENTIAL KOREAN BIRTH PARENT/S YOURSELF:

We also strongly advise that ANY KSS Adoptee who is planning a trip to visit Korea in order to meet a potential Korean birth parent to order 1-2 commercial DNA tests in advance, to be delivered to their Western home country BEFORE they leave for Korea, such as: 23 and Me, Ancestry, FTDNA, or MyHeritage. Of course, the KSS Adoptee will have to ALSO have taken any DNA test which they plan to self-administer to a potential Korean birth relative. We advise KSS Adoptees to take plastic medical gloves, large tweezers, and large Ziplock plastic bags if you plan to do your own DNA testing of a potential Korean birth parent.

You can watch YouTube videos about how to properly administer a DNA test.

Please see the DNA Testing page for more info.

While You Are Waiting For KSS / NCRC, Take ALL Possible DNA Tests.

We often say that “DNA IS THE ONLY TRUTH” for a reason. Due to high levels of file falsification we cannot more strongly advise that KSS Adoptees (and ALL Korean Adoptees) take ALL POSSIBLE DNA TESTS.

More info here:

DNA Testing

Reach Out To The KSS Adoptee and Korean Adoptee Community.

Birth family search can have severe highs and lows. There are Korean Adoptees going through this process ALL of the time, and so there is a big community out there which is happy to offer support. We highly recommend joining KSS Cribmates if you are a KSS Adoptee and a member of Facebook. Please note that you must have a REAL profile to join, and that you must answer the membership questions.

There are also MANY Korean Adoptee forums online. And many social Korean Adoptee groups that meet up in person.

Birth family search can be extremely hard, so reach out to the community if you need support or help.