Useful places to go next
This is a practical directory rather than a complete list of adoption organisations. Each link explains why an adoptee might use it.
Ask the Adoptee Rights Assistant
Please leave out names and identifying details.
Getting records
GOV.UK — Adoption records
National overview of birth information, adoption records, intermediary services and the Adoption Contact Register.
General Register Office
Birth, death, marriage and adoption registration services for England and Wales.
ICO — Providing care records
Useful guidance where you are seeking personal information from social care records.
Peer-led adoption support
Includes links to adoptee led resources, events and blogs.
Tracing and contact
Adoptee Rights — Tracing family
A plain English starting point for family history research, sibling tracing, intermediaries, DNA and intercountry searches.
GOV.UK — Research your family history
Starting points for civil registration and public family history records.
Adoption Contact Register
A matching service for people who have chosen to register. It is not a general tracing database.
Intermediary agencies
Information about the statutory intermediary route for qualifying adoptions made before 30 December 2005.
Intercountry adoptee resources
InterCountry Adoptee Voices (ICAV)
International lived experience, advocacy, post adoption resources and links created by and for intercountry adoptees.
ICAV — Search and Reunion
Guides, webinars, perspective papers, DNA material and country specific search resources.
ICAV — Country of origin groups
Links to groups run by intercountry adoptees from particular countries and regions.
Legal information
About support organisations
We distinguish between independent adoptee led support and organisations that hold records or provide statutory adoption services. A record holder can be the right organisation to contact for a file without being independent adoptee advocacy.