Birth Family Search

Step-by-step Guidelines to Birth Family Search through G.O.A.'L

At anytime during this process, we encourage you to contact the G.O.A.'L BFS Department staff for support and assistance.  For contact info, click here.  


Beginning the Search Process

Over the past 12 years, experience has taught us at G.O.A.'L that the BFS search process can generally be divided into the following steps: 

1. The first step is usually the most difficult one - Make sure you really would like to start a search!  Once you initiate a search and if a reunion occurs, it cannot be undone.  Meeting your birth family doesn't always mean that you will get along with them.  The cultures between Korea and your adoptive country are very different, including the language barrier that makes it very challenging to communicate with one another.  However, it can be a very rewarding experience as many adoptees have navigated through the process of search and eventually developed an ongoing relationship with their birth families. 

It's also important to keep in mind that BFS is an emotionally unpredictable journey.  Therefore, the G.O.A.'L BFS Dept. advises that you have patience, perserverance and persistance throughout the entire process.  In many cases it's comes down to timing - for some adoptees the search process is relatively simple, for others it takes months or even years, and still for others, reunions are not possible.  After thinking carefully over the innumerable possible outcomes of pursuing family search including but not limited to: (1) reunion, (2) family unwilling or unable to meet with you, (3) family has passed away, and (4) impossible to find family, etc., should you decide you're ready to pursue family search, continue reading to #2.


Proceeding with the Search Process: 
Identify your adoption agencies and obtain your adoption records

2. Once you've decided to proceed with search, ask your adoptive parents if they have copies of your adoption documents.   In nearly all cases, your adoptive parents should have a file with your adoption papers.  After receiving the documents, carefully read over them to obtain the necessary information to proceed with your search, i.e., identifying the name(s) of your adoption agencies, and continue to #3.

If it is not possible to obtain your adoption records from you parents, but you know which adoption agency you were adopted through, proceed to #3.

If it is not possible to obtain your records, and you do NOT know your agency, contact the BFS Dept. by clicking here.


3. Next, contact your local adoption agency through which you were adopted.  For most adoptees, there is usually a Korean and a local (your adoptive country) agency that were involved in processing your adoption.  Ask the local agency if they have a "post-adoption services department" while letting them know that you would like to review your adoption files.  Request that they check to see if they have any further information about your background.  At this stage, you can usually also request that a search be initiated through your local agency.  Though, you should note that many agencies charge a fee for this service (e.g. US$300 or more/less).  Costs may cover processing and copying files, communicating with your agency in Korea, etc.   If you cannot afford to pay this fee, let your agency know and ask if they have any discounts or waivers for your situation (e.g., low-income, full-time student, etc.).  Otherwise, contact G.O.A.'L directly and we can start to process your request.  We strongly advocate for free birth family search. 

Note: Some adoptees were adopted through private arrangements or agencies that no longer exist.  In this case, we recommend that you contact us at G.O.A.'L to inquire about the options available to you. 

4. Next, you can contact your adoption agency in Korea directly.  There are only four main agencies that handle international adoption out of Korea (KSS, SWS, ESWS and Holt).  If for some reason, you don't know your agency you can contact G.O.A.'L and we will work together with you to identify your agency.  You should be able to contact the agency via email,  phone or telefax.  As a reminder, remember to have some patience, as there are more and more adoptees who are requesting information from their files from the same agency at the same time, it takes the Korean agencies sometimes weeks or longer to respond to your request.  (Especially during the summer months, social workers in the post-adoption services departments at all of the four agencies are overloaded with requests and in-person visits, so plan ahead).  Of course, if an unreasonably long time has passed since sending your first correspondence, contact the agency again to confirm they received your request.    

Note: At this stage, some adoptees are directly reunited with their birth families if the Korean agency has contact information or can easily track down your family members.  However, for many, this is not the case and this is where G.O.A.'L endeavors to assist adoptees in-depth.


Proceeding with the Search Process:  
Register your search request with G.O.A.'L   

5. Register your search application through the G.O.A.'L website.  Enter your information into our Birth Family Search database. Please do not use " ' " (apostrophes) in your texts, as this is a special control character in our program.  The G.O.A.'L Birth Family Search Department will screen your entry and translate English or other languages into Korean so that the birth families that visit the G.O.A.'L website can search through the database efficiently.  You may also view your information as displayed publicly by accessing the database through the Korean version of our website by clicking here.  If you're not sure about how your name is written in Korea, please contact Birth Family Search Department.


Proceeding with the Search Process:  
Actively pursuing your search with G.O.A.'L  

6. Plan a trip to Korea and visit your local adoption agency in-person, get a copy of your files from your Korean agency (especially if you haven't done so already) and visit the G.O.A.'L office directly.  If you know that you're coming to Korea, please make an appointment with the Birth Family Search Department team (Email or call +82-2-325-6522 or fax +82-2-325-6570).  We will counsel you on your search, on the options available to you and also on what the next steps might be.  (Please note that just like the adoption agencies, for G.O.A.'L, summer is the peak-season for adoptee visiting our office, so if you're planning to come during the summer, please plan ahead and contact us with sufficient notice ahead of time.)

7. Depending on the information you can retrieve from your original file (in Korea) there are various possibilities that might be available to you.  With enough information you may also be able to visit the police station, orphanage or other place you may have lived or were found at before your adoption was processed through the assistance of G.O.A.'L staff and/or volunteers. 

8. After you've exhausted the above steps, as a last resort G.O.A.'L has options to work with the Korean media. Making your story public through the media can be tricky sometimes as for the media the interest in adoptees is mostly business-related and about boosting their viewer/reader/listener ratings.  Sometimes adoptees are disappointed by the way the media works.  Be aware that for people in media, everything is business, emotions are also one part of their business. We hope that you understand this, and use your best knowledge to weigh the pros and cons of going through the media before deciding if this is the right choice for you.  In our consultation with you (directly or via email/phone) we will allow you to ask any and all questions about the possibilities of media and any doubts or unclear points about the specific type of media.   That said, on the other hand, keep in mind that through the media and public exposure you could gain more information about your family that leads to a reunion.  It is also important to know that for some birth families, especially mothers that were single at the time of birth of the adoptee, they currently lead lives and have relationships that know nothing about your existence and adoption.  Going public through the media poses some amount of risk for birth families as well.   In an ideal situation, both sides gain something out of it, but success cannot be guaranteed in any case. 

9. In cases of a reunion G.O.A.'L highly recommends using one of our volunteer translators/interpreters.  Being able to communicate with your birth family is one of the most important things.  Many cultural misunderstandings have been overcome by the means of language. And nothing is worse than not being able to understand your family or vice versa.  Our volunteers have to pass a competency exam in order to be able to work with adoptees.  As such, G.O.A.'L tries our best to guarantee a quality level of our services.  If you should have any questions, complaints, compliments, etc. about our volunteers, please email volunteer@goal.or.kr.  We appreciate your feedback.