Search Angels help solve adoption dilemmas

When someone is adopted, it's common for them to wonder about their history.

Many questions arise, like what do their birth mother and father look like? Or what's their health history?

Many adoptees have a hard time finding the answers to these questions because of closed adoptions.

A group called the Search Angels has formed to help people answer these questions and reconnect with long-lost family members.

Member Barbara Shewak not only helps adoptees and families who are trying to reconnect with one another, but she has also been helped by the group in the past. 

"It's just a wonderful feeling," Shewak said. "I just can't even explain the feeling you get, that piece of you that's missing finally coming back. It just changes your whole life."

In 2001, Shewak met her niece, Debra, for the first time. Debra was put up for adoption by her birth mother in 1973.

Years later, Shewak says after struggling to find her, a miracle happened.

"I joined a couple of adoptive search groups," she said. "Within a couple of days, I had her name and was able to reconnect with her." 

Shewak said closed adoptions and closed record laws kept her from being able to track down her niece.  However, the Search Angels were able to find her.

That connection with her birth family is what Janet Sousa said she had longed for her entire life.

"I needed to know my heritage, my medical background, and finally my half-sister found me on the Internet," said Sousa, who was adopted as a newborn.

Not all of the things she learned were good.  Sousa found out that her birth father was dead, and that her birth mother wasn't ready to meet her.  Even so, she was happy to learn about her half-sister.

Both Sousa and Shewak have joined forces with the Search Angels to help others in similar situations.

"I knew if I could do that for myself, what a feeling it could be for other people, too," Shewak said.

Now both use their web sites and connections with other volunteers to bring families together.  They've already helped over a thousand people and say they're ready to help a thousand more.

The Search Angels do not charge a fee for their services.