Happy Reunion Friday!

We may be onto something! There is a new tool in the social media, adoption search arsenal, and it is FREE! That’s right, adoptees are searching without paying a penny to private investigators or search assistants.

I blogged earlier this week about the explosion of adoptees using photo sharing (on Facebook pages like ‘You Know You’re An Adoptee When’) a new way to find their birth families. Read more here- Adoptees Using Facebook Page ‘You Know You’re An Adoptee When’ for Search Success

One young woman who used Facebook to post an information-laden photograph of herself, found her birth mother in just three days. There are lessons to be learned from her experience, as she received more than 70,000 shares, and a massive number of false emails.

My general guidelines for  adding a Facebook adoption search photo include:

• Include birth date, place of birth and nationality
• Keep your real name out of the post
• Add an anonymous email contact to the photo. Create an account on gmail or yahoo just for photo related correspodence
• Include one or two identifying facts if you have them (birth parents occupation, schooling) but don’t give away all you know. Leave enough unsaid, so that your birth parent can fill in the rest. This will help you to prove that they are indeed who they claim to be.
• Be careful. We often give information without realizing it is identifying. Make sure the background of your photo does not have any physical landmarks, addresses, etc. that will show your location.

Jenessa Simon’s short, sweet story of adoption reunion success is here:

Blessings for a Facebook fast reunion,
Vicki-lynn