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Somebody’s Daughter
by Zara H. Phillips
Zara H. Phillips seemed to live a charmed life — backing singer to the stars with an incredible career here and across the Atlantic — but her smile masked a difficult childhood and the reality that she was adopted as a baby in the ’60s.…
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Songs of My Families: A Thirty-Seven-Year Odyssey from Korea to America and Back
by Kelly Fern with Brad Fern
In 1971, Lee Myonghi, aged five, was taken from her family and placed in a Korean orphanage. Six months later, she was flown to the United States, where she and two other Korean girls were adopted by a Minnesota couple. They renamed her Kelly Jean.…
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Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity
by Catana Tully
In this memoir, the author explores questions of race, adoption, and identity, not as the professor of cultural studies she became, but as the Black child of German settlers in Guatemala. Her journey into the mystery that shrouded her early years begins in the US…
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Surrounding Sparky: A Gift of Life
by Brad Livingood
The story of one man’s journey to unearth his roots while navigating the complexities of a 1950s adoption, told through the backdrop of American history, raising a young family, and the advent of social media and modern DNA testing. Serendipitous twists and turns are all…
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Surviving Secrets
by Margaret Watson
A true story that reveals the strength and resilience of the human spirit in the face of betrayal, grief and loss. At age forty, Margaret Watson learned she was adopted. This shocking and confronting truth was previously unknown to her and turned her whole world…
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Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir
by Rebecca Carroll
Rebecca Carroll grew up the only black person in her rural New Hampshire town. Adopted at birth by artistic parents who believed in peace, love, and zero population growth, her early childhood was loving and idyllic—and yet she couldn’t articulate the deep sense of isolation…
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Swabbed & Found: An Adopted Man’s DNA Journey to Discover his Family Tree
by Frank Billingsley
As Houston’s beloved KPRC weatherman for more than 20 years, Frank Billingsley seems like a relative to many people. His optimistic presence comes into their homes and reassures that even the gloomiest of rain clouds probably has a silver lining. He has such a way…
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Taken at Birth: Stolen Babies, Hidden Lies, and My Journey to Finding Home
by Jane Blasio
From the 1940s through the 1960s, young pregnant women entered the front door of a clinic in a small North Georgia town. Sometimes their babies exited out the back, sold to northern couples who were desperate to hold a newborn in their arms. But these…
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Taking Down the Wall
by Christine Murphy
To find a solution, a person must first admit there is a problem. Taking Down the Wall is a chronicle of one woman’s journey to the painful and reluctant admission that there is indeed a problem, her refusal to let an old wound heal. The…
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Tell No One
by Brendan Watkins
A stunning memoir of one man’s search for his birth parents, which uncovered an astonishing global scandal at the heart of the Catholic Church. Brendan Watkins was eight years old when his parents told him he was adopted. When he was in his late twenties,…
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Thank God I Was Adopted ‘Cause DNA Is No Joke!
by Pekitta Tynes with Janice Young
Abandoned in a shot house and left without a birth certificate, I was an UNKNOWN. I lived in foster care and later adopted into a wonderful family. After 35-years of searching, I found my biological family through DNA testing. This book is an inspirational journey…
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The Adoptee’s Journey: From Loss and Trauma to Healing and Empowerment
by Cameron Lee Small
Adoption is often framed by happy narratives, but the reality is that many adoptees struggle with unaddressed trauma and issues of identity and belonging. Adoptees often spend the majority of their youth without the language to explore the grief related to adoption or the permission…
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The Adoption Machine: The Dark History of Ireland’s Mother & Baby Homes and the Inside Story of How “Tuam 800” Became a Global Scandal
by Paul Jude Redmond
MAY 2014. The Irish public woke to the horrific discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of almost 800 babies in the “Angels’ Plot’ of Tuam’s Mother and Baby Home. What followed would rock the last vestiges of Catholic Ireland, enrage an increasingly secularised…
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The Adoption Reunion Handbook
by Liz Trinder, Julia Feast, and David Howe
The book describes the experiences that people have had when tracing their birth parents, as well as offering practical advice on how to go about searching and what to expect emotionally. Each section has an advice box which summarizes key points, notes issues to pay…
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The Adoption Reunion Survival Guide: Preparing Yourself for the Search, Reunion, and Beyond
by Julie Jarrell Bailey and Lynn N. Giddens, M.A.
This book is written by two adoption specialists, one of whom is a reunited birthmother, and draws on the real-life experiences of others to help readers prepare for the emotional turbulence of the reunion experience, examine their fantasies and emotions about it, and find a…
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The Adoption Triangle (reissue)
by Arthur D. Sorosky, M.D., Annette Baran, M.S.W., and Reuben Pannor, M.S.W.
A classic and the first to deal with how sealed and open records affect adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents. Originally published in 1978,” … it is as true and open as the changes advocated … comprehensive, factual, forward looking, totally honest, readable and thoughtful…
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The Book of Sarahs: A Family in Parts
by Catherine E. McKinley
Catherine McKinley was one of only a few thousand African American and bi-racial children adopted by white couples in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Raised in a small, white New England town, she had a persistent longing for the more diverse community that would…
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The Boy from Nowhere
by Gregor Fisher with Melanie Reid
The warm, funny memoir of Gregor Fisher, the much loved Scottish actor best known for Rab C. Nesbitt, told as he uncovers his dramatic family history. Growing up in the Glasgow suburbs, Gregor was 14 when he asked where he was christened and was told…
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The Declassified Adoptee: Essays of an Adoption Activist
by Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston; edited by Julie Stromberg
Throughout this book, readers bear witness to key moments in the unfolding of an adoptee from a quiet, contemplative young woman to an outspoken advocate for the rights of adoptees and their loved ones. By addressing adoption through brief essays, the book provides an avenue through…
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The DNA Guide for Adoptees: How to Use Genealogy and Genetics to Uncover Your Roots, Connect with Your Biological Family, and Better Understand Your Medical History
by Brianne Kirkpatrick and Shannon Combs-Bennett
This book is for you if you have hope that DNA testing might open up the search for information about yourself, your origins, and your future. We’ve worked hard to compile the resources in this book and explain in plain English how DNA and genealogical…
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The English American: A Novel
by Alison Larkin
When Pippa Dunn,adopted as an infant and raised terribly British, discovers that her birth parents are from the American South, she finds that “culture clash” has layers of meaning she’d never imagined. Meet The English American, a fabulously funny, deeply poignant debut novel that sprang…
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The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy
by Blaine T. Bettinger
Discover the answers to your family history mysteries using the most-cutting edge tool available to genealogists. This plain-English guide, newly revised and expanded, is a one-stop resource on genetic genealogy for family historians. Inside, you’ll learn what DNA tests are available, with up-to-date pros and…
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The Fifth and Final Name: Memoir of an American Churchill
by Rhonda Noonan
In a family memoir that reads like a detective novel, Rhonda Noonan recounts her thirty-year quest to find the truth of her own background–and what she uncovered will surprise readers as much as it did her. Rhonda was born and adopted in Oklahoma, a state…
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The Fish Ladder: A Journey Upstream
by Katharine Norbury
Katharine Norbury was abandoned as a baby in a Liverpool convent. Raised by loving adoptive parents, she grew into a wanderer, drawn by the landscape of the British countryside. One summer, following the miscarriage of a much-longed-for child, Katharine sets out – accompanied by her…
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The Foundling: The True Story of a Kidnapping, a Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me
by Paul Joseph Fronczak and Alex Tresniowski
The Foundling tells the incredible and inspiring true story of Paul Fronczak, a man who recently discovered via a DNA test that he was not who he thought he was—and set out to solve two fifty-year-old mysteries at once. Along the way he upturned the genealogy…
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The Gathering Place: An Adoptee’s Story
by Emma Stevens
When Emma learns her birth mother wrote and signed a letter about her to the adoption agency, she knew she had to have that letter if she were to ever discover her birth mother’s true identity. Her birth mother had used a fictitious name at…
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The Gift Best Given: A Memoir
by Edward Di Gangi
“Like a jigsaw puzzle, every story is made up of pieces; big ones, smaller ones, pieces not easily found, tiny and hiding, essential to complete the picture.” At almost seventy years old, Edward Di Gangi had never given much thought to the fact he was…
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The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be: A Speculative Memoir of Transracial Adoption
by Shannon Gibney
Part memoir, part speculative fiction, this novel explores the often surreal experience of growing up as a mixed-Black transracial adoptee. Dream Country author Shannon Gibney returns with a new book woven from her true story of growing up as the adopted Black daughter of white parents…
Including Nearly 500 Adoptee-Recommended Titles!
