British Columbia is currently the only province in Canada with open adoption records, meaning that family members separated by adoption can obtain the identifying information of the people they lost. An adoptee can obtain his or her original birth registration, with his or her original name and the names of his/her natural parents. The natural parent can obtain a copy of the birth registration and adoption court order having the adoptive name of the adoptee.

1. The first step in searching in BC is applying under BC's Open Records process for the identifying information of the family members you lost:. Click here for PDF form. If the adoptee or natural parent has not filed a disclosure veto, you will be sent the information. More information is here on the Vital Statistics website. Often this will be all the information you will need in order to search.
   
   
2. Once the person has the original birth registration they may apply to the MCFD's Information, Privacy and Records Services Branch for a copy of the adoption record. Click here for More Information from the BC Government on how to file an FOI Request. In filling out this form, request ALL information pertaining to the adoption, covering the time period from several months before the birth to present day. This will provide you with all relevant non-identifying ("non-ID") information, which can often help in searches. There is nothing preventing you from continuing searching, using the non-ID information, even if a disclosure veto was filed. NOTE: Lawyers have advised us that social workers were trained to falsify records to cover up coercion used in obtaining babies for their customers. Do not believe ANY information on-file about "why" the surrender was made unless confirmed by your natural parents.
   
   
3. The third step, once you have a name is to check City Directories (located in public libraries) and online telephone directories for their names. Some useful online directories are: Infospace, Canada411, and Superpages.ca
   
   
4. You may also wish to typed their name or other relevant information into search engines such as Google. Newspaper articles, obituaries, public notices, genealogy pages - any of these might come up in the search results.
   
   
5. If you are an adoptee, your natural parent's place of birth will be on your birth registration. Searching may come up with a family with the same name in the same city. This is a good lead and should be followed-up.
   
   
6. The next step is phoning. Phoning people you have never spoken to before, on such a sensitive subject, is never easy. However, one "script" for these "cold calls" is provided here in MSWord (.doc) format. It works for relatives who may know the person - often searches are successful when one has contacted a second cousin, aunt, niece etc. of your natural parents. Use discretion and tact -- losing a child to adoption was often hushed-up and relatives may not know.