How Debby Began

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How Debby Began
Many many months ago a friend and his wife called round for coffee as usual. There we were sat around the kitchen table when he told me that he had been given his paperwork from the loft of his parents house. The paperwork that until that day he wasn't interested in looking at. The paperwork as you have guessed was relating to his being adopted into the family some 40 years previous. He had been placed with wonderful parents and the thoughts of his beginnings had never crossed his mind until that fateful day. Dave held the sealed envelope for hours, not knowing what to do with it, should he return it to his father and forget all about it? Should he open this Pandoras box.....eventually he did. The first thing he noticed was that his name wasn't David at birth- he was totally shocked, he had always been David, Well this had a great effect on him as he suddenly, after 40 years, felt that he didn't know who he was.

Several coffees' later, and an overflowing ashtray, it was decided that David would apply for his original birth certificate. At this stage I had no computer and no idea of this new internet lark that everyone was raving about. A few weeks passed and as much as there was a great enthusiasm to start looking for Dave's birth family we had nothing to work on. The original birth certificate was of course 40 years out of date - so now what do we do. Instinctively I overtook his search, at his request of course, and from that day on we explored every avenue we could. The whole of London Colney must have heard from me that week, we telephoned old addresses, we wrote to the schools, you name it and we tried it - twice! We made enquiries to the social services that had dealt with the adoption. With the adoption file in hand the search took an even stronger hold. On reading the file at first there appeared to be very little information that we could work with, but after reading the pages over and over we managed to glean quite a bit.

We ascertained his birth mothers age, her full name, and more personal details about her. This led us to checking for a marriage for her as she was unlikely to still be a single woman after 40 years. We spent hours in the records office, checking year after year until we eventually located a marriage. We then used tools on the internet, telephone directories, letters to old address and within three months we had found Daves mother. We will never forget the day that call came on a September afternoon from a quietly spoken woman asking to speak to her son.... it was magical.

With Dave and his Birth Mother reunited, along with two adopted sisters we traced two months later, I was hooked....and three years later here I am.....