Introduction to the book

My name is Madelene Ferguson Allen, past owner and director of Camp Ouareau, a girls' summer camp in Quebec. I am also a writer, member of The Writers' Union of Canada and a historical researcher specializing in the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands.

I am an adopted person - and am fed up with politically correct terms - I have had it up to here with the whole thing. I searched for 7 years - I found my family 20 years ago and it is only very recently that the winds change have begun to blow in provincial laws - but we do not yet have the right to know our identities!

If this site helps just one person - I shall be delighted.

The ADOPTEE SEARCHER'S HANDBOOK website first appeared in 1996, almost by accident. There had been a discussion on Canadopt about how to find church files (now remember, at that time the internet was still in it's infancy as far a general information files were concerned) and I had found a list of addresses in a reference book. It was too large to send by e-mail so I decided to put it on my website for the members. My search was finished, and as I became more active in the movement for Adoptee Rights I began to surf for information as to what was happening around the world. Most of the sites were American and the quality varied enormously. There was a crying need for Canadian information. With the growth of the internet my collection of sites grew and organization became a crucial factor. I would spend far too much time trying to find details of a specific topic. This, then, became the all important focus of ASH: to organize material in such a way that searchers, whose time was so precious, could find what they wanted quickly and easily.

I found that there were a core of pages which appeared over and over again. One could visit Suzie Q's site and find the same pages, with perhaps one or two new ones, which appeared on John Doe's, Harry's, Smiling Angels ...(all names fictitious) - so there wasn't much point in listing their sites.

What appears in ASH - the book, and the website, are the sites which filtered through as belonging to the core.

Of course, there will be some duplication within but you can be assured that you are going to find all the main sites here and some valuable material which was hidden on an obscure site that I just happened to trip over.
Categorization is always a challenge - I have tried my best to put a site in the most appropriate location but I am sure that there are some that other people would put elsewhere. Please send me any suggestions or comments with e-mail address on webmaster button.

HOW TO USE ADOPTEE SEARCHERS HANDBOOK.

ASH, the website, is primarily a compilation of links, organized into topics. ASH, the book, includes commentary on the sites. It has been completely updated as of January, 2003. All sites have been rechecked and verified. For some of these sites you will need Acrobat Reader (pfd. Files). This can be downloaded for free- http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Websites are notoriously changeable - what is there one day is gone the next, and this is one reason there are so few 'personal pages' listed. Please let me know if you find any lost or changed sites so I can update the next edition.

When good sites go bad there are two things you can do:

Look at the formation of the URL (address). For example if the site for Ontario was http://www.ouareau.com/adoptee/prov/ont.htm and the Ontario page wasn’t openening because I had decided to put a capital letter on the ‘O’ - cut the ont.htm from the address and see what www.ouareau.com/adoptee/prov will give you. Just keep going backwards by taking a level of the address off and you will eventually will get to a page which will will give you the link if the site is still in existance.

Go to your search engine (I highly recommend “Google” (http://www.google.ca/) and type in the title of the page.

I have deliberately printed the book on only one side of the paper so you can make notes. The three ring binder format allows you to add your own material so you can keep everything in one place.You can save money on the book - and shipping costs - by providing your own binder!

This book is a companion to Reunion, Search for My Birth Family, which, using my experience in Ontario, guides the reader though a search there. It deals with the emotions, the road-blocks, the frustration of living a search. It traces the steps of logic, and wild jumps of the mind to figure out how you can use your non-identifying information to come up with facts that can then be followed through. Here is where ASH picks up the process.

Behind this book are thousands of volunteers who care—who have put the work into developing their sites to help determined searchers. I have only sifted through and organized them and put my humble comments in. Thank you to you all… your work is deeply appreciated and is making a difference.

The criteria for inclusion:

• Sites which have material which directly helps an individual to search (not just link sites),

• Organizations or sites which do not ask for money.

• I do not put on sites of individual stories or poems.

My very best wishes to you all in your searches. I regret that I do not have time to help people individually. The sub-Antarctic calls and I have more books to write.