The premier organization for obtaining information
about the histories of children adopted from China
Orphanage Data Books
We are excited to be able to offer adoptive families the opportunity to obtain all finding ad data for their child's orphanage as early as 1999 (date varies by orphanage), compiled and organized into a beautiful, 6"x9" hardbound book. See if your orphanage book is available below.
An "Ellis Island" Record of China Adoptions
Much like the immigration records of Ellis Island tell a story of the 12 million people who migrated to the United States between 1892 and 1954, the finding ads of the tens of thousands of children adopted internationally from China represent a historical record of China's international adoption program.
The Orphanage Data Books come complete with beautiful illustrations, a helpful introduction, and a summary of orphanage information that will allow adoptive families to identify other children found at the same finding location or on the same day, detect patterns not covered in our analysis reports, or just possess all of the primary data for their child's orphanage.
The book price is just $45, or, if you order either an Orphanage Reliability Analysis or a Birth Parent Search Analysis at the same time, you'll save $15 by getting both for $80!
Generally, a minimum of five orders or more will be needed to produce an orphanage book, so if you are interested in an orphanage data book not on this list, please let other families from that orphanage know about the data books.
More About the Data Books
When I began collecting finding ad newspapers in 2002, I didn't realize just how much valuable information they would provide. At the time, orphanages didn’t provide the finding ads to adoptive families; the ads were simply an “internal” procedural artifact required by the Chinese government in order for a child to be internationally adopted. As our collection of finding ad newspapers grew, I began to realize that the information contained in the ads could provide a picture of a different nature: a demographic picture of an orphanage’s adoption program.
By compiling the finding ages, genders, health data, finding location, and even, in some cases, the Chinese names themselves, I was able to draw important conclusions about the children's finding circumstances, such as whether the location was frequently cited by the orphanage, how common or uncommon a child’s finding age was, and whether there were patterns that displayed non-random findings. With all of the data from a particular orphanage, I found I could compare a single finding—the proverbial “tree”—against the backdrop of the entire “forest” of findings from that orphanage.
We are able to synthesize the data from the finding ads into a very informative Birth Parent Search Analysis or Orphanage Reliability Analysis for adoptive families. At the same time, we know that these reports only touch the surface of an orphanage's complete finding data.