After being involved in Anna's case for several months I started looking through adoption message boards. I strongly felt Anna knew growing up that the people raising her were not her real family and she might now be looking for them. I started by posting on a few message boards looking for a female born in 1967 or 1968 and adopted in 1973.
My first reply came on Monday, May 8, 2006, from an adoptee named Gloria. Gloria said the family who raised her told her that she was adopted in 1973, the year after her mother died. I found her birth record in California listed as Gloria S. and Gloria B., then began looking through death records to find a match with a woman having a maiden name of S. who died in 1972. I found that her birth mother had married two months before her untimely death in a traffic accident. On Thursday I contacted Gloria to let her know her mother's name and that of the man she had married. The next day she discussed this new information with her mother-in-law, and found that her mother-in-law knew her mother's husband and remembered the tragic accident and candlelight vigil in town afterward. Gloria's mother was also expecting another child at the time of the accident, who survived a short period after her death, and this helped confirm the identity through death records. By Saturday I was able to locate in another state the man who had married her mother. Reuniting by telephone, he told Gloria the cemetery in which her mother was buried, one that was very close to where Gloria grew up. The next day — May 14, 2006 — Gloria was able to visit her mother on Mothers Day for the first time in 34 years.
Over the next several months, I was reading every adoption site that I could find. I came across the FindMe mutual consent reunion registry. After making numerous inquiries about adoptees born in 1967, the volunteer sent me an e-mail asking whom I was looking for. I spoke with the volunteer on the phone and explained Anna's story. The volunteer set me up on the Web site as a volunteer so that I could look for Anna myself.
In August of 2006, I was tracking down Susan, an adoptee who stated she was born in Germany on September 25, 1967 — the same day as Anna. Susan was living in Japan at the time she placed her information on the Web site, but I was unable to locate her in that country. Since she listed her adoptive parents names, I started searching for them and found her adoptive mother, who was very happy that Susan was searching for her birth mother. At this point, I felt that this could not be Anna. She gave me Susan's phone number in Colorado. I spoke with Susan to get more information on her birth parents. Susan was, indeed, born in Germany and within days I found her birth mother living in California. Her birth father is living in the U. S. and has not yet been located. Susan and her birth and adoptive mothers were very happy to reunite with each other.
Many adoptees I've spoken with were eliminated as being Anna because they were adopted from birth and had many pictures of themselves from birth to the age of five. As a result of setting up a MySpace account for Anna, www.myspace.com/reuniteanna, I received an e-mail from a woman whose friend thought the younger pictures of Anna were actually her. Within two months DNA was submitted from the adoptee and compared to Anna's family. Then, a very long four months later, came the heart-wrenching news that she was not Anna.
The next adoptee I came across was April. April was born in California and is living in Washington. Her profile mentioned a man's name that is the same as mentioned in the book Searching For Anna. She also stated she had two older brothers. It took me five days to locate April and to make contact with her. She told me her mother's first name and date of birth. The next day I found her birth mother living in Florida and a reunion took place over the phone between the two. April and her daughter flew to Florida in September of 2007 for a reunion with her birth mother and sister.
Then came Jen. Jen was born on August 3, 1967 — the day of Margaret Kukoda's death (George Brody always reminded Anna's mother that Anna was the reincarnation of Margaret). She remembered being told her name was Molly while in foster care before her adoption at the age of 16 months. A birth record existed in San Francisco for Molly B. and Molly E. We have located her birth mother, who has spoken with her daughter.
I found an adoptee, Trina, who was born in California in 1967 and told me that in 1972 or 1973 her adoptive family moved to England. She is currently living in the U. K. She has sent pictures of herself around the age of five and she is not Anna. She was told she was born in Los Angeles and there are too many females born on that day to narrow down her birth family. She has not yet received non-identifying information from the state.
I found another adoptee born in California on Anna's birthday, who turned out to be a male named
Kyle. I located and forwarded his birth records, which other researchers had already sent. I spoke with his birth mother and we have located his birth father living in Hawaii, but
have not made contact with him yet.
A woman who follows Anna's story contacted me after seeing a post on FindMe about an adoptee who was born in California in January of 1967. I made contact with the adoptee, Sheri, who had already received a lot of non-identifying information about her birth family. Sheri's adopted father believed he knew the first initial of the birth mother's last name. Her birth mother was 31 years old when Sheri was born, married in 1956, had two children and then divorced. She then entered an illegal marriage in 1962 and had twins. When discovered she was pregnant she moved to California, telling no one about her pregnancy. We located her birth record listed with no first name but with two separate last names. I tried looking for any records in California, with no luck. I searched birth records in her birth mother's home state for twins born in 1963, and found twins born to the mother's maiden name but with the twins having another last name. It was then that we realized the twins' last names were her illegal married name. I also found birth records for the birth mother and her siblings. Sheri did a lot of searching as well, and was able to find the obituary for her birth mother's mother which listed every name in the family. I made contact with the birth mother, who does not want contact with her daughter for fear her family will find out. However, she agreed to accept a letter from Sheri. The birth mother did not want to give any information about Sheri's birth father.
I am currently
working with another Susan born in 1967 in California. She was adopted
at birth, then relinquished back to the state around the age of three
and adopted by another family at the age of five. We made contact with
the first adopted family in California and they were able to answer a
lot of questions for Susan. They were quite surprised when they got my
call -- they were told by doctors that the adoptee would probably not
live to be 10 years old. They gave us her birth mother's last name as
D. However, Susan has a birthmark that the adopted mother denies she
had. Questions still remain unanswered if Susan is the same child that
the first adopted family gave back to the state. Could the adoption
agency get the files mixed with someone else? The search continues for
Susan's birth family.
Do you know someone who might be Anna Waters? If you know a female adoptee who was born in California in 1967 or 1968, adopted in 1973 and is currently searching for her birth parents, I may be able to help. Please contact me at SherlockJr@searchingforanna.com.
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