The Ultimate Search Book: Worldwide Adoption, Genealogy & Other Search Secrets. 2011 Edition; by Lori Carangelo; x + 296 PP; 8.5 x 11; Published: 2011; Paperback, ISBN: 9780806355153; Item # CF9634D

This all new 2011 edition of Lori Carangelo’s The Ultimate Search Book: Worldwide Adoption, Genealogy & Other Search Secrets, is the first new edition of this guide since 2002. As director of the organization Americans for Open Records, Ms. Carangelo has amassed considerable expertise in helping people, and especially birth parents, find their missing loved ones. Now, in the 2011 edition of The Ultimate Search Book, she shares the secrets to successful searching with a broader audience. Just how do search experts get past the wall of secrecy and roadblocks to their loved ones? How, in the case of adoptees, do they find someone without a prior knowledge of the name? It is these and other questions that this volume answers by providing "how to" search tips and resources--for free and for fee--for legally accessing information and for locating anyone in the U.S. and 200 other countries.

The first five chapters of the new edition lay out Ms. Carangelo’s blueprint for successful searching. Chapter One identifies the major categories of databases that a researcher is likely to consult (DMV records, voter registrations, etc.). Chapters Two and Three home in on missing children, old loves, war buddies, child support deadbeats, and so on. Chapter Four treats missing persons whose names you may or may not have (birth children, foster care records, missing person locators), while Chapter Five concentrates on the principal websites for finding missing persons. The bulk of the book the leads the reader, U.S. state by state, and then country by country. through the specifics of successful searching. For example, in the case of Idaho state, we are given the addresses, phone numbers, and websites of the vital records office, DMV, state archives, and central adoption agency; the coverage and dates of the available records; and the adoption disclosure statute(s) currently in force. But that is not all. Ms. Carangelo also provides contact information for Idaho adoption search/support groups, as well as sample letters that readers can use to address their own concerns to the appropriate agencies and/or testimonials from state- or country-specific searchers. While the detail is not as marked for many countries as it is for the U.S., Canada, or Great Britain, there is no question that anyone who avails him/herself of the 2011 edition of The Ultimate Search Book will be off to a good start in tracking down a missing loved one.

"The Ultimate Search Book" Book Review