The following excerpt is from the November 23, 2011 edition of the Sonoma News. It’s one of those happy-ending stories, well worth the read.
Sonoma City Manager Linda Kelly knows how to roll with the punches.
She’s dealt with budget deficits, unfair state mandates and issues that sometimes pull her in several different directions at the same time.
But last year, when her two sisters died in a span of 11 months, her coping skills were almost overwhelmed. With both parents deceased, she was the last of her generation.
And then a miracle occurred. Her brother-in-law told her a family secret. She had another sibling, a full brother, given up for adoption in 1960.
“This news was such an unexpected gift,” said Kelly. “I decided I had to find him.”
She began by putting together the information she had.
“It was much easier than I thought it would be,” she said. “My brother-in-law told me the year of his birth, and I knew my parents were living in San Bernardino County at the time because my older sister had grown up there. I went online and found birth records. There was a website that listed babies born in a particular year with the parents’ last names.”
In addition to knowing the county of birth, the search required knowing the mother’s maiden name. Kelly’s mother’s maiden name was uncommon and so was her father’s last name. There had been only one baby boy born to a woman with that name in 1960 in San Bernardino County, and that gave her the correct month and date of birth.
“I hired a private search service after that, which was marginally helpful,” she said. “But my best find was a website called G’s Adoption Registry.”
