Clarifying Common Misconceptions About Paperslip’s Role In Birth Family Search.

”Can You Help Me Find My Birth Family?”

Posted to Paperslip on October 16th, 2025.

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Preface:

We are posting this in response to a question we commonly receive through email from both KSS and non-KSS Adoptees alike:

“Can you help me find my birth family?”

We wish this were a simple question to answer…but unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

Birth family search is far from simple. Its inherent complexity is precisely why this topic is the primary focus of this entire site. It has taken us years to wrap our own minds around what birth family search truly entails. It is an evolving subject, and has recently become much more complex, in the wake of the movement of ALL former Korean Adoption Agency files to the Korean Public Institution NCRC (National Center for the Rights of the Child). There is MUCH to understand in this complex, evolving landscape of birth family search. It is impossible to explain everything one-on-one in an email. This is what our entire site is meant to do.

We wanted to address some common misconceptions which Korean Adoptees often have about birth family search. We are doing so in the hopes of sparing both Adoptees and Volunteers who help Adoptees alike some pain and confusion in the process of approaching, engaging in, and understanding the often complex process of birth family search.

And we want Adoptees to understand — truly — why we simply cannot answer the question one-on-one via email which we often receive:

“Can you help me find my birth family?”

This question takes a conversation to answer. And we simply cannot do that one-on-one for free, as Adoptees often expect.

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Most Adoptees are raised in a Western environment, and many approach birth family search as though it will be like any other Western customer service experience. 

Such is definitely not the case…

Adoptees new to the scene need to know that the available resources for birth family search for Adoptees are extremely few and far between. All organizations — both volunteer and otherwise — which help Adoptees are very small operations, and all deal with more far more requests than can be handled. In terms of the number of organizations which we know of which directly help Adoptees with birth family search, we can think of less than ten. So it is important to understand that Adoptees are unfortunately in competition with one another for a very small handful of resources.

This means that you should treat the volunteers who are willing to help you very nicely. Many Adoptees who come from a Western upbringing frankly feel entitled to free assistance and approach birth family search with a “customer service” kind of mindset. Adoptees should know that birth family search is less like a “customer service” experience, and more like The Hunger Games. Getting the right help in a timely way is important. You’re one of amongst thousands of Adoptees seeking the exact same kinds of support. And if you treat volunteers who try to help you with rudeness and disrespect — well, frankly, there are thousands more Adoptees out there who are just as deserving of our attention.

It is often very hard for Adoptees to realize that we were processed out of Korea en masse — meaning there are literally thousands of us who are in the same boat in terms of birth family search. Adoptees often understandably believe that their case is special, but unfortunately so many of our cases were processed in the same careless ways by the Korean and Western Adoption Agencies. This means that our cases are often complicated puzzles which are almost impossible to unravel. Explaining all of this takes time. Discussing an individual Adoptee’s documents and case also takes a lot of time.

Our experience tells us that an Adoptee simply will not listen to the information we have to share until they are ready to do so. And it doesn’t matter how often we write about something, usually an Adoptee wants to hear it individually one-on-one. For free. We’re sorry, but that’s not going to be happening.

The fundamental misunderstanding by Adoptees that birth family search should be a “customer service” experience often causes confusion and pain for both Adoptees new to birth family search, and to the Volunteers — who are often Adoptees themselves — who are willing to help them. 

So let’s make this clear — birth family search can often be very, very hard. And it is definitely not a customer service experience. If you expect that it will be, you are going to be disappointed.

Firstly, it is emotionally difficult for Adoptees to “open Pandora’s Box”. Coming out of the “fog”, as Adoptees often say, can be a painful, scary, and disorienting process. It’s something thousands of us have gone through over the decades, and everyone reacts to the process differently.

Secondly, there are absolutely no guarantees in birth family search. The vast majority of Korean Adoptees — particularly those born and adopted in the 1970s and prior — are unlikely to find their birth parents. This is definitely not to say it is impossible — it is just less likely than for those who were born in the 1980s and later. Even for the younger generations, birth family search never has any guarantees. The only thing which we as Adoptees can do is to try.

Thirdly, most Adoptees expect that everything related to birth family search is going to be FREE. While there are many amazing free resources for Adoptees — Paperslip.org being one of them — Adoptees also need to understand that, as with all things, you get what you pay for. We have seen Adoptees endlessly ask the EXACT SAME QUESTIONS on Adoptee Facebook forums for years. We also see Adoptees give and receive piecemeal, fragmented answers which are often not enough to give an Adoptee the whole picture of birth family search in a timely manner. For those of us born in the 1970s and prior, we have a very narrow and rapidly closing timeframe in which we will be able to find any living birth parents. The truth is that many Adoptees who refuse to pay for any help with birth family search are not likely to get very far in a timely enough way to find living relatives in the current birth family search environment.

Because birth family search is such a difficult and emotionally fraught journey, Adoptees often lash out at the very people willing to help them — Volunteers. Having done volunteer work with Adoptees since 2020, we can confidently say that the number one thing which makes Volunteers want to quit is the way in which Adoptees often unfairly lash out at them, due to what a very wise friend calls “displaced anger”. This is also known as “lateral violence”. Please be mindful of your own internal dialogue and your treatment of Volunteers. This is not only for the good of your own birth family search process, but for the good of the birth family search processes of future Adoptees as well.

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Here on Paperslip, we have tried to address the perennial issues of the same questions being asked repeatedly all the time by Adoptees — but unfortunately, Paperslip can be an overwhelming amount of information for some Adoptees to read. To put it bluntly, many Adoptees simply won’t take the time to read the information we have on offer. This is why we have recently been offering our paid one hour Zoom Advisory Sessions for both KSS and non-KSS Adoptees desiring individual one-on-one assistance with their search. As we are not based in Korea — we are based in the US — these sessions are meant to orient new Adoptees to their options in the rapidly evolving and highly confusing landscape of birth family search. The private sessions are designed to present all of the available options in a timely and efficient way. Frankly, 99% of the Adoptees we see asking the same questions online all the time need this exact kind of conversation.

However, we know that many Adoptees are unfortunately allergic to the thought of paying for anything. And we understand that not everyone can afford even an inexpensive $65 consultation — this is why everything on Paperslip is FREE, for those who are willing to engage with our content and read.

That said, please do not expect us to break the entire process of birth family search down for you for free via email. We have ALREADY done OUR volunteer work by literally creating the information and sharing it with you here on Paperslip for FREE. It is up to YOU to READ it, if this information is important to you.

Since we operate on a skeleton crew of very few volunteers, the other possible option for us is simply to not answer the emails of non-KSS Adoptees. Since we do want to help Adoptees where we can, we continue to offer the paid one hour Zoom Advisory Sessions as an option, which both KSS and non-KSS Adoptees, their spouses and loved ones are welcome to take advantage of.

So, dear viewers of Paperslip — you have the following two options for engaging with our site and with us:

1. Read for FREE to your heart’s content. We have poured literally thousands of volunteer hours into Paperslip.org in order to give Adoptees as much information as we can to make their birth family search process easier.

2. Consult with our Co-Founder for a one hour paid Zoom Advisory Session.

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However, please do NOT email us and “simply” ask us to find your birth family. The question of how to conduct a birth family search requires an hour long discussion, and we are simply not able to do that one-on-one for free with Adoptees.

We are happy, however, to explain how things work in the context of your case in the context of a paid one hour Zoom Advisory Session. We cannot conduct on-the-ground search for you, but we can help you understand how to best approach your search and what all of the available options are.

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To our critics: please disabuse yourselves of the misconception that we operate Paperslip purely for financial gain. That idea is frankly laughable. Our mission is to ease the painful, often fruitless search process that many Adoptees face — something we know all too well from personal experience.

The paid Zoom Advisory Sessions we offer are not about profiting off our community; they’re a necessary measure to protect our time. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to dedicate an hour to every Adoptee who reaches out for free.

We hope, eventually, our nagging critics will understand the reality that volunteers, like everyone else, need to make a living. We think they do understand, but for whatever reason refuse to accept that we deserve to be paid for our hard work (something which they themselves never seem to do). We have long been committed to making all the information available on Paperslip for FREE. But we are simply not servants to the Korean Adoptee community.

The reality is that there is absolutely NOTHING — zero, zip, nada — which obligates us to do ANYTHING for Adoptees. We volunteer our time out of a desire to help our fellow Adoptees navigate the complex process of birth family search.

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We highly encourage Adoptees to read this IMPORTANT page for getting started with birth family search. This page (like everything else on Paperslip) is FREE for ALL Adoptees to read:

ALL Adoptees Start Here! General Birth Family Search Steps Through NCRC — Overview

We do our best to keep Adoptees up to date on the changing landscape of birth family search. It is your job to read the information which we share, if this information matters to you.

If you want us to engage with your one-on-one questions, please see information about our paid one hour Zoom Advisory Sessions here.

Thank you!