A significant omission across all KSS Adoptees’ adoption files is the lack of documented correspondence with its Partner Western Adoption Agencies in the US, Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland.

Something key is missing from our KSS adoption files.

In focusing extensively on obtaining KSS documents related to birth family search, I overlooked what now seems to be a glaring omission: my KSS adoption file — which I had previously photographed at KSS in 2018, and which I saw again at NCRC in early 2026 — contains NO correspondence regarding my case between KSS and Welcome House, my U.S. Adoption Agency. The same absence applies to any communication between KSS and the intended Partner Western Adoption Agency of my likely deceased twin sister, whose file I accidentally found and photographed at KSS in 2019.

You can see a complete list of KSS’ Partner Western Adoption Agencies here.

It is only because my adoptive parents saved a ton of their correspondence with my US Adoption Agency, Welcome House, that I am aware of how much correspondence was generated in the course of my adoption process. There are MANY typed letters between the former Executive Director of Welcome House, Mary L. Graves, and my adoptive parents. She was not one to skimp on communication by hand typed letter - her epistolary output was pretty remarkable.

Below: An example of a letter from former (now deceased) Welcome House Executive Director Mary L. Graves to my adoptive parents, during the course of my adoption process. I’ve redacted it for online sharing, but I have many such examples of these hand typed letters between Mary L. Graves and various people she was corresponding with during the course of my adoption.

Significantly, however, I do NOT have any examples of Welcome House Executive Director Mary L. Graves’ correspondence with KSS. I have NEVER seen any such correspondence anywhere myself. I am sure it existed — but KSS clearly kept it hidden. I doubt they destroyed it, since KSS tended to keep EVERYTHING.

The image above belongs to the author and may NOT be reproduced without written permission.

Surely a ton of similar correspondence once existed between KSS (my Korean Adoption Agency) and Welcome House (my US Adoption Agency). Yet NONE of that correspondence was in my file at KSS in 2018, or during any subsequent visits to KSS.

It’s worth noting that KSS almost ALWAYS had advance notice of when a KSS Adoptee would visit. They could have easily have removed any information they did not want a KSS Adoptee to see from her or his respective file prior to the Adoptee’s visit to KSS. Even for those KSS Adoptees who dropped in to KSS unannounced, KSS would still have had the opportunity to remove or hide anything they wanted from a KSS Adoptee’s file prior to meeting with them in a file review room.

It’s also possible that KSS either did not keep or kept this correspondence in a separate place. However, based on the fact that in 2019, I saw and photographed my likely twin’s entire adoption file at KSS, and it did NOT contain direct correspondence with my likely twin’s intended Partner Western Adoption Agency of KSS (though it did contain some of the adoption related documents related to her which were from her intended Partner Western Adoption Agency), I do not believe that KSS routinely kept such correspondence with its Partner Western Adoption Agencies in KSS Adoptees’ file folders.

This will likely remain an eternal mystery, as ALL former KSS files (at least, the ones they decided to turn over) are now at NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do. These files are likely to move again to the Seongam Branch of the National Archives sometime in 2026.

KSS was not, by and large, sloppy in its work. I know that KSS tended to keep EVERYTHING related to a child’s adoption case — but they usually chose to share very LITTLE with Adoptees. So who knows where KSS kept the likely tons of paper correspondence with its Partner Western Adoption Agencies generated over the years. After all, KSS operated its adoption business between 1964-2012, in a time period which mostly preceded the use of computers and email.

The surprises and mysteries with KSS never seem to end.