My 2019 email correspondence with KSS sheds light on KSS’ Numbering Systems.
Paperslip Content Is COPYRIGHTED: © 2018-2026. Instances of Plagiarism Will Be Legally Pursued.
*The duration of copyright is the author’s life + 70 years.
All content published on Paperslip.org is protected by official copyright law. Any unauthorized use, reproduction, or plagiarism of our original research and content — whether published or unpublished — will be pursued to the fullest extent permitted by law. By using our site, you agree to NOT plagiarize or reproduce “as your own” our copyrighted material. Any information shared from Paperslip.org must be done by linking directly to our site; plagiarizing, copying, modifying, or redistributing our original work “as your own” is strictly prohibited. Reproducing our original research and publishing it “as your own” is strictly prohibited.
+
Recently I was reminded of past email correspondence I had with KSS. One “nice” thing that KSS did was to print its email correspondence with Adoptees and store that in KSS Adoptees’ files — unbeknownst to Adoptees. I recently obtained this KSS email correspondence from NCRC. (However, I still have these same emails in my email account).
This 2019 email correspondence with KSS sheds important light on KSS’ various Numbering Systems.
This constitutes the first and currently ONLY published documentation of KSS’ Director (or anyone from KSS) discussing its Numbering Systems for children.
I am the first non-KSS employee to discuss the formerly secret KSS “Child Number”.
+
I have long meant to publish this email correspondence with KSS, but have waited as KSS Adoptees have not previously been able to obtain the KSS document on which the formerly secret “Child Number” is sometimes, though not always, written. In the past, I have attempted to have KSS Adoptees try to request the formerly secret form on which the “Child Number” is sometimes written, but KSS would never share this document.
Please read below to find out more about how to obtain this formerly secret document from NCRC, through a regular Petition for Adoption Information Disclosure request.
Now that KSS Adoptees are able to obtain this document from NCRC — which I have recently shared about (see links at the bottom of this page) it seems like an appropriate time to publish these emails.
The email exchange below sheds important light on the following KSS Numbering Systems:
-Child Number
-K-Number
-File Number
Please note that these Numbering Systems are unique to KSS! These numbering systems do NOT apply to your case if you are NOT a KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptee.
With very few exceptions, KSS only adopted to the US, Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland between 1964-2012 between a specific list of Partner Western Adoption Agencies.
+
Below:
A graphic representation of the early 2019 email exchange between my adoptive father, me, and the then KSS Director, who is now retired.
*An easy to read text version is below the graphic:
Image credit: Paperslip.org
This image belongs to the author and may NOT be reproduced without written permission.
This email exchange was between my adoptive father, me, and KSS’ Director between January 16th, 2019 - February 11th, 2019.
Technically, I dictated the words in the email which my adoptive father sent to KSS.
My / my adoptive father’s email to KSS is in red text. KSS’s response is highlighted in YELLOW.
+
My adoptive father and I wrote to KSS on January 16th, 2019, in advance of my upcoming visit to KSS in August 2019. This would turn out to be the visit during which I would discover my deceased twin sister’s file in KSS’ file room at their former Post Adoption Services building.
For over one year, I thought I had found my REAL file — because I thought the baby photo in the file we found was of the REAL me. It was not — it was instead a photo of my likely deceased twin sister.
Please note that at the time we wrote this email to KSS, I had confused the KSS “Child Number” with the “File Number” (what I colloquially call the “Exit Folder” Number). The “Child Number” was not a number which KSS had EVER shared with anyone outside of KSS before. I had happened to photograph my “Child Number” in 2018 at KSS, when I fought my way into photographing my entire file.
In 2018, I had no understanding of what the “Child Number” meant. I would not come to understand the “Child Number” until after I began my KSS K-Number research in 2020.
The “Child Number” is sometimes (but definitely not always) written on a formerly secret, internal KSS document which I have only recently — as of April 2026 — published about here on Paperslip. This document is titled:
“국내소속서류작성의뢰서”
Request Form for Preparation of Domestic Affiliation Documents
The KSS Director’s response to my and my adoptive father’s email, reproduced below, clarifies KSS’s various numbering systems and constitutes the ONLY written explanation of these systems currently published online.
This constitutes further proof that I was the first person to investigate KSS’ Numbering Systems systematically.
Others have since attempted to claim credit for this work — particularly my research on KSS K-Numbers, which I began in 2020 after discovering that I may have had a twin sister who died at KSS in late 1975 or early 1976. Since then, I have spent years examining the various KSS numbering systems associated with her case.
But the proof, rather than being in the pudding, is in these 2019 emails…
+
What my adoptive father / I wrote to the KSS Director on January 16th, 2019:
“…We are aware that files from 1976 existed in the range that included (my redacted Child Number). Please see the attached photo of these files sent to (my name). The photo clearly shows files from 1976 in this range. Yet you say that the “child number, (my redacted Child Number) is her receipt number for all KSS children”. This does not make sense with respect to the files in the photo. We can see from the photo that a file for Child Number (redacted) very likely exists at KSS. Please clarify why we were not informed of this.”
*Please note — at this point in time in early 2019, I had confused the “Child Number” with what I now know is the “File Number” — or what I colloquially call the “Exit Folder” number.
The photo at RIGHT in the graphic above shows KSS files with “File Numbers” written on the folders’ tabs — NOT “Child Numbers”.
+
Below is what the KSS Director wrote to my adoptive father / me via email response on February 11th, 2019:
“The numbers on your picture attached, 76-**** are the file numbers. This number is given after the child's adoption. And the receipt number/child number and file number are not known to our partner agencies and adoptees, and the case number that is known to our partner agencies and adoptees through Adoptive Child Study Summary is used for our current post-adoption services. Your daughter's file number is 76-and the file number, 76- is another adoptee's file who left Korea for adoption in July of 1976. The receipt number is just a serial number, case number starts K-1*****, K-2*****, etc. and the file number 76(year)-****, etc. But it is not sure when the receipt number was started because the early cases don't have these numbers and these numbers are mixed for some years. So these days we don't use this number for our work.”
+
For Clarification:
Below is a cleaned up version of what the (native Korean speaking) KSS Director wrote via email response on February 11th, 2019 — which I have supplemented with current knowledge about KSS’ overall system:
The numbers on your picture attached, 76-**** are the KSS “File Numbers”. The “File Number” is given after the child's adoption. And the Receipt Number / Child Number and “File Number” are NOT known to our Partner Western Adoption Agencies or Adoptees, and the encoded K-Number / Case Number that is known to our Partner Western Adoption Agencies and Adoptees through the English Adoptive Child Study Summary which is used for our current Post-Adoption Services. Your daughter's “File Number” is 76-(redacted) and the (different) file number you are asking about, 76-(redacted) is a different KSS Adoptee's “File Number” who left Korea for adoption in July of 1976.
The Receipt Number / Child Number is just a serial number (sequential number), the K-Number / Case Number starts K-1*****, K-2*****, etc. and the “File Number” 76 (Year of DEPARTURE from Korea, which may be but is not always the same as the year of the child’s birth)-****, etc.
But we are not sure when the Receipt Number / Child Number was started because the early KSS adoption cases don't have these numbers and these numbers are mixed for some years. So these days we don't use the Receipt Number / Child Number for our work.”
In 2021, during an in person visit to KSS, the same KSS Director told me that 1-2 months after KSS assigned a child with an INTAKE Number (“Child Number”), KSS assigned a child with an (encoded) K-Number, and made an English Adoptive Child Study Summary for the child.
This was told to me in the presence of an Associated Press journalist and a Korean Adoptee documentary filmmaker who was filming the meeting.
Based on other meetings with KSS, and based on viewing many Korean and English Adoptive Child Study Summary documents of KSS Adoptees, I think it’s clear that the Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary was generally made before the English Adoptive Child Study Summary.