Siblings Far

You’ve probably seen some recent news featuring some of the “sibling far” families. Please feel free to wander through our web site.

If you are here because you have seen, or even met a child that you have already identified or suspect may be a sibling to your child and would like some advice or support, please email us for more information.

If you are here because you are curious about finding a sibling for your internationally adopted sibling, We are NOT a registry, nor do we assist people in finding siblings or other members of the birth family. We do not recommend or promote a search for siblings. This is a decision that each family needs to make for themselves.

First and foremost, searches for a sibling are, without some solid leads, going to be very difficult. Don’t expect results. Siblings of adopted children may exist, but still be in their birth country. It is also possible that if a sibling exists, that child may never appear in a public picture or enter a registry system.

Second: If you were to actually get lucky enough to find your child’s sibling, there are many issues that are involved in that discovery, and what it means you, your family and the sibling’s family. We’ve used the term “in-laws” or in the case of twins, ‘twin-laws’ to refer to the siblings family in such a situation. It fits.

This is a long term commitment. You do not get to choose the family that has adopted your child’s sibling. It may or may not be a compatable match between the families. Once you’ve made the connection, you can’t go back and pretend not to “know”. Please consider how your child feel if they have a great relationship with their sibling, but the parents do not get along or even agree to keep them in contact?

You have to think about how you would maintain the relationship – and it could be that the kids don’t “connect” and aren’t interested in maintaining a relationship with each other.

There are significant financial and lifestyle concerns with finding a sibling and maintaining the relationship. If they bond, the siblings will want to spend as much time together as possible. This will mean they will want or need to have trips to see their sibling and be with them as much as possible; this will mean commiting to spending a significant amount of vacation time, as well as money.

You may have other children, or your child’s sibling may have other siblings. How will you meld the two families together?

DNA testing is not an exact science when it comes to establishing siblingship when you can not test at least one biological parent. You need to be able to live with less than 100% conclusive results and accept negative results with grace.

If you think that you may be interested in joining a registry, please visit Kinsearch Registry or the a-China DNA Project.