Free Canadian Adoption Search Registry for adoptees, birthmothers, birthfathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfathers
LINKS POST-LEGAL ADOPTION SUPPORT 
WINNIPEG MB CANADA
is a volunteer, non-profit organization, offering support for all members of the triad i.e. adoptee, birthparent, and adoptive parent by providing a free registry and a search service for a minimal fee. We also provide support for grandparents and other relatives who have had family separated by adoption. They are unable to obtain any support or assistance from the Post Adoption Registry of Manitoba so we will include them in our free registry and also offer our search service.
Our goals are: Support - Education - Informing the public - Promoting legislative changes in attitudes, policies, and adoption legislation. This includes working to change the current system of sealed adoption records in Manitoba. LINKS is kept on-going through the donated time, effort, love, and caring of its members.
April 18, 2013 NOTHING, does it surprise anyone? The Legislature will resume sitting on April 16, 2013 and we hope that the Throne Speech will announce opening of the past adoption records. We have heard nothing from the government but our hopes are high.
March 28, 2012. We have been advised that the Post Adoption Registry has instituted a priority contact listing for individuals interested in adoption information should the Province of Manitoba open its adoption records in the near future. Requests for adoption information are considered a priority by departmental staff, and should adoptions be opened, PAR staff will be in direct contact with these individuals to assist with obtaining their desired information. Should individuals wish to be added to the contact list, they are invited to contact Ms. Marguerite Lapka-Woytowich, Post-Adoption Specialist at 204-945-4272.
January 30, 2012.
A cabinet shuffle has resulted in a new Minister in charge of The Adoption Act. The new minister is the Honourable Jennifer Howard, Minister of Family Services and Labour. Hopefully she will continue the process of opening past adoption records that we have been assured is happening. To contact the Minister or your M.L.A. go here
June 15, 2009 - Manitoba announces legislative review of the Adoption Act to open records back to 1925. To see the Canadian Press announcement go here A legislative review was done in 1997 and is contained in the Report of the Child and Family Services Act Review Committee on the Community Consultation Process compiled by Helen Zuefle. Quote: With respect to the issue of opening of past adoption records, the two views of the Committee members are: a) After a suitable notification process to allow for the filing of a veto all past adoption records should be opened. or b) The confidentiality of existing adoption records should be maintained at the time of announcing the new adoption legislation, there should be public notification that existing records remain intact. Unquote
The goverment at that time decided to go with b) and continue their discriminatory policy of sealed records.
Why is it necessary to do another review? The results are in the Zuefle report.
To view an update (November 2012) on the status of any changes to The Adoption Act of Manitoba visit my blog at 
The Triad speaks out - An Adoptee's perspective: an adoptee has never touched the hand of kin or seen a face that looked like their own.
- A Birth Parent's perspective: a birth mother or father has never stopped grieving for that part of themselves they relinquished years ago.
- An Adoptive Parent's perspective: an adoptive parent has never stopped fearing that one day their adopted child, for whatever reasons, will seek their roots and true identity and leave them for another.
The American Adoption Congress has asked for the support of all birthparents in both Canada and the United States to pressure the provincial and state governments to open adoption records for adult adoptees to obtain their original birth certificates. Please go to the following site for more information and to register click here
We have over 700 people who have registered with us, but have moved or changed their e-mail address, telephone number, etc. and we are unable to contact them. Many have been reunited but have not advised us of this. We have sent several hundred e-mails to people who have registered, and have not received a reply. If you are one of these people, please contact us to update your information.
5,528 records (1,375 reunions)
First Nations children, birthparents and siblings of those adopted in Manitoba or out of Manitoba and Canada, should also register with the following: click here
Provinces and Territories who have passed legislation to open past and future adoption records are British Columbia, Alberta, Newfoundland/Labrador, Ontario, and Yukon. Manitoba would not make the Adoption Act of 1999 retroactive so the thousands of birthparents and the adoptees who were adopted from the beginning of record keeping until 1999 are being denied their records.
To see a summary of the adoption laws in Canada click here
Open adoption records have always been available in Norway, Israel, Finland, Mexico, France, and Saudi Arabia. Since 1930 the following countries opened their birth certificate records retroactively to adoptees and birthparents: Scotland, Russia, England, Sweden, Argentina, Germany, Taiwan, Poland, Argentina, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, South Korea, Brazil, The Netherlands, New Zealand (1985), and Australia (1994). Open adoption records, available retroactively, for adoptees only are available in the U.S. in the states of (never were sealed) Alaska and Kansas, (after 1998) Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Tennessee..
WINNIPEG:
for assistance call: Roy at 204-257-4742 or 
BRANDON:
for assistance call Vivian at 204-727-1022 or 204-727-3903 or
Members of the triad who are registering for a search are still being told that they must write a non-identifying letter to the other party. It will be censured to ensure that it does not contain any identifying information, or what the worker considers identifying, and it will be copied and placed on your file in the office. This procedure does not have to be followed and you should be told there is an option. For more information about this violation of privacy go to our page called Do's and Don'ts
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since October 22, 1995
site updated May 15, 2013