Helping my daughter in law find her family.

Mark of Zorro,

I had a long exchange of emails with them and got no where. So my thoughts are...they did some kind of funny business when they adopted her. Or they lost the paperwork in a move. Or just horrible people.
They never stated that in the exchange of emails they have records or not, they just kept saying we told her who the mother is, but offered no paperwork. Yes they are special people, strange they do this, even the mother was adopted her self. I just don't get it.
I know if this was pushed legally they would burn any records and say well we told them they were lost.
The only hope is they pass away soon and the paperwork turns up. My son says they are the masters of pity! The father told me he was set up when he was in the Navy. He said someone wrote an anonymous letter saying he sexually assaulted one of the adopted girls and he did 3 years in Leavenworth for it. The world apparently revolves around them.

So this whole deal really made me mad. I am determined to try and find her relatives, even though it appears the odds are stack against me.
I'm trying to collect all any info and learn all I can. So when I get the extra cash I can send her there to look herself.
I'm sure thinking about this again has my blood pressure up.
 
I got lucky and was able to get a transfer to Korea and will be there next week. So now I will see if I can setup a trip for them to come over and pass through her home town and see if they can come up with anything. I took down the Facebook page, I had a lot of issues with it not sending messages even to people I know. I also did a search for translators in Aomori City and did not find any.
Still if anyone out there has any info please share...
 
If you have not made any progress with your search I would suggest using a Private Investigation firm.

I did a quick search and couldn't find any reputable looking companies in Aomori but below are links to two well established companies - ask them for some more information about their services.

Intersec

About us | QR - Japan Private Investigations

This company seems to have an excellent reputation for achieving results:

TEITAN is a professional investigative agency

Good luck with your search.
 
I have just settled in after moving to Korea and have not been doing much searching lately.
My son and daughter in law are in the process of moving and they are also preoccupied for
likely this summer.

I have read to avoid any search agencies period. I have been told by several people if she wants family info
she needs to go to Japan in person because they will not release information to third parties.

So for now its kind of on hold, until I get more time to devote to the effort.

Thanks Dotanbatan for the info.
 
OK, just got an update tonight... I made contact with a AF retiree at Misawa and I asked about this Japanese guy Mr. T aka Mr. Takinasawa. The Parents told me this guy Mr. T helped out people who needed children to adopt. Here is what he wrote back...

"I asked around with some of the old timers and 'Mr T' was a black man, a first sergeant in Civil engineering who was fluent in Japanese. Everybody is pretty sure he was the man, but unfortunately, he passed away some years ago."

So her adopted Parents embellished the hell out of the story!!!!!
My daughter in law also said this guy supposedly help find two other girls one in Tokyo and somewhere else. These two girls are her adopted sisters or sorts. I doubt this guy would take vacation to go around Japan looking for kids. I bet they were all adopted locally. People are lazy and take whatever short cut they can, human nature.

My son is going to hit up the Japanese Consulate in Denver to see if they will help now with the birth certificate, now that we have the mothers name.
Maybe this time they will help.
 
How many people currently at Misawa do you think would have knowledge of base personnel from almost thirty years ago? How likely is it that there was a black Anerican named Takinasawa? And by base standards, anybody who knows ten Japanese words is "fluent", so I wouldn't put much stock in any of that.

What is the hoped for end result of all this?
 
I contacted a retiree group, likely most of them have been living there for a long time. He said they all agreed that this was likely the person they were talking about. The base is pretty small and maybe this guy had done this before. The adopted parents said he had knowledge of adoption stuff, or maybe at least he had a lists of phone numbers. The story meshes with the adopted parents, just embellished and changed around.
It gives me a clue into what they have said and to verify is anything they have said it true. I have been very suspicious of their story so far.

So if anyone knows this...can a person adopt directly from an Orphanage? Or does everyone have to use an agency?
This was 1983, so not sure if things have change since then.

Another thing, I am trying to check if INS has a copy of her paperwork when she immigrated.
Thanks
 
Adoption can be arranged directly person-to-person with just a lawyer to handle the paperwork, so I don't think there any requirements to go through any sort of designated orphanages or agencies.

I don't mean to pry, but just what is it you're all hoping will be the end result of locating her birth family in Japan?
 
I discovered there are two spellings for Seiko and there is also Saeko. I am pretty sure I have found the mother and she appears to have received a scholarship at a college in the US and now lives there. She has moved a lot so pining down her location has proved difficult. Never in a millions years would I have guess she lived in the same state! Now we will find her in the matter of a couple weeks.
 
Looks like I need to update this post. Somewhere in the many moves and new computers I forgot I had posted here.
After DNA testing at 23andme and Ancestry we have a 3rd cousin and a bunch of 4th cousins.
One of the 4th cousins helped out my daughter in law to apply and receive her family information from Aomori-shi. She emailed us a translation of the contents. We have the mothers name and her parents. She also has two half sisters and head of household. It contained old addresses and some information about the half sisters. So far we have not been able to make contact. I have search Facebook and sent loads of messages, I have a feeling they are probably not on there. The DIL sent a letter to the home address and it should have arrived by now, nothing so far. The cousin made a couple phone calls and I had a translator make a couple calls. According to the cousin the person who answered the phone was a different name than the person that registered the phone. She said she was confused by this because the that address was the registered address for the family. Another call to and address in in 1967 reviled it was a fisherman's work group. The man who answered the phone said he knew the grandfather and said he was deceased but the family lived nearby. That makes sense, my guess is he could be up in his 90's now. But the translator never confirmed his first name just his last name. So there is a potential it could be another person. They live in a small village on the far north western edge of Aomori-shi. Looking at the old addresses the sisters all stayed close to the home address.

I feel we are close now, I am kind of out of ideas. I think the only way forward is to make more calls and try to make contact with someone in the family if anyone will talk. Or fly there and knock on doors, probably wouldn't go over well.

So if anyone has any suggestion or ideas please let me know.

Thanks Alan
 
These cousins you talk about, they are in Japan? In the Aomori City area?
 
None of them are currently living there. The cousin that helped with the paperwork lives in Yokohama. She is working full time and has young children and is too busy now.

The closest match is a 3rd cousin who lives in Oklahoma. Her great grandfather was from Aomori-shi, but when her mother married an American the family cut ties with her.

Thanks Alan
 
The cousin in Yokohama could make arrangements to have a private investigator check on things for you in Aomori, if you're willing to foot the bill for it.
 
I briefly looked into that at one time and seen the cost around $3,000. I'd rather fly there myself and try. Then stop by CoCo ichiban a few times.
 
If I could find someone locally to look up phone numbers and call a few places and people I think we could find some family. If we could make contact with cousins someone might give us a hint where the family is, if not at there home address. I do have a one phone number for a Kudo living there. He was asked last year if he knew any Toki's and he said no. But the person that called failed to ask about Kudo's, kind of disappointing. Kudo is a popular name there, I see a couple of businesses in the area that are Kudo.
I also suspect when the cousin called in they may have seen a Yokohama number and maybe thought it was telemarketers and said whatever to get them off the phone.
I have looked through Google reviews and Facebook like's in the area looking for names, haven't found anything. The DIL has dug through Instagram too and hasn't really found anything either.
I am hoping maybe someone has a way to look into something for user names. Or some idea to find people I never thought of.
Thanks..Alan
 
I think you're going to have to get up off your wallet if you want to pursue this further. You intimated several year ago that you have money to apply to resolving your problem. I can tell you right now and from personal experience that phone calls out of the blue from us aren't going to be any better received than the ones you have had people make already. You notice people aren't tripping over each other in their rush to volunteer to do this onerous task for you? There's a reason.

I wonder what the two of you are expecting to result from all this even if you do find her birth mother. I would be very surprised if she is glad to be found. I fear you may be projecting hopes onto this based on happy stories of reunions with birth parents in America that just flat will not fly here.
 
This has been solved. A distant DNA cousin wrote me and said he would help me find the mother. Since I am working in Korea now its a short hop to Aomori. I flew over the end of last April and met the cousin. We checked the last known locations of the sisters, also looked in the cemetaries for the grand perants. We did not find much. While at lunch the cousin talked to an old lady in the ramen shop. She said she knew the mother and identified her in an old photo we had. So we went to the house listed in the Koseki from 1983 and no one was home. We decided to come back the next evening to see if anyone was there. The next evening, again no one answered the door. A neighbor came and talked to the cousin. The mother was there but asleep. He agreed to talk to her and to meet with me the next day. My final day there I met with her mother and gave her photo's of her daughter and grand daughter and left. They are still kind of working out comunications. Every person I met was helpful and did their best, I was pleasantly shocked.
 
Well the story may be starting again.
It is possible there is a niece or nephew that may also been put up for adoption. My daughter in law never was able to make contact with her family. Her mom was old and I don't think even had a phone. I do remember the cousin who I met in Amoroi told me the neighbor told him more about the family, but could not tell me since I was not family. In the Koseki was recieved from USCIS showed the older sister was married in 1989, then divorce in 93, then registered a birth in mid 94. I suspect being 25 years old she did not keep the baby. I also recently saw a match on adoption.com for someone adopted from Japan with a birthday July 94. But they have not replied yet. I also wrote ISSJ and nothing back from them.
 

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