Adoptive Group Helps Others in Their Search

After searching for nearly two years, Gregg Reagan of Camarillo found the mother who gave him up for adoption and the brother who never knew he existed. But Reagan, 40, still hopes to find his biological father.

So this week, Reagan stopped in to scout out his next move at the monthly meeting of the Ventura-Santa Barbara County chapter of Adoptive Liberation Movement Assn. in Simi Valley.

“I found a Las Vegas address from 1987,� the real estate agent said. “I’ll pursue that.�

Known as ALMA, the 22-year-old organization with 10,000 members worldwide seeks to help adopted children and birth parents reunite by providing moral support and information for searches, members said.

Like many who want to look for relatives, Reagan said he put off the search for many years because he feared upsetting his adoptive parents. He decided to pursue it after his folks said they understood his need to know, Reagan said.

“Once I knew it was OK with them, I went ahead,� Reagan said. “I’m not looking for a new family. It’s just something I wonder about.�

Requests come in from all over the world to the international organization’s library, housed in the Simi Valley garage of Mary Ann de Parcq, an adoptee who found her birth mother, birth father and half-brother in the late 1970s.

De Par said she devotes much of her free time to the organization, because having the support of others aided her own search.

“If somebody wasn’t there to hold my hand, let me cry on their shoulder and give me advice, where would I be?� she said.

Searches through birth records, city directories, telephone books and school annuals can be difficult and time-consuming, said Ione Haugh, president of the local chapter. The results can bring mixed emotions, she said.

Haugh, 74, took up a four-year search when she was 59, only to discover that her birth mother had died when she was 12. Still, she had the answers she wanted and even developed relationships with her extended family, she said.

“All of those things I had wondered about--was she sorry, did she have regrets, did she ever have other children--I put those to rest,� Haugh said.

For more information about the local chapter, write to ALMA, P.O. Box 714, Moorpark 93021.