have people been willing to help you? What drives you to find out, curiosity? What are your feelings about being given up?
Whew! Those are big questions that could lead to an autobiography!
I'll try to answer as concisely as possible.
Yes, some people have been willing to help me. I wrote of finding my birth father's stepson above. When I traveled from SC to MA in 1976 to meet a half-sister, I took the only information I had about my birth father which had been written by my birth mother in a letter to my adopted parents while arranging my private adoption. We traveled to the town he had lived in and went to the courthouse and found that what had been written in that letter could be verified. Next we were able to attain his WWII military discharge papers (?) and then on to the library where we went through city directories until we found that his brother was still living in the family home. I called him, pretending to be looking for my birth father for a reunion. He told me that he had died one month previously in Colorado. I asked some other questions about him and he told me that my birthfather had died "childless." That's all I knew for 38 years about him. So when I found a hint leading to a public tree on Ancestry.com in 2014, I discovered that he had raised two little boys who were 2 and 4 when he married their mother! I was irate that his brother considered him "childless." If only I had known sooner. Anyway, I contacted the tree owner and she contacted his stepson and he agreed to talk to me and we ended up spending hours on the phone and he sent me a number of photos of my birth father and provided other information. However, I am running into a blank wall right now with DNA matches. One day, as more test, more trees are posted, and I work on those known relatives who have tested to sort through who is maternal or paternal, I may hit on someone willing to help again. I just want it verified that he is the birth father.
What drives me? And what were my feelings about being given up? Hmmm...Well, I always knew I was adopted at birth. Yet that knowledge led to my feeling different from others and as if something was missing. Perhaps part of it was the fact that I am a natural redhead and my parents had dark hair. People were always bringing it up. They still do. I wanted to know who was/were my red-headed ancestor/s out there. And I built a fairy god-mother, "Glinda the Good Witch", vision of my birth mother who was out there "looking for me" because this was all a mistake. I did that mostly when being punished by my adopted mother. Lying in my bed, as I'd been sent to my room, deservedly for the most part, I day dreamt this woman up who wouldn't treat me this way and who would let me do, give me, what I wanted. I looked for her (redheaded women) all over town among people passing by or in my church, etc. I fantasized that certain ones were my "real mother" and how we would connect. I was always driven to find out but my parents would not talk about it. Now I know that my adopted mother is my "REAL mother." The woman who chose me, raised me, loved me and never gave up on me and is right here in my home almost to her 97th birthday and I will never give up on her. I often wonder if I had had information about my birth mother when I was a child if I would have realized that I had the better outcome by having been adopted. I fared better than all my half-siblings. I don't know. I might not have had developed the ability to discern such things yet. My birth mother died when I was 11 years old. I have read many letters she wrote to family members and picked their memories. I have many photos and have visited her grave in CA.
When I was 20, my adopted mother told me that there were other children born to my birth mother and gave me a letter a half-sister had written to her a year prior asking if she could contact me. That started the ball rolling, or as one of my half-siblings says, "opened the can of worms." Later my mother gave me the letters naming my birth father. It's been a process over 50 years. Sometimes I go at it strongly and then perhaps am disappointed or find out something "icky" and back off, sometimes for years. Now, I am no longer emotionally in need of this "family" out there, though I am emotionally involved with some of the birth family. It has become a mystery to solve. Ancestral regions, health histories, family histories and photos have become the focus.
BTW, my DNA results state that I had a 99.5% chance of being a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl instead of the red-headed, hazel-eyed girl, that I am. Neither of my birth parents had red hair. Nor did my half-siblings, immediate grandparents or half-aunts! Go figure!
Hope I haven't bored you but you asked.