Please Listen to me...
Useful Search Information
Submitted by Kevin, South Africa
I have to say that Kay (Fermo) was brilliant in my search and I don't think that I would have been able to do it without her. And a lot of luck - luck counts in this game! She did charge me for her services, a total of R1200, or about £110 - very reasonable, I thought, considering the amount of correspondence, particularly e-mails that went back and forward. If you think that each one takes about say 15 minutes to write, then the above amount was used up in time spent writing e-mails alone! But this amount included her time and petrol spent driving to the various addresses, making phone calls, reading my file, and writing letters to newspapers, High Commissions, Registrars of Adoptions, in SA as well as UK, etc. I definitely think that she or someone like that should be the first port of call. I think Kay has a fairly good idea of the possible success of a case within the first few minutes.
(Kay can be contacted on +44 27 11 831527, and charges around R100 per hour, depending on how much has to be done. For more information, click here)
I should also mention that I did not find NORCAP to be particularly helpful. They are obviously a lot busier perhaps, but they did not have time to 'go the extra mile' as Kay did. Maybe not surprising as Kay's service is second to none. They are also particularly difficult to contact, and not e-mail friendly. If any UK based people are going to contact them and enlist the services of a researcher, I advise them to get one with their own e-mail address. There is only one telephone line, constantly engaged, and the researchers normally only work one day a week. The best thing (and what NORCAP encourage) is for people to actually go to their offices in Oxford personally, and sit down and carry out the research themselves, with a researcher to assist when and where necessary. I went using public transport, and found it to be relatively painless. I had the information I needed in about 45 mins, and they even gave me a cup of tea! Maybe I'm being a bit a bit harsh, but it is annoying when you are not just down the road, and have to rely on using the telephone.
Adoptees / Adoptive parents / Birth Mothers/Fathers /
Grandparents - the forgotten side of the triad / General Comments