The Las Vegas Sun yesterday published a really nice article on Tony Vilardi and ISRR written by Tony and Emma May’s niece, Stefani Evans.
Registry helps adoptees find biological families
Emma May’s mother, my grandmother, was an adoptee who did not have her original birth certificate until Emma May persuaded an Indiana judge to unseal her mother’s birth and adoption records. Emma May succeeded on behalf of my grandmother, but most adult adoptees do not have the ability to retrieve their original birth certificates.
The adoptees-rights movement began lobbying state legislatures in the early 1970s to enable adult adoptees to obtain the original documents of their births that name their biological parents, state their correct places and dates of birth, and provide leads to their genetic backgrounds.
A mutual-consent registry such as ISRR does not violate privacy rights of birth parents, because individuals register only when they wish to be found by their lost family members.
In more than 34 years, the independent, not-for-profit, mutual-consent ISRR has reunited thousands of adoptees with their biological parents free of charge.