ABSTRACT
The expressed objectives of the participants in the study in asking to see their records were very varied and complex. People sought information about their past for a variety of reasons, but only by examining how the material was subsequently evaluated and assimilated by the recipients can the real impact of this experience be understood. The adults in the study were already distinguished from the majority of the adult population by virtue of having been severed from their birth families in early childhood, but even within that grouping were highly unusual in the degree of ignorance of their family background which most had experienced right up to their mid- or later years of life. Tracing, contacting and meeting a birth relative is an experience which usually takes place over a lengthy period. 'Roots' were also valued by the 'real families' group of people who had been largely brought up in long-term foster families.
