I Broke Into an Adoption Agency to Find My Name

In this episode of Finding Family DNA, we sit down with an author and adoptee who turned a decades-long search for her birth family into three deeply personal books. Adopted in Denver in the early 1960s, she spent years chasing fragments of her past before taking a daring, real-life risk to uncover her birth mother's identity. What followed was a reunion that didn't unfold the way she'd imagined, a startling twist involving the man she thought was her birth father, and a DNA confirmation that didn't arrive until decades later. Along the way, she discovered how trauma can freeze a birth parent in time, and how healing often means letting your story become your strength instead of your wound. Her journey took her from a broken lock and a library microfiche machine to a small-town diner phone call that changed everything. Now she's using her voice to help other adoptees find their own truth — and their own community.

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https://youtu.be/1uaZ6wvlo0o

00:00 Intro

00:45 Case Update: A Birth Father Reconnects After Decades

01:35 Meet Linda Pevac, Author of Three Adoption Memoirs

02:45 Growing Up Knowing She Was Adopted

04:00 Deciding to Search for Her Birth Mother

04:45 Starting the Search in Secret, 1987

06:00 Non-Identifying Information from the Agency

07:00 Planning to Break Into the Adoption Agency

07:45 The Break-In

09:15 Racing the Library's Closing Time

10:20 Returning the Records Undetected

11:30 Her Brother's Very Different Reaction

12:45 No Two Adoption Stories Are the Same

14:00 A Blurry Signature and a Handwriting Analyst

15:20 Searching Before the Internet Existed

16:00 A Small-Town Diner Leads to Her Aunt

17:45 Mug Giveaway and Show Updates

18:30 Calling Her Birth Mother for the First Time

19:45 Flying to California to Meet Her

21:30 The Reality Behind Her Mother's Story

23:00 Chasing a Name on Her Birth Certificate

25:30 Meeting the Man Who Denied Being Her Father

27:00 A DNA Test Confirms the Truth, Years Later

28:45 Writing The Gathering Place

29:45 Writing A Fire is Coming

30:40 Writing Choosing to Breathe

31:50 Misty's Reflection on Linda's Journey

32:30 Quickfire Questions with Linda

33:55 A Message for Struggling Adoptees

34:45 Where to Find Linda's Books and Social Media

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https://www.instagram.com/findingfamilydna/

https://www.instagram.com/lasleuth

https://www.instagram.com/birthparentfinder/

Are you looking to find your birth parents? Get in touch with Jay and his team!

https://www.birthparentfinder.com

https://www.instagram.com/birthparentfinder

This podcast was edited using PodShuttle, the fully-remote podcast editing and management service owned and operated by CHOBO Studios. For more info, visit podshuttle.io and follow us on Instagram to see more shows we've helped bring to life.

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Adoption Reunion, Closed Adoption Search, Adoptee Story, Birth Mother Found, DNA Genealogy, Finding Birth Family, Adoption Podcast, Emotional Reunion, BirthParentFinder, Family Discovery

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