Active Search
Engage, Explore, Connect
G.O.A.’L.’s Active Search service is designed for members visiting Korea who want to take an active role in their birth family search.
This action-based service provides a personalized and inclusive experience, empowering adoptees to explore their origins with direct involvement. By actively participating in the search process, you gain a deeper understanding of your adoption story and a stronger connection to Korea.
This is a service offered to G.O.A.'L. members and is intended for adoptees who have plans to visit Korea or are currently in Korea.
Steps to an Active Search
Experienced G.O.A.'L. staff help members organize and plan a personalized itinerary for their birth family search.
While uncovering new information is always a hope, G.O.A.'L. prioritizes empowering adoptees, giving them agency in their journey and a meaningful way to connect with Korea. Through thoughtful planning and resources, we ensure adoptees are not just searching for their origins but actively becoming part of their own story.
Initial Search, Results, and File Review
- Conduct an initial search with NCRC or your adoption agency in Korea.
- Receive the results from the initial search.
- For results that lack information to find anyone, we recommend an Active Search
- Request your untranslated Korean adoption files from the NCRC or your adoption agency.
Consultations, Research, and Planning
- Become a member of G.O.A.'L.
- Upload your adoption files and results from your search to our Family Search Service on our membership site.
- Schedule a consultation for Active Search
- Our staff will review your adoption files and begin to research notable locations in your files - towns, clinics, places of abandonment, etc.
Connect and Go on Your Active Search
- Plan your visit to Korea and confirm the day you wish to search.
- G.O.A.'L. will coordinate with either a staff member or G.O.A.'L. volunteer to accompany you 1:1 during the day of your search, providing guidance and interpretation.
- Each case is different, but common itineraries include visiting Jumin Centers, police stations, local markets and elderly homes. We make and hand out search flyers along the way.
Interested in an Active Search?
Adoptees' Experiences
In 2024, G.O.A.'L. conducted and assisted with 130 in-person Active Searches.
Here is what some of the adoptees had to say about their experience on an Active Search with G.O.A.'L.
"Ming-ju and her little team with Gyeonggi-Ilbo were super sweet and really careful to ensure I felt safe and seen. This was a huge surprise to me. My whole life, I had heard that my presence in Korea was undesired and unwelcome, and that interaction was transformational.
In addition to the interview and reaching out to churches and the police, we took a break, and Sosun made sure I saw Hwaseong Fortress, its gates, and Haenggung Street. It was deeply moving to see the area I'm from and how idyllic it remains. Being amidst Korea's cultural history while investigating my own was a comfort—unlike in Seoul, where everything was so new and developed, experiencing Suwon helped me imagine a past where my story could still be alive.
Sosun really did an amazing job making the plan come to life and being sensitive to my needs when things felt overwhelming.
Thank you again for crafting such a great opportunity and making sure things were in place for me to experience it."
Ryan
"I am so happy to have been able to have GOA’L’s help on Monday. Rosa was absolutely wonderful. I really feel lucky to have had her. She made the experience great for me.
We actually found someone at the government office who wound up going above and beyond to help us. He took us to an old neighborhood that was near to where I was supposedly found and spoke to several groups of women about my story while putting up posters. Then he bought us big bags of donuts and lunch before disappearing back to his office. Between that and the helpfulness of the staff at the police station, I was really amazed at the way strangers went above and beyond in showing their compassion for my situation."
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Théoden
"Thank you again for yesterday, what a day. I had no idea what you meant by an active search because I thought we were just putting up flyers… I didn’t know we would be talking to people in the area and learning information that could possibly lead us closer to my birth mother.
I was very grateful for the people we met and how nice they were to offer their time and provide help to us."
Gary
“I'm really thankful to Kyeong Mi as well. She helped me to find, for the first time in my life, the town I was born in and even the hospital. Which is information I never had available to me ever before.
It's [Active Search] helped me connect with South Korea a lot more. I lived in South Korea for 2 years and I very much felt like an outsider, but my birth search with G.O.A.'L. brought me connections that I hadn't had before. I'm really grateful for that."
Sara