Challenge & Goal

The Challenge:

We are missing opportunities to collect DNA in China. Currently, thousands of families are traveling back to China on heritage tours and birth parent searches. During these visits, adoptive families sometimes meet birth parents, but they are usually birth parents of a child they don't know. These are tremendous but short-lived opportunities to collect DNA samples, as well as gathering accompanying information for future matches. Since DNA processing is expensive, these opportunities to collect DNA are usually passed by. That means that a potential birth parent match is lost, probably forever. A low-cost and efficient way to collect DNA from birth families in China is needed.

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Our Goal:

The goal of DNAConnect.Org is to test every birth family located by an adoptive family while taveling in China. Since there is no cost to the adoptive family, traveling families will have a strong incentive to test any birth family they meet in-country. This will act as a "search effort multiplier," dramatically increasing the overall search success in China.