Your search, your story.
We are looking for people in North Idaho and Eastern Washington who want help finding a birth parent, and who are willing to let us document the search. The help is free either way. It always is.
Real reunions our Search Angels helped bring together.
See what we actually made
This is the pilot episode. Before you decide anything, watch it. It will show you the tone, the pace, and how we treat the people who trust us with their story.
There are millions of people searching. Most of them never get help.
Search Angels is a documentary series about the volunteers who help adoptees and people with unknown parentage find their biological families. We made the pilot to show what the show could be. Now we are filming more episodes, here at home.
I am producing this myself, on my own time and out of my own pocket. There is no network, no sponsor, and nobody is getting paid. DiscoverFamily.net is a 501(c)3, and the search help it provides is always free, to anyone who asks, on camera or off.
Troy Olson
Producer, Search Angels: The Series
Real research, at no cost
- A volunteer Search Angel assigned to your case
- Full DNA match analysis and family tree reconstruction by our research team
- A written case report with what we found and what it means
- An AncestryDNA kit at no cost if you have not tested yet
- Support through whatever comes next, including contact, if you want it
Openness, and patience
- You are willing to be filmed as the search happens
- You sign an appearance release, as does anyone else who appears on camera
- You take a DNA test, or share results you already have
- You give our research team Collaborator access to your Ancestry results while we work your case
- You are patient. DNA results take weeks, and the research after that can take longer.
About that Ancestry access
Collaborator access lets our researchers see your ethnicity results and your full match list, the same view you have, and add notes as they work. The account stays yours. You create it, you accept Ancestry's terms directly, and you can remove our access at any time. We will never contact one of your DNA matches without asking you first.
From your story to an answer
Tell us your story
Fill out the form below. It takes a few minutes and asks about you, not about paperwork.
We talk it through
If it looks like a fit, we set up a call. You ask your questions, we answer them, and you decide whether you actually want to do this. You will see the release before you are ever asked to sign it.
Paperwork and DNA
A kit in the mail if you need one. Then we wait, because everyone waits. Results take several weeks.
The research
Our team works your matches and builds out the tree. We film along the way, at whatever pace the case moves.
What we find
Sometimes it is a name in a few weeks. Sometimes the matches are distant and it becomes a longer, slower case. Either way, everything we find is yours.
Adults searching for one parent or both
Plenty of people are only looking for a birth father. Some are only looking for a birth mother. Some want both, and some are trying to make sense of a DNA result that surprised them. All of that counts.
You need to be 18 or older, and close enough that we can get to you with camera gear. Right now that means:
- Idaho: Boundary, Bonner, and Kootenai counties
- Washington: Spokane and Pend Oreille counties
- Montana: Lincoln County
Outside that list? Apply anyway. We can sometimes work remotely, and if filming is not a fit, our Search Angels will still take your case for free.
These are the moments we are trying to capture
Not manufactured drama. The real thing, at the pace it actually happens.
Every photo here is a real DiscoverFamily.net reunion, shared with permission.
What we can and cannot promise
We cannot promise you will be in the series. We are starting with a small number of participants and we will not know who until after we have talked with people.
We cannot promise we will find your birth parent. Most searches succeed. Some do not. If your closest DNA matches turn out to be distant relatives, your case becomes a wait and see case. New people test every week, and cases that stall sometimes break open a year later.
We cannot promise the reunion you are hoping for. Sometimes the person has died. Sometimes they are alive and do not want contact. Sometimes they want contact but not a camera. Those are all real outcomes and we have seen every one of them.
Here is what we can promise. The search is free. The research is real. Everything we find is yours. And nothing about your story is filmed or published without your say so. If your birth parent declines, we do not film them, name them, or identify them. The story we tell is yours, told from your side of it.
Tell us your story
This is the short version. If it looks like a fit we will follow up for the details. Nothing here commits you to anything.
Before you apply
Does any of this cost money?
What if I am only looking for my birth father?
What if I change my mind about being filmed?
Do I need to have taken a DNA test already?
How long does this take?
What happens if you find them and they do not want contact?
Who else needs to sign a release?
What happens to my information if I am not selected?
Not in our filming area?
Our Search Angels help people everywhere, at no cost, whether or not there is a camera involved. Start here instead.