Local gumshoes pen tell-all book about finding lost loved ones

By Alison Miller · September 11, 2008 · Print This Article

Back to the Beginning coverTEMPE — Most people never experience what it is like not knowing who their real birth parents are.

The book, Back to the Beginning ($18.95, Perfect Paperback), gives readers an opportunity to do just that.  Co-written by Ava Friddle, Judy Andrews and Kristen Hamilton and Joe Bardin, the book is a snapshot of stories about adoption searches and reunions that the authors have experienced throughout their careers as private investigators.

Hamilton, along with her mother, Friddle, and sister, Andrews, formed a family-owned business called Research, Etc., Inc., in 1995 in Scottsdale. While the business specializes in adoption searches, they also conduct investigations involving all aspects of information research.

Hamilton states that it was after their first experiences in the business that the family realized that this was “something we really loved.”

Shortly after opening their agency, Hamilton and Andrews became certified as Confidential Intermediaries and were trained how to handle reunions between adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents.

Hamilton’s goal in writing this book was to show people the ins and outs of adoption searches and reunions.

But “every case is different, and no two people are the same,” Hamilton says.

The first chapter discusses their background as well as a brief introduction on how they typically handle adoption searches.  The authors write:

“It is our opinion, an opinion that we’ve formed through the years of experience acting as intermediaries, that contact, regardless of who makes it, should be approached discreetly, respectfully and considerately.”

Hamilton explains how emotional these situations can be for people, and the need for it to be handled slowly and carefully so that both parties have plenty of time to feel safe.

The following chapters in the book are separated by the different stories about individual searches.

Hamilton and her co-authors will be showcasing their book this Friday at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe.  The event will begin at 7 p.m. for a book signing and excerpt reading.

Todd Denen, a past client of Research, Etc., Inc., will also be attending the event with his birth mother.  He and his mother are one of the stories that are written in the book.  Hamilton wanted Denen to attend the event so that readers would be able to attach a real face to the stories.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.


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