I do not know where to post this, so I will post it here and you can tell me if there is a better place.
I live next to a wonderful "grandpa" in his 80s (he's not LDS, but his kids were...for a time) . He lost his wife around 4 years ago.
In 1990 (I think he said in August) his son's girlfriend gave birth to a son. They were going to have a marraige as soon as the baby was born...since she got pregnant by accident. What happenned was textbook garbage that could only happen in utah (I hope). The girls father was apparently a bishop..and didn't want them seeing each other until the baby came and they were married.
Anyway, to make a long story short......the day came for the baby to be born and "grandpa" or his son didn't hear anything. Things were suspiciously silent. What had happenned was that they had the baby adopted out without even asking "grandpa's" son...or even consulting with grandpa's family at all. (Bear in mind that "grandpa" was very resourceful, etc., and money and employment were NOT even in question, nor would they ever be...during the life of the baby.
"Grandpa" went and talked to the girls father to find out why there was a few days of silence. The girls father (I believe he was a bishop of a riverton ward) told her they had the baby adopted out because he had darker skin. (grandpa is either italian or spanish or something like that...which to most of us is neither here nor there...but this happenned to be the excuse given by this human piece of garbage).
The father of the baby was completely ruined and marked (emotionally) for the rest of his life...wanted to meet his son, etc., But I believe grandpa said it was the church adoption service that did the adoption,..and he said roadblocks were put up, etc.,etc., Never even able to meet his son.../grandson. Even though the son was emotionally wrecked,...the grandpa and grandma had been looking for their grandson in their own way ever since 1990.
The last thing that Grandma said to Grandpa when she passed away was "please find our grandson".

I do know that if the father hadn't given up hope to meet his son long ago,...he probably would be able to do it easy with the internet,...etc., At least that is what I hear.

But I am not sure about the grandpa being able to do it as easy. And that seems to me the main reason the Grandpa still wants to live..he wants to meet his grandson. He is NOT computer literate...and I would like to help him. But at this point, all I know is that he could give me the birth date and that the mother was from riverton, ut...and the father was a riverton bishop.

Does anybody have any ideas on this one? It is hard to see someone so bitter hold it in all these years. Even though I believe all the siblings were at one point memebers.. This incident turned them sour and it will stay that way many generations.

Please post if you have any ideas. I am not telling "grandpa" I am doing this because I don't want his hope up

I've heard of other cases for Mormons doing forced adoptions like this. It's heartbreaking.

I'm sure you can help. Thank you for the effort.

Contact the Dr. Phil show. They do shows occasionally find birth parents/children. Since this would throw in the unethical behavior that is rampant in all aspects of The organization they might be interested. Good luck!!!

The mormons have a closed adoption system. If the grandfather and baby's birth father were not part of the adoption (because the birth father would've had to have given his consent to it,) then the birth mother likely convinced the court that she didn't know who the father was.

So she skirted the law by leaving him out. He could perhaps contest the adoption but for the fact it's been so long ago.

The LDS Salt Lake City keeps their adoption records like its church history, under lock and key.

He could probably retain an attorney or a private detective to learn more. But unsealing LDS birth records is next to impossible. The church gives lip service to more open adoptions since the turn of the last century, but it is only lip service.

They discourage birth children from finding their birth parents, and so do the adoptive parents. They literally try to write the birth family out of the child's history, including medical. Which is most damaging to the children in the long run, but the church is nearsighted and not really interested in the child's welfare, but its own.

In this case, I believe the girl was 16ish. (young). And most of this doing was her fathers. My understanding in the great (sic) state of utah is that legally there is no chance to force the issue.
Also, in this particular case, I believe that the grandpa has had an attorney for this since the beginning. And if something legally could have been done,...it would have been done a long time ago.

You would think that if that bishop truly loved his daughter, he could not have encouraged her to part with her own baby.

That baby was a part of him too.

Perhaps he just couldn't live with the shame, as a bishop, so now his daughter will spend the rest of her life heartbroken over the lost child.

So much for keeping families intact..

Many years ago, I asked the local bishop how the adoption system worked and who qualified to be adoptive parents. My reason for asking was that I had friends, non-members, who were trying to adopt through normal channels with little success.

I was told that only members of the church "in good standing" (I found out later that this was code for having a temple recommend) were eligible to adopt through Church Services. The reason was that the church only wanted to have children adopted by families that would eventually be able to be sealed to the child....

I believe that this is what is behind the total secrecy and the roadblocks....the child has been sealed to the adoptive parents, and the church does not want the biological family to mess with that sealing. Especially parents who have shown the lack of "morals" to have the child out of wedlock.

Why did the father not act right away? It's probably too late now. From personal experience, I can say that the church is the last place anyone should look for an ethical resolution of issues involving unwed pregnancies. Several months after a breakup with a girlfriend in 1990, I found out that she had had a new baby. It turned out that she secretly had sex with several of my neighbors and mormon friends while she was with me. The church leaders will do anything they can to keep the man out of the loop. I ended up telling both her Bishop and Stake president that I would be bringing a police officer to their sacrament meeting to serve the couple with the paternity papers there if I couldn't get them served any other way. The guy she later married and her had been having sex behind my back before she and I broke up. Then she later marries the guy and her husband's former bishop threatened me with a physical assault when I told him I would be filing a paternity suit if I couldn't get the answers I needed through cooperation.

That paternity suit revealed that neither myself nor the guy she married was the father, at least not biologically. A simple internet search of public court records years later shows a nasty and prolonged divorce, and a restraining order against her from some other woman. This other woman was also then in a divorce from her husband. Then this former girlfriend of mine changed her last name to the same last name as this woman who was getting divorced and had the restraining order against her. Apparently she stole this other woman's husband. That's apparently why both husbands were divorcing their respective wives. Obviously, children in both families would be affected badly.

All I can say is that I sure dodged a bullet. Rather than spending the rest of my life wondering if I had a son caught up in that mess, I took care of business in the moment. And fuck the church for trying to stop me from doing what I thought was right.

I too was coerced into giving up my child for adoption. We are in contact now but that is because we were both looking. There are places online that you can search which is how we found each other. There is also a Utah registry which costs (not sure how much) but both of the biological parents and the child need to register in order to be matched. There is also a national registry.

If his son is listed as the birthfather, he can receive non-identifying information about the family the child was placed with - for a fee. He should start with LDS Social Services and get that information. Also, the mother (if she is looking) might already have this information so maybe he can contact her. The more information you can put in when registering the better.

I've also seen people make a facebook page or post just for this purpose. The more it gets shared, the more likely someone who knows that child will see it.

I wonder what would have happened had the child been "white and delightsome."

You will need an attorney to take on LDS Adoption Services. My ex-son in law did find his bio mom (and he was adopted through LDS Adoptions) but it took an attorney to get the records opened.

When I was a senior in high school (1988), there was a family in our stake (Slidell, LA) that had their unmarried pregnant teenage niece from Utah living with them until the baby was born and placed with LDSSS. Her situation was too much of an embarrassment to her oh so perfect TBM family. That was 27 years ago and many mormons are still stuck in a time warp where they are embarrassed by out of wedlock pregnancies. Hubby's side of the family is extremely TBM and they seem to be in horrified shock when someone in the family has an out of wedlock pregnancy. If they do choose to keep the baby, they do not announce the expected bundle of joy or even announce when the baby is born with any semblance of pride, joy or happiness...only hushed whispers of the "sad" situation.

It's truly a sickness when appearances are what count.

An interesting 2014 article on LDS adoptions.
In the comments is a link to first mothers forum. Be sure and click on that after you finish reading the article.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/23/why-is-the-mormon-church-getting-out-of-the-adoption-business.html

Have you tried looking for riverton bishop in the Ogden Standard Examiner?

And have you run the birthdate through facebook and instagram and twitter to see who matches --- kids are often too naive and put too much info out in social media.

Have you looked through the yearbooks in Ogden and Roy and Layton to see if anyone looks like family?

Has dad registered on the site that reunites people when they both want to and the child is 18?

Has dad talked with mother's girlfriends around the time this happened?

Has dad any photos of the mother that you can upload to google images to see if you can match?

Have you simply tried to locate mother? (She may be as interested in finding the child as dad and grandfather are.)