My book of guidelines on Adopting a Child in Britain: Advice for Prospective Adopters

Bay, Michael, 1965-
American film director
Bay was adopted as a small baby by an accountant and child psychologist in Westwood, Los Angeles, California. His parents later also adopted a baby girl. His birth father is rumored to be the director John Frankenheimer, but Frankenheimer denies this and Bay does not insist on it, although Frankenheimer does admit to having had an affair with Bay's birth mother, whom Bay traced and met when he was 20. He studied film at college. He has directed several very successful Hollywood films: Bad Boys (1995), The Rock, Armageddon (1998), and Pearl Harbor (2001), known for their spectacular and expensive special effects.
[Last updated: 17 AUG 2001]
References:
1. Tyrangiel, Josh. "People: Cat's in the Cradle, Part Ii." Time.com, 27 May 2001. Available at: http://www.time.com/time/personal/printout/0,8816,128127,00.html [Last visited: 16 August 2001]
2. Hedegaard, Erik. "Michael Bay: Fast Cars, Hot Blondes, Big Budgets, Bigger Explosions." [Includes portrait]. RollingStone.com, 7 June 2001. Available at: http://www.rollingstone.com/my_news/newsarticle.asp?afl=fans&nid=13974 [Last visited: 16 August 2001]

Beachley, Layne, 1972-
Australian sportswoman
Beachley was born to an unmarried 17-year-old Scot living in Australia and given up for adoption at birth. She was adopted by a couple with a born-to son living in Manly, near Sydney. From an early age she was a water baby and soon began surfing. In 1998 she won the world women's surfing championship in France, and is also acknowledged as the world's pre-eminent big-wave woman surfer. When she was nine her adoptive mother died of a post-operative brain hemorrhage. She and her brother were not put into care, but a family friend helped care for them for the rest of their childhoods. In 1995 she began to search for her birth mother, but in the end it was her mother who traced her first. They are in contact but her mother lives in California and keeping in touch is difficult. She has no desire to trace her birth father.
[Last updated: 28 SEP 2000]
References:
1. Wilmoth, Peter. "Spirit of the Beach," The Age, 18 March 2000, Saturday Extra magazine section
2. Who's Who in Australia 2001. (Melbourne: Information Australia Group, 2000)
3. Griffith, Rob. "The Hard Yards Pay Off: Layne Beachley, 1998 World Champion." [Includes portraits]. Available at: http://triplej.abc.net.au/sport/surf/layne.htm [Last visited: 3 July 2001]
4. Hilgers, Laura. "I'm Going Big. Anyone Care to Follow?," Outside, November 1998, p. 42+
5. "Layne Beachley." [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://surflink.com/profiles/top15/beachley.html [Last visited: 28 September 2000]

Cameron, Rhona, 1965-
Scottish comedian and athlete
Cameron was born in Dundee or Musselburgh, Scotland, and adopted when she was very young. Her adoptive father also died, when she was 14, sending her into a long-term depression. She was inspired by comedians Victoria Wood and Jo Brand as a child. Eventually, after failing in school, a series of menial jobs and a period of alcohol abuse, she took the plunge into stand-up comedy, basing much of her material on her own life. She presented the TV series Gaytime TV in 1998-99 (she has known she was a lesbian since the age of 10), and wrote and acted in the widely panned sitcom Rhona for BBC2 in 2000. She also won a bronze medal in swimming in the 1998 Gay Games.
[Last updated: 4 DEC 2000]
References:
1. "Rhona," Radio Times, 29 July-4 August 2000, p. 31
2. "The Knitting Circle: Popular Culture: Rhona Cameron." Available at: http://www.sbu.ac.uk/~stafflag/rhonacameron.html [Last visited: 3 July 2001]

Cerullo, Morris, 1931 or 32-
American evangelist
Cerullo was born the fifth child of a Jewish family but his mother died when he was very young and his father placed him in an Orthodox orphanage. One of the staff there converted him to evangelical Christianity when he was 14. He says that two angelic beings transported him to Heaven, where he met God face to face and was told he would be able to foretell the future. By 15 he was a preacher, but he wasn't ordained until he was 19 - possibly the youngest person ever ordained by the Assemblies of God. Although his financial affairs have made him controversial, he has a world-wide following and regularly preaches to congregations of tens of thousands. He heads two organizations: Morris Cerullo World Evangelism, and Jewish World Outreach, and is particularly concerned with evangelizing other Jews.
[Last updated: 1 JAN 2003]
References:
1. Wourms, Michael. Chosen Warrior: The Morris Cerullo Story. (Lake Mary: Creation House, 1989)
2. "Morris Cerullo World Evangelism" [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://www.mcwe.com/ [Last visited: 29 December 2002]
3. "Morris Cerullo & His Ministry to the Jews: A History of Targeted Deception." Available at: http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/j4j-2000/index.html [Last visited: 29 December 2002]

Daniels, Faith, 1957-
American television journalist
Daniels was conceived as a result of a rape and her mother asked that she be adopted. She graduated from Bethany College. She joined CBS News as one of the youngest ever news anchors; in 1990 she moved to NBC and Today and News at Sunrise, then A Closer Look, Dateline and Today's Health. She is an active supporter of adoption, a member of the National Council on Adoption, and president of the Board of Trustees of the Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa Research Association of America.
[Last updated: 6 AUG 1998]
References:
1. People, 8 March 1993, pp. 47-58
2. Who's Who in America, 1996
3. Leading Authorities, Inc. "Faith Daniels." [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://www.leadingauthorities.com/index.cfm [Last visited: 3 July 2001]
4. Voltz, Jack R. "On Rape and Incest Abortions." Available at: http://www.ovnet.com/~voltz/prolife/rni.htm [Last visited: 3 July 2001]

Dodson, Patrick Lionel, 1947-
Also known as Dan Flynn
Yawuru (Australian Aboriginal) activist
According to the account given in chapters 11-13 of Chatwin's The Songlines, Dodson (who is called Dan Flynn by Chatwin) was a foundling, left in a store at Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia, by an unknown mother. When he was six he was sent to the Benedictine mission at Cygnet Bay. He showed great intellectual gifts and a dedication to the Church, and trained for the priesthood. In 1969 he was ordained. After further study in Rome he returned to Australia and was sent to Boongaree Mission to prepare to be the first Aboriginal to take sole charge of a mission station. From then until being sent to Roe River Mission in October 1976, he and one of the two priests in charge at Boongaree were in constant conflict, as Dodson became more politicized and identified more with Aboriginal people and less with Europeans. At Roe River he quickly completed the transformation to activist and left the priesthood soon after, moving to Alice Springs.
While Chatwin's Flynn is based on Dodson's story, the facts of his life are somewhat different and less romantic. He was born in Broome and lived with his parents until 1960 when they died. He and his younger brother, Michael, were then sent to boarding school to finish their education. Patrick went on to seminary and was ordained in 1975 and was a parish priest for five years. In 1981 he left the priesthood and has since been an Aboriginal rights activist, civil servant and member of a number of official commissions concerned with Aboriginal affairs. He is former director of both the Central Land Council and the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, and was a member of the Australian Royal Commission on Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
[Last updated: 28 SEP 2000]
References:
1. Chatwin, Bruce. The Songlines. (London: Jonathan Cape, 1987)
2. Shakespeare, Nicholas. Bruce Chatwin. (London: Harvill in association with Jonathan Cape, 1999)
3. Dodson, Patrick. "Reconciliation and Social Justice Library: Telstra Address: Address to the National Press Club, November 28, 1997 ..." Available at: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/rsjproject/rsjlibrary/car/dodson28-11-97.html [Last visited: 3 July 2001]
4. Walker, Frank. "Ex-Priest May Unravel Black Deaths in Jail," Sun Herald, 30 July 1989, p. 28
5. Dodson, Patrick. "Address to the National Press Club, Canberra, April 1996." Available at: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~acmm/reconciliation.htm [Last visited: 3 July 2001]
6. Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History, Society and Culture, general editor David Horton. (Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 1994)
7. Monash Biographical Dictionary of 20th Century Australia, general editors John Arnold and Deirdre Morris. (Port Melbourne: Reed Reference Publishing, 1994)
8. Who's Who in Australia 2001. (Melbourne: Information Australia Group, 2000)

Duchin, Peter Oelrichs, 1937-
American musician
Duchin is the son of the famous bandleader, Eddie Duchin and the socialite Marjorie Oelrichs, who was shunned by her family for marrying beneath her. His mother died only six days after he was born, and his busy father gave him into the custody of her friends, the extremely wealthy and powerful Democratic Party grandees, Averell and Marie Harriman. In 1947 he went back to live with his remarried father and step-mother, but his father died in 1951. He grew up surrounded by the rich, famous and powerful, and made his own independent career as a bandleader and pianist. He is active in a number of causes suporting wildlife, air quality and education.
[Last updated: 20 NOV 1999]
References:
1. Dever, Maria, & Dever, Aileen. Relative Origins: Famous Foster and Adopted People. (Portland: National Book Company, 1992)
2. Who's Who in America, 1997
3. Duchin, Peter, & Michener, Charles. Ghost of a Chance: A Memoir. (New York: Random House, 1998)

Fremstad, Olive, 1871 (or 68)-1951
Swedish-American singer
Fremstad was born Anna Olivia Rundquist to an unmarried mother in Stockholm. She was adopted there by an American family of Swedish heritage and emigrated with them to the USA when she was 10. She does not seem to have begun to study music until after the family moved to Minneapolis. She was excellent at the piano, but turned to singing in her teens. She studied in New York and Berlin, and made her professional operatic début in Cologne in 1895 as Azucena in Il Trovatore. She also studied in Italy. Her début at the New York Metropolitan Opera was in 1903 as Siegelinde in Die Walküre. She specialized in Wagnerian roles. She was very popular, but her limited repertoire, high fees, and prima-donna behavior made her less popular with opera house managers, and she finished at the Met in 1914; her last public performance was in 1920. Her personal life off-stage was gloomy and self-centered. She married twice, but each soon ended, and she is believed (possibly only on the basis of her close friendships with several prominent lesbians) to have been either lesbian or bisexual.
[Last updated: 2 NOV 2002]
References:
1. "Olive Fremstad, Swedish-American Soprano (Mezzo-Soprano), 1871 (1868?)-1951." [Includes portraits]. Available at: Available at: http://www.cantabile-subito.de/Sopranos/Fremstad__Olive/fremstad__olive.htm [Last visited: 5 November 2002]
2. Oxford Dictionary of Music, 1994
3. Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women, 1998
4. American Library Association Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Round Table. "Famous or Distinguished Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals: A List of Names." Available at: Available at: http://calvin.usc.edu/~trimmer/famous_names.html [Last visited: 5 November 2002]
5. Fremstad was also the basis for the heroine of Willa Cather's novel The Song of the Lark.

India (Princely States)
Until the 19th century what is now India (like Europe) was a patchwork of over 650 princely states, like kingdoms, ranging from the small and relatively unimportant, to the large, immensely wealthy and powerful, ruled over by men (mostly) with a wide range of titles in addition to the familiar maharajahs and rajas. Under an ancient Hindu custom, to avoid a disputed succession to the throne, a ruler with no born-to heir could adopt a male of any age from another branch of the ruling family and appoint him heir apparent. This parallels similar customs in the ancient Roman Empire and during the Chinese Qing Dynasty. In the Rajput kingdoms, a ruler might adopt a number of boys, called bhayats, who would live in the palace and be groomed for the succession together. An heir apparent would eventually be selected from this pool of candidates if no competent born-to son were produced (an obviously unsuitable or treasonous born-to son could be excluded from the succession). If the ruler died before adopting a successor, one of his widows could adopt an heir, who would immediately accede to the throne. The adoptee would cut all ties with his birth family.
When the British Empire came to India in 1757, among the land-grabbing stratagems devised was the Doctrine of Lapse, which abrogated the ancient custom. Under this doctrine the British arrogated to themselves the right to veto the succession of an adopted heir, and instead, to annex the territory concerned, although the adopted successor and his heirs were usually allowed to keep their titles and a substantial annual allowance. States annexed under this doctrine include:

• Satara (annexed 1848)
• Jaitpur (annexed 1849)
• Sambalpur (annexed 1850)
• Baghat (annexed 1850)
• Udaipur (annexed 1852)
• Jhansi (annexed 1853)
• Nagpur (annexed 1854)
• Karauli (annexed 1855)

James, Lennie, 1965?-
African Caribbean-British actor and playwright
James was born in London, the second of two boys. His parents were from Trinidad, but he never knew his father. His mother, Phyllis Mary James, died when he was 12 and the boys went into a council children's home. An uncle living in the USA wanted them to live with him, but they didn't want to leave Britain. When he was 16 he was fostered with a social worker who had two older children, and they remain very close. At 17 he began writing plays (Storm Damage was broadcast by the BBC in 2000 and won a Royal Television Society award in 2001) and he is also a highly-respected actor, with credits in Shakespeare, the films Elephant Juice, Lost in Space, Snatch, Lucky Break, 24 Hour Party People, Les Misérables and Among Giants, and TV shows Undercover Heart, Cold Feet, Out of the Blue, Comics, A Touch of Frost and Civvies, as well as a number of commercial voice-overs.
[Last updated: 9 February 2003]
References:
1. Castaway. "Lennie James." [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://www.castaway.org.uk/leja.htm [Last visited: 6 July 2002]
2. James, Lennie. "Some Mother's Son," The Independent on Sunday [London], 14 March 1999, Real Life section, p. 5
3. Johnson, Richard. "Ghosts of the Past," Radio Times, 22-28 January 2000, p. 20
4. "Lennie James," The Western Mail [Cardiff] Magazine, 25 January 2003, p. 41

Jarvis, Zane Te Wiremu, 1963-
Ngati Pao-Tainui (New Zealand Maori) baritone
Jarvis, who is a great-grandson of the Maori King Tawhiao (Potatau II), was born in a mother and baby home in Auckland and adopted by a European family when he was eight months old. An older brother had previously been adopted by another family. His mother was a poor unmarried European and his father was a Maori professional singer who also worked in a meat-packing factory, married with children. The day after he was placed for adoption his birth father and his wife came to the home to ask that he be placed with them, but it was too late. His adoptive parents had one birth child and later adopted two more children. The family was physically and emotionally abusive, and he would be threatened with having to go "sleep with the Maoris" if he didn't eat his dinner. He tried to scrub himself white to be like his brothers and sisters. He began ukelele lessons when he was four. His father refused to let him learn to play the piano, but that has now become his principal instrument. When he was 12 he ran away from home, wound up in an orphanage for a year, and then was fostered by another family. His adoptive mother died when he was 10 and his father when he was 15, and the children were separated and sent to various orphanages and foster homes. He has no contact with his adoptive family since then. He did well in school sports, but music was his main interest. At 17 he toured overseas with the NZ National Youth Choir and spent the next years traveling and working abroad as a missionary in Hong Kong, China and the USA, then went to a music conservatory in Toronto, returning to NZ in 1990. He began to find his Maori roots and traced his birth father, who was Inia Te Wiata's first brother-in-law. Although he died before they could meet, he is close to his father's other children. Later, following a television documentary about Maori adoptees, he met his birth mother and her other children. He has sung concerts throughout NZ, and in Australia and the USA.
[Last updated: 6 July 2003]
References:
1. Findlay, Katherine. "'You Give it Everything You've Got,'" Mana, issue 11 (Summer 1996), p. 56-58
2. Personal correspondence

Johnson, Nkosi, 1989-2001
Xhosa (South African) AIDS activist
Johnson was born Xolani Nkosi to South African parents infected with HIV, and he was born infected. When he was two he was taken from his mother who by now was too ill to care for him, and she has since died. He was placed with Gail Johnson, a white woman, who cares for 20 children with HIV and 11 of their mothers. Whether he was formally adopted or not is unclear from his obituaries, which use the terms adopted and fostered interchangeably. In 1997 his mother challenged his exclusion from school because of his AIDS and won, and he attended school normally until not long before he entered the final stages of AIDS in December 2000. He died in his sleep in June 2001, aged just 12 years. In the few years before he died Nkosi became a South African and international icon and symbol of the struggle against AIDS, especially challenging his own government's abysmal record in providing medical and social help for HIV-affected people and their families. His last speaking engagements included the 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa in July 2000 and another AIDS conference in August in Atlanta, Georgia.
[Last updated: 7 JUN 2001]
References:
1. "Nkosi's Aids Struggle Ends." [Includes portrait]. Dispatch Online 2 June 2001. Available at: http//www.dispatch.co.za/2001/06/02/southafrica/AANKOSI.HTM [Last visited: 5 June 2001]
2. "Young Aids Activist Nkosi Dies." iafrica.com 1 June 2001. Available at: http://iafrica.com/news/sa/343782.htm [Last visited: 5 June 2001]
3. "Tributes pour in for Nkosi Johnson." iafrica.com 1 June 2001. Available at: http://iafrica.com/news/sa/344816.htm [Last visited: 5 June 2001]
4. O'Loughlin, Ed. "Hoopla Leaves Delegates Cold." smh.com.au 11 July 2000. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/news/specials/intl/aids/aids1.html [Last visited: 7 June 2001]

Minik, 1890?-1918
Also known as Minik Wallace
Inuit "specimen"
In 1897 the polar explorer Robert Peary returned from northwestern Greenland with some specimens for the American Museum of Natural History in New York: six real live Inuit, including a man named Qisuk and his son Minik. With no immunity to European diseases, four of the people soon died, and one returned to Greenland, leaving only little Minik. The bodies were preserved and exhibited by the museum, and Minik was adopted by Walter Wallace, one of the staff. For 12 years he stayed in New York, forgetting his native language and trying unsuccessfully to have his father's body given a decent Inuit burial. He returned, defeated, to Greenland, but by now he had become too acculturated to successfully make a complete transition, and went back to New York in 1916 but he soon died in the 1918 flu pandemic. He is buried in New Hampshire, but the bodies of the other "specimens," including his father, were repatriated to Qanaaq in 1993.
Minik is one of a number of such "primitive" people brought back to "civilized" countries to be studied and as curiosities to grace the salons of the rich and famous. His story illustrates the tragedy of many and the outrageous callousness and hypocrisy of some ethnographers. While this practice has disappeared, there are distinct parallels with the attitudes of some modern-day people who adopt children from the third and fourth worlds, more as cultural ornaments than as children.
[Last updated: 30 JUN 2002]
References:
1. Harper, Kenn. Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo. (Royalton: Steerforth Press, 2000). "Forward" by Kevin Spacey also available at: http://www.steerforth.com/supplementary/give_me_my_fathers_body_intro.htm [Last visited: 1 July 2002]
2. George, Jane. "The Story of Minik: Americans Catch Iqaluit Historian's Passion for Minik Tale," Nunatsiaq News [Iqaluit], 28 April 2000. Also available at: http://www.yukoncollege.yk.ca/~agraham/nost202/minik.htm [Last visited: 25 June 2002]

Momotaro
Also known as Peach Boy
Japanese folk hero
In one of the best-loved of all Japanese folk tales, an elderly childless Japanese couple find a baby inside a large peach floating down the river, whom they name Momotaro ("Peach Boy"). The child grows big and healthy, but terribly lazy, until one day he is finally goaded into going to the forest to collect firewood with the other boys. Instead of working, he sleeps all day, but when it is time to go home, he pulls up an entire tree and carries it home like a bundle of sticks. Hearing of his prowess, the local lord asks him to go and deal with a group of ogres who are making life miserable for the peasants. Momotaro sets off, and on the way he meets a dog, a monkey and a pheasant who accompany him. They find the ogres' island and castle, and with the animals' help, he defeats them and forces them to give up their wicked ways. They also give him their treasure, which he takes back to his village and distributes among the people. The story is available in many children's books in Japanese and other languages.
[Last updated: 5 JAN 2003]
References:
1. Dartois, Myriam. "Momotaro". Available at: http://www.mhtml.ulis.ac.jp/~myriam/futsu/momogb.html [Last visited: 5 January 2003; unavailable: 16 March 2003]

Munk, Kaj, 1898-1944
Also known as Kaj Harald Leininger Petersen
Danish dramatist and pastor
Munk was born Kaj Harald Leininger Petersen on the island of Lolland. His father died in 1899 and his mother in 1903. He was then adopted by the Munk family. His first play, Pontius Pilate, was written when he was just 16. After finishing school he went to theological college and was ordained in 1924. He served as pastor for the rest of his life, and at the same time was the most important dramatist in Denmark. His plays all have a strong religious message, and he was a strong and prominent opponent of the Nazis. After the Germans occupied Denmark in World War II he continued his open opposition and call for the Danes to protect the Jews, which led to his murder by the Nazis.
[Last updated: 19 AUG 2002]
References:
1. Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon. (Herzberg: Verlag Traugott Bautz, 2001). Also Available at: http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/ [Last visited: 27 August 2002]
2. Heinrich, Sarah. “Commemorating Kaj Munk,” Pietisten, 14(2) (1999). Also Available at: http://www.pietisten.org/summer99/kajmunk.html [Last visited: 27 August 2002]

Nettles, John, 1943-
English actor
Nettles was adopted as a young child. He went to Southampton University and started life as a teacher. Before long he began to do some amateur acting, in 1967, and gradually got more and more important parts. His first TV role was in the series A Family at War, followed by The Liver Birds. His break to major role came with the hugely successful detective series Bergerac in 1981. He then returned largely to stage acting and narrations for television, but in 1997 he had another major hit series as detective chief inspector Tom Barnaby in the series Midsomer Murders.
[Last updated: 28 MAY 2001]
References:
1. "Nettles: All about John." [Includes portraits]. Available at: http://www.geocities.com/adrian_thomas_uk/aan.htm [Last visited: 17 May 2001]
2. "John Nettles." [Includes portraits]. Available at: http://www.tmaw.webfusion.co.uk/johnn.html [Last visited: 17 May 2001]

Plato, Dana Michelle, 1964-1999
American actress
Dana Plato’s was the stereotypical life of a child star who couldn’t make the transition to adult acting. She was the second child of a young unmarried birthmother who relinquished her for adoption as a baby. She was adopted by the Plato family of southern California in June 1965. After a large number of television commercials she was cast as Kimberley Drummond in the NBC (later ABC) situation comedy Diff’rent Strokes in 1978. In 1984 she was fired from the series because of her pregnancy, and from then on her career and personal life spiraled continuously downhill. Her mother died in 1988 and her husband left her at the same time, winning custody of their son. In failed attempts to restart her career she posed nude for a 1989 issue of Playboy and made several B-grade and soft-core pornographic movies. In 1992 she was arrested for the armed robbery of a video store and also for forging a Valium prescription, and her drug problem eventually led to suicide by an overdose in 1999. In 1998 she came out in the lesbian magazine, Girlfriends, but later claimed it had simply been an experimental phase.
[Last updated: 18 JUL 2001].
References:
1. “The Dana Plato Memorial Site: Biography.” [Includes portraits]. Available at: http://www.sitcomsonline.com/danabiography.html [Last visited: 18 July 2001]

Primakov, Yevgeny Maximovitch, 1928 or 29-
Also known as Yona (Pinchas) Finkelstein
Ukrainian-Russian journalist, spymaster and politician
Primakov was probably born Yona Finkelstein in Kiev, Ukraine, to Jewish parents, in 1929 (some sources give 1928). His childhood is something he refuses to discuss and is subject to speculation. The name Primakov derives from a Ukrainian word meaning "adopted son" or "step-son" and this has been interpreted to mean he was adopted or fostered, but there is no confirmation of this. He was raised in Tbilisi, Georgia, and educated in Moscow. He started his career as a journalist, and probably also later spied for the KGB. In 1970 he was appointed to the Soviet Academy of Sciences and became director of two of its institutes (Oriental Affairs and World Economy and International Relations). He entered the Soviet parliament and became part of the inner circle trying on the one hand to keep the Soviet Union from disintegrating, and on the other, to govern the new Russia. Mikhail Gorbachev made him head of foreign intelligence in 1991, and in 1996 he became foreign minister under Boris Yeltsin. In 1998 Yeltsin appointed him Russian premier, but fired him the next year.
[Last updated: 9 JAN 2003]
References:
1. Facts on File. "Facts on Yevgeny Primakov." [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://www.facts.com/cd/b00179.htm [Last visited: March 15 2003]
2. Rosenberger, Chandler. "Moscow's Multipolar Mission," Perspective, vol. 8, no. 2 (November-December 1997). Also available at: http://www.bu.edu/iscip/vol8/Rosenberger.html [Last visited: 15 March 2003]
3. Hengst, Frank. "Portraet des Neuen Ministerpraesidenten Jewgenij Manimowitsch Primakow." Available at: http://www.hannig-hengst.de/1024/german1024/port_1024ge.htm [Last visited: 15 March 2003]

Schweig, Eric, 1967-
Inuit-Canadian Native carver and actor
Schweig was born to an Inuit mother and a Chippewa Dene father in Inuvik, the Northwest Territories. At six months he was adopted by a German-Canadian family. During his childhood in Inuvik, Bermuda and Toronto he was systematically physically abused by his adoptive parents and ran away from home when he was 16, to become a laborer. In 1987 he was “discovered” while walking down a Toronto street and cast in the movie The Shaman’s Source. At least 16 other films have followed, most notably as Uncas in The Last of the Mohicans. During this period he endured a “roller coaster of alcohol, drugs, violence, failed relationships, despair and confusion” [Schweig] due to the abuse and racism and ethnic identity deprivation of his childhood. In 1996 he began to regain his cultural identity and is now primarily a carver, especially of Inuit spirit masks, living on Vancouver Island, but he continues to act in films. He is a passionate opponent of the adoption of aboriginal of native people by Europeans.
[Last updated: 18 JUL 2001]
References:
1. Mohican Press. “Eric Schweig.” Available at: http://www.mohicanpress.com/eric_schweig_gallery.html [Last visited: 18 July 2001]
2. “Eric Schweig” [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://angelfire.com/in2/ESpirit/bio.html [Last visited: 18 July 2001]
3. “Sandpiper’s Eric Schweig Site.” [Includes portraits]. Available at: http://www.angelfire.com/in2/sandpiper/eric.html [Last visited: 18 July 2001]
4. Annie. “Eric Schweig Bio.” [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://www.nativecelebs.com/bios6.htm [Last visited: 18 July 2001]
5. Schweig, Eric. “Eric Schweig Adoption Speech.” Available at: http://www.mohicanpress.com/mo05005.html [Last visited: 18 July 2001]

Shin, Paull H., 1935-
Korean-American educator and politician
Shin was born in Korea. His birth mother died when he was four and he was abandoned to the care of his grandmother by his father. He ran away from home and his village to live as a street child in Seoul to escape discrimination as an orphan and aged 15 was taken on as a houseboy by a US serviceman during the Korean War. When he was nearly 18 he was adopted by a US Army dentist, Dr. Ray Paull, and emigrated to the USA. His new family included three brothers and their mother. He had had no education at all in Korea, and was too old for American schools, but studying with a tutor and his parents he completed a GED in only 18 months and continued on to gain a PhD from the University of Washington. He became a university teacher and served in the Washington State House of Representatives in 1993-94, and is currently the state senator for Western Snohomish County. He and his wife are also adoptive parents. He returned to Korea as an adult and traced his birth father and brought him, his new wife and their children all to the US to live. He is active in adoption matters, especially working with other Korean-American adoptees.
[Last updated: 18 JUL 2001].
References:
1. “KAAN’s Board of Directors.” [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://www.kaanet.com/BOD.htm [Last visited: 18 July 2001]
2. Washington State Senate. “Senator Paull Shin.” [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://www.leg.was.gov/senate/members/senmem21.htm [Last visited: 18 July 2001]
3. Shin, Paull H. “Senator Paull H. Shin: His Story.” Available at: http://www.goal.or.kr/eng/story/news_0308_1.html [Last visited: 28 June 2001]
4. CAPAA. “Asian Pacific American History Month of May 2001: Noteworthy APA: Sen. Paull Shin.” [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://www.capaa.wa.gov.APAHM_featured_shin.html [Last visited: 18 July 2001]
5. Kimble, James. “Korean-American Adoptee Tells of Childhood Struggles.” [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://www.cardinal.wisc.edu/issues/2000/03/20000322/20000322.nws_shin.chtml [Last visited: 18 July 2001]

Spencer, Percy LaBaron, 1894-1970
American inventor
Spencer's father died when he was 18 months old and his mother left home, leaving him to be brought up by his uncle and aunt, a poor farming family in Maine. His uncle died when he was seven. He went to work at the age of 12 in a spool mill. In 1910 the mill was electrified and he got a job as one of the installers, learning his trade by trial and error. He joined the Navy and learned telegraphy and after discharge went to work for the Wireless Specialty Apparatus Company in Boston. He had already begun his lifetime habit of ceaseless curiosity and learning. He moved to the Raytheon Manufacturing Company, where he worked his way up to vice-president. While he held at least 120 patents, he is best remembered as the man who noticed a side-effect of magnetrons (an element of radar apparatus, developed during World War II) and turned it into the microwave oven. Spencer never went beyond primary school, but he was awarded an honorary D.S. from the University of Massachusetts and the Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
[Last updated: 30 JUN 2002]
References:
1. Murray, Don. "Percy Spencer and His Itch to Know," Readers Digest, August 1958, pp. 114ff. Also available at: http://www.softslide.com/gramps.html [Last visited 10 October 1999]
2. Singh, Simon. "Serendipity On a Different Wavelength," The Independent on Sunday [London], 26 September 1999, magazine section, p. 48
3. Gallawa, J. Carlton. "Who Invented Microwaves?" [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://www.gallawa.com/microtech/history.html [Last visited: 1 July 2002]

Vander-Kuyp, Kyle, 1971-
Australian Aboriginal athlete
Vander-Kuyp was given up by his mother as a baby, and adopted at five weeks of age by a white family, who later also adopted a daughter. His adoptive mother is also a birth mother who gave up a baby boy for adoption before her own marriage. He was raised in a mainly white area and suffered from racism as a child. He had many problems, now resolved, with his identity as an Aboriginal when he was a child, and at one point he tried to scratch his brown skin away to make himself white. His athletic ability made itself apparent early. He specializes in the 110m hurdles and has competed in three Commonwealth Games, three World Championships, and raced in the finals of the event at the 1996 Olympics. He became the first Aboriginal to represent Australia in an international track and field competition when he went to the Auckland Commonwealth Games. He has won eight Australian championships and holds the national record of 13.29 seconds. He was expected to win a medal in the Sydney Olympics in 2000, but was eliminated in the semi-finals with a time of 13.63 seconds. He was named Cleo magazine's bachelor of the year in 1998. He is in telephone contact with his birth mother, who traced him, and plans to meet her. He also works with programs to promote sports among Aboriginal children.
[Last updated: 14 SEP 2000]
References:
1. Reed, Ron. "Kyle's Great Leap Forward," Herald Sun [Melbourne], Weekend magazine, 6 May 2000, cover and p. 5
2. [portrait]. Available at: http://www.coolrunning.com.au/gallery/1997/kyle1.jpg [Last visited: 4 July 2001]
3. Rio Tinto Zinc. "Sport: Recreation and Life Skills." [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://aboriginalrelations.riotinto.com/nde/themes/sport/default.html [Last visited: 4 July 2001]
4. "Kyle Vander Kuyp." [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://www.bigpond.com/Community/Chat/events/Kyle_Vander_Kuyp.asp [Last visited: 4 July 2001

Williams, Anthony A., 1951-
African-American politician
Williams was born in Los Angeles and was adopted by Virginia and Lewis Williams, one of eight children in the family. He graduated magna cum laude from Yale and went on to get a doctorate in law from Harvard and masters in public policy from Harvard. His career has been mostly in financial administration, but he also served in the US Air Force and as an adjunct professor at Columbia University. He entered the administration of the District of Columbia and rose to become its chief financial officer in 1995, before being elected mayor in 1998.
[Last updated: 17 AUG 2001]
References:
1. US Federal Highway Administration. "The Honorable Anthony A. Williams, Mayor, District of Columbia." [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/gama/mayorbio.htm [Last visited: 28 June 2001]
2. District of Columbia Mayor's Office. "Biography: Anthony A. Williams, Mayor of the District of Columbia." [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://dc.gov/mayor/bios/williams.htm [Last visited: 16 August 2001]

Williams, Jett, 1953-
Also known as Antha Belle Jett, Catherine Yvonne Stone and Cathy Louise Deupree
American singer
Williams is the birth child of Hank Williams, the country and western singing star. She was born in Montgomery, Alabama, (named Antha Belle Jett) five days after he died and adopted by her grandmother, who renamed her Catherine Yvonne Stone. When she was two years old, and less than two months after the adoption was finalized, her grandmother died, and since her father's family did not want her she went through several foster homes before being adopted again, renamed Cathy Louise Deupree. All this time she did not know who her birth family was. When she was 21 her mother told her of rumors that she was Hank's daughter, but it took until 1984 for her to uncover the documentation, which also proved that the rest of her birth family had deliberately hidden her origins in order to defraud her of her inheritance. She successfully sued those responsible in the Alabama and US federal courts. Jett, who has now changed her name to Jett Williams, follows in father Hank's footsteps as a country and western singer, even using some of his backing musicians and songs. She has also been involved in charities for riding for the disabled and the US government's Take Pride in America program.
[Last updated: 3 FEB 2002]
References:
1. Williams, Jett, and Thomas, Pamela. Ain't Nothin' as Sweet as My Baby: The Story of Hank Williams' Lost Daughter. (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990)
2. "Jett Williams: Living the Legend: Past." [Includes portrait]. Available at: [Last visited: 3 February 2002]

My book of guidelines on Adopting a Child in Britain: Advice for Prospective Adopters

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