WHAT THIS LIST IS

This is a biographical directory of famous and influential people who were either adopted or fostered, or raised at least for a while in institutions or by people other than their birth parents. The Introduction below gives more details about the criteria for inclusion and the kinds of information included about each person.

WHO IS INCLUDED AND EXCLUDED

This list includes people who were formally adopted or fostered, and also people who as children were separated from their birth parents for significant periods of time.

Thus it includes the following:

• Children who were adopted by "strangers," that is, by people not in their families, nor by friends of their parents - the usual type of adoption in Western countries today,
• Children who were formally adopted by their step-parents (and so who in fact may have always lived with at least one birth parent),
• Children who were brought up by relatives other than their parents, even if their parents were living,
• Children who were raised by family friends, even if never adopted,
• Children who were stolen or abducted and raised by their captors, including slaves and war captives,
• Children who were forcibly taken from "politically undesirable" parents, and given or sold into adoption, or stolen by soldiers during war and sold into adoption to raise money,
• Children and adults who were formally adopted, but still lived with their birth families, which was more common in ancient times,
• People who were adopted as a mark of honor by members of another tribe or culture,
• Foster children,
• Children who were raised in orphanages, hospitals, borstals, prisons, etc.,
• Children who lived alone or on the streets, with no adult to care for them,
• Children from cultural minorities who were taken from their parents by government policy and sent to children's homes or boarding schools, or fostered or adopted by families from the dominant culture, as a method of forcible assimilation or cultural genocide,
• Children who were sent by their parents to be raised by other families, as part of the normal aristocratic child-rearing practices of their time and place, generally to do with keeping tribal or family alliances strong, like dynastic marriages,
• People from religious tradition,
• Legendary and mythological characters, and
• Feral children: children raised by animals.

I have included some people who may or may not have been adopted or fostered as we understand the terms. The terms "adoptee" and "foster child" have not always been used in the senses we mean them today. In a number of instances I have strong suspicions that my sources mean no more than "protégé," and indeed, in former times that was what adoption essentially meant in many cases. This is especially true in cases where people, often adults, were adopted as heirs by childless individuals or couples. But I have tended to include such cases.

There a a few cases where I have included people whose adoption or other care history is tentative, and these entries clearly state that this is so. For some individuals, especially but not always in former centuries, there are several versions of their lives, and one may state that the person was adopted and another may say not so. I have tended to err on the side of including them, although I try to mention both versions.

I have also included some individuals who falsely claim to have been adopted or fostered, as well as names erroneously included in some other lists of famous adoptees, in order to set the record straight.

I include not only historical and living people, but also legendary and mythological figures and people from religious traditions. I exclude characters from literature and films, although they would make a much more extensive list.

No living person has been included whose story is not a matter of public record, or who has not given me his/her written permission to be included. There are people I would like to include whose adoptions are not public knowledge and who have refused their permission, and there are people whose adoptions were not public knowledge when I began to compile this list whose names were known to me but not included until they "went public."

I exclude children sent voluntarily to boarding schools by their parents. The list also excludes famous adoptive and foster parents and birth parents and people such as Emma Isola Moxon and Soon-Yi Previn-Allen who were/are the adopted children of famous people but who made no significant impact in their own right. Being famous simply for being adopted or fostered is not enough.

Basically, because I think it could be a useful resource for adoptees, foster children, their parents and their teachers. Adoptees and foster children often feel isolated. Young adoptees, especially where they no longer have contact with the social services, may grow up not knowing any other adopted children, and may wonder whether they are unique. They may be ashamed of their status; they may not feel that they can aspire to high achievement; this list can help reassure them that they can aspire, that adoptees and fosterees have scaled the greatest heights of achievement. So just as there are lists of famous Black people, famous vegetarians, famous chess players, famous West Virginians and famous gay men and lesbians, now there is a list of high-flying adoptees and fosterees.

The information given includes, where I have been able to get the data: names, birth and death dates, achievements, type of adoption/fostering involved, and information about contact with birth families. This information is not always readily available, and readers are invited to send me corrections and further information, and of course, new people to include. I have tended to give shorter entries for the most famous people, whose biographies are readily available elsewhere (President Clinton, for example), and longer ones for people whose details may not so easily be located. I have also concentrated on information about the persons' early childhoods, which is often omitted from other sources, which tend to concentrate on their adult achievements.

Where possible I have tried to include references for further reading. These are primarily to printed items and Internet sites. For some people there are hundreds of possible references, and I have included only a few. I have been more thorough in providing references for lesser-known individuals, on the assumption that for the really famous, it should be relatively easy to get more information from public libraries. The references are not necessarily the sources I used in compiling the entries.

Address for correspondence, corrections, suggestions for new entries, etc.:

"Cul-Ffordd"
2 Rhes Sant George
Llangawsai
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion SY23 1HE
Wales
United Kingdom