How to search for your sperm donor father

[See also How to search for your sperm donor father - Part II....for information about using Classmates.com and the Birthday Database to find your donor, and see How to search for your sperm donor father - Part III....for information about how a girl used Myspace to find her donor]

Since most people who read my blog regularly know that I'm currently getting my masters degree in Library and Information Science I thought I would share an "information awareness essay" I've written for one of my classes that pertains to donor conception.  The purpose of the assignments each week are to write about a specific information "gap" in our current knowledge state and discuss what we did to find the answers to that knowledge gap.  This was an essay I wrote that outlined how I painstakingly search the internet for answers and what I hope to do with them if I find any.

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As I mentioned during my introduction in class last week, I was conceived by an anonymous sperm donor and I write a blog called “Confessions of a Cryokid”.  On my blog I discuss issues related to donor conception from the eyes of those of us who are most affected by it, but I also discuss and chronicle my own personal search and give advice and resources for others trying to search. 

There is such a huge degree of variance in what information offspring have in regards to their donors – many older offspring who were conceived in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, prior to cryogenically frozen sperm and large-scale sperm banks, all they may know is a doctor’s name or a clinic and nothing else.  Those of us conceived in the 1970s and 80s might have information such as hair color, eye color, height, and possibly ethnicity or occupation.  The lucky ones might have a donor number, which is imperative for offspring to find siblings and possibly their biological father on donor conception registries.  Today children conceived by a donor may even have the ability to know his name upon turning 18, but others who still have anonymous donors have personal intimate information and even pictures of their donors, depending on how much money their parent(s) wanted to spend.

I was one of those lucky ones with a donor number, but only after five long years of searching.  Once I had the donor number (found in my mother’s medical records as a “vial number”) I was able to contact the sperm bank and get more non-identifying information on my biological father.  “Brown hair, green eyes, 6’0, and was a senior in college in 1982 when he began donating.”  The sperm bank also told me he donated until 1989.  What I was not expecting was to receive his birth date!  Even though I don’t know where he was born, the sperm bank is located in Augusta, Georgia, and therefore he was likely a student at Augusta State University (called Augusta College at the time), since that’s where the majority of donors were recruited from in the early years and graduated in 1983.

That was eight months ago, and since then I have routinely searched the Internet far and wide to try and find more information.  Not only am I registered on every available registry, but I have gone through several DNA tests and have my X chromosome information in a Donor Gamete Archive database, where they cross your X chromosome inherited from the donor to all the other females (Y chromosome for males) in the database for sibling matches, as well as the donor.  However, probably the most intensive and grueling task is combing the web for my biological father, or at least potential men who could possibly be my biological father.  Since it’s time consuming and complicated (and obviously has yet to reveal anything of substance), I only attempt this once every few months.  Last week I attempted it again and I’ll describe the steps that I most typically take to do this. 

1. I first do a basic Google search with the phrase “born February 12, 1961” (the birth date identified as my biological father’s)

41 hits found

Hit 1:

(http://www.downingfuneralhome.com/ob/obituary.php?id=197)

A death notice for a Dr. Gerald Reagan, born February 12, 1961, died September 3, 2006 in Bethlehem, PA.  “He attended Penn State University and graduated from Life University, Georgia with a Masters in Sports Medicine and a Doctorate of Chiropractic.”

This is a possibility (albeit a sad one since he’s now deceased), so a further search on Life University in Georgia tells me that it’s in Marietta, Georgia.  Doing a Google map search for the distance between Marietta and Augusta shows me it’s approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes apart.  While plausible, highly unlikely for a college/graduate student to travel nearly 6 hours 3 times a week to make a donation for 7 years straight.  

Next hit:

(http://www.genealogy.com/users/n/e/l/Ross-Nelson-MN/FILE/0006text.txt)

A page on Genealogy.com for the descendents of Joseph Patterson.  Using the cached feature on Google I’m able to find exactly where the phrase “born February 12, 1961” is.  It turns out it’s a woman, so that’s definitely not the one!

Other hits include:

 An American actor and stand-up comic, Brian Haley (http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Brian-Haley), but it’s noted in the biography that he was in the US Army from 1980 to 1985, so that knocks him off my list.

A lawyer, Douglas Crisman (http://www.lawyers.com/California/Palo-Alto/Morgan,-Lewis-and-Bockius-LLP-2748058-f.html), who was born on February 12, 1961, but received his BS from Indiana University and his JD from Cornell – not possible distance-wise.

Others are foreign people, other women on genealogy websites, other famous people, as well as several hits directed to my blog where I have his information posted.

2. My second Google search is typically one of the other bits of information I have about him – such as “Augusta College 1983”

16 hits found 

Hit 4:

The educational background of a lawyer Mark Wortham, who graduated from Augusta College in 1983 and graduated from Georgia State in 1986.  It’s probably unlikely, since he graduated from law school in 86, that he would continue donating until 1989 since it says he was admitted to the Georgia Supreme Court in 1987.

The other searches were immediately not what I was looking for and were not further investigated.

While a more in depth search may have included many other search terms, this is a general idea of how I go about this.  Even though I may not have found my biological father, or even a man I would consider a prime candidate, it has given me excellent research experience in maneuvering the web, and how to search in the most unlikely ways.  It has given me experience in going through genealogy websites, which will be beneficial for what I want to specialize in.  I will continue to complete this task until one day I might chance upon someone who could possibly be my biological father.  What I would do at that point I have no clue.