Finding family
How to find a sibling you were separated from
Siblings split between placements often grow up with the same handful of images and none of the paperwork. That is not a dead end. What you both remember about the same house, the same street and the same year is evidence that no file holds.
Start with the room, not the name
Names change. Placements change. Rooms don't. Write down the layout of the last home you shared: which room was yours, what was on the walls, what you could see from the window, what the street sounded like at night.
If you were very young, write the fragments even if you're unsure they're real. A wrong year with a right detail still matches; a right year with no detail rarely does.
Add the people around you
Foster carers, a support worker, a neighbour, a school. Those adults are often the fixed points two siblings both remember, and they're frequently easier to describe than each other.
Use official channels in parallel
Records access, adoption registries and care-file requests are slow but real. Memory matching runs alongside them — it can confirm a lead that paperwork can only hint at, and it costs nothing to have running while you wait.
Decide in advance what contact you want
A reunion is not automatically a relationship. Think about what you would want in the first week and what you would not, before anyone answers. On noknokk nothing opens unless you both accept, and you can stop at any point.
What noknokk can do
- Match your memory against how someone else describes the same household, street or era
- Keep your identity sealed until you both agree to be known
- Let you search with no names, no dates and no documents
What it can't
- Access birth, adoption or care records — we hold none
- Confirm a biological relationship; a match is a strong lead, not proof
- Find anyone who has not written their own memory down
What to write down
- 1. The last address you both lived at, as well as you can describe it
- 2. What each of you was called at home, including nicknames
- 3. The year, the season, and what ended it
- 4. One thing only the two of you would remember
How your privacy works here
Read the full safety rulesNobody sees your name until you both say yes
Identity, photo and contact stay sealed on both sides until each of you accepts.
No DNA, no records, no people-search
We hold no birth, adoption or care files and buy no data. Only what people choose to write.
A permanent do-not-contact switch
Turn it on and you stop appearing to anyone, in both directions, for good.
No public profiles
There is nothing to browse about you — only the memory you chose to post.
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Someone you know is searching for a person they can't name.