AdoptionOnline.com was created in 1995 by a prospective adoptive family. They had signed up with an adoption agency and were wondering what to do next. One of the big questions in their mind was: “How do you find pregnant women considering adoption for their baby?”

The answer at the time was classified ads, placed in newspapers. Well, they thought, “Which newspapers? Some cities have many newspapers. What about college newspapers? Do pregnant women even read newspapers? What day of the week should the ads appear? Gee this could get REALLY expensive, REALLY quickly“.

And then it dawned on them. The Internet was still in its infancy, yet was already available at many colleges and schools. If they posted their “Dear Birthmother” letter online, it could reach thousands of women all across the country at very little cost. If they started a website, they could help other people hoping to adopt and by gathering together, attract enough attention to be successful.

So they set out to do just that starting AdoptionOnline.com (initially called Adoption Online Connection) in March of 1995. By October, many families had joined, and in October of 1995 the Worlds First Internet assisted adoption was completed with the help of AdoptionOnline.com. The site quickly caught the attention of search engines, magazines and newspapers nation wide. A new (in 1996) company called Yahoo gave the site 4 stars in one of the first reviews ever written by Yahoo. (The review is still available on the : Internet Archive

Clearly this was a great idea! They completed their own adoption almost a year later (the 8th adoption assisted by AdoptionOnline.com) and decided to keep the site running so that they could help others.

Today, AdoptionOnline.com has helped hundeds of people adopt, revolutionized adoption, spawned dozens of imitators and led adoption agencies into the 21st century. In addition to helping prospective adoptive parents, AdoptionOnline now provides advice and resources (like this Blog!) for everyone touched by adoption. The service is open to anyone approved for adoption in their locale and welcomes traditional families as well as singles and alternative families of all kinds.