Whether or not the contact with the birth relative was short-lived and difficult, or comfortable and long lasting, the majority of searchers (85 per cent.) and non-searchers (72 per cent.) said the reunion had been a positive experience.

Over 80 per cent. of both searchers and non-searchers said that the contact had answered important questions about their origins and background. Half of all searchers and a third of non-searchers said that they had an improved sense of identity and wellbeing as a result of the contact. People talked about feeling `more complete as a person'. They had found the `missing bits' of their story.

``I'm a lot more complete—I was very incomplete before. There was this section of me that was missing. It was just emptiness. There was no conscious thinking, `Oh, this is the way I feel.' It was just this emptiness somewhere in me. I have a history now. It's not that I have to take on somebody else's history. It's my own and my children have a history now. I am, as far as I can be, complete.''