From 1924 to 1950 the Tennessee Children’s Home Society advertised babies needing “adoption” in local newspapers. In reality many were stolen from poor homes.

As we covered in the 2023 episode of the Family History Detectives® podcast called A Quiet Army, people with unclear biological backgrounds make up a large proportion of GEDmatch uploads. So, it’s not unusual in the course of an unidentified remains case to run across genetic matches whose background is still unknown due to adoption or paternity questions. As a matter of fact, the genealogists at FHD Forensics (sister organization to Genealogy For Justice™) often assist these matches with their mysteries in order to solve our own unknown subject cases.

Recently, one of our unidentified remains cases quite unexpectedly collided head first with the monster that was Georgia Tann. We contacted a woman whose online family tree left us with questions and stumbled right into that family’s decades old nightmare centered around the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. After speaking with the match and the daughter of the match’s unknown sibling discovered in testing, I didn’t get a good night’s sleep for three days.

The G4J-FHD team soon pondered creating a new initiative focused on helping survivors of this notorious Tennessee criminal adoption ring and their families. And you know what they say about building something…not a week later, while still wondering if it was a viable endeavor, a generous donation showed up in our mailbox. It came without any advance notice and without the patron having any idea of our potential project. It immediately seemed pretty clear that there was no reason not to move forward with our plan.

Authorities estimate that from 1924 to 1950, the Tennessee Children’s Home Society sold 5000 children from that state to families from coast to coast – all under the guise of legitimate adoptions. Many were literally kidnapped from unsuspecting families or single mothers. The conspiracy was widespread and aided by a corrupt judge – all while Tann paraded around the state in a shiny black limousine. In addition to the thousands of babies sold, hundreds of young children died due to eugenics-fed abuse.

It would be hard for ANYONE not to see this woman as a monster. We refuse to circulate her photo.

The team soon dove into materials about the ring, including the books of author Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours (2017) and Before and After (2021) in order to learn more. Mainstream news organizations and television networks produced stories and films about the scandal back int he 1990s. And Wingate’s activism to tell the stories and hold reunions has yielded tremendous support for the families affected. So, although we’re very late to the issue, we couldn’t look away.

I realized after my first encounter with survivors that even though many of the babies who were sold have since passed on, children and grandchildren of those babies are still seeking answers. Decades after widespread exposure of the scandal, and even with the popularity of DNA testing, some who were affected have yet to find real clarity about who they are.

Many have tested their DNA; yet we noticed that some of those we spoke with didn’t really know how to interpret the results outside of an obvious sibling match. We also know there may be survivors unable to afford the tests.

Thanks to our generous patron, we now have plenty of DNA tests for anyone born between 1924 and 1950 in Tennessee and placed for adoption anywhere in the country. We also offer these tests to children and grandchildren of possible victims. An application form can be found here.

Our mission is to provide a little peace and some answers. With the power of restorative genetic genealogy, we aim to do just that!