Medical Problems, Chronic Illness
Adler-Collins, Je Kan
Adler-Collins was the child of a military family who was taken into care at the age of three when his mother shot his father during a domestic dispute. He was abused in care for years, but ... [more]
Bijani, Laden & Laleh
Laden and Laleh Bijani were born joined at the head, to a poor farming family in Shiraz, Iran. The family had 11 children and were unable to care for them. They remained in hospital for som... [more]
Bloodvessel, Buster
Douglas Trendle was born in Stoke Newington, London, and raised by his great-aunt and -uncle, believing his mother was his Auntie Lily. He overheard that he was adopted when he was seven: &... [more]
Brady, John Green
Brady was born in New York. His mother died when he was very young. His father remarried, but Brady seems to have been unhappy with his step-mother, and he ran away from home when he was ei... [more]
Brown, Mick
Brown's birth mother died of TB when he was a baby of seven months and he was informally fostered in Auckland by a white woman and her daughter, in a loving family. He knew his elderly birt... [more]
Cain, Dean George Thomas
Cain's birth-father is Japanese-Irish and his mother is white; he identifies himself as Japanese, but has never had any contact with his father. His parents were divorced before he was b... [more]
Callahan, John
Callahan was born to an unmarried woman in Portland, Oregon, and adopted as a baby by a childless couple who then had five birth children. He felt an outsider in his family and began to abu... [more]
de Rossi, Giovanni Battista
De Rossi was born into a happy country family in Voltaggio, near Genoa. When he was 10 a wealthy Genoese couple, who had become enchanted by the boy on their holidays, persuaded his parents... [more]
Fitzgerald, Ella
Fitzgerald's birth parents both died when she was a child; she never knew her father and her mother died about 1935. Some sources state that she earlier ran away from her abusive step-fathe... [more]
Gaius Caligula (under Roman Empire)
Ancient Roman society institutionalized the adoption of adults. It was relatively common for a wealthy Roman couple to adopt an adult man, even a slave, as heir if they did not have any son... [more]
