My father and his fraternal twin brother were adopted as infants from Georgia Tann in the late 1940's. My uncle sadly passed away about ten years ago, but my father is still living. They had a great family growing up and never had any interest in learning about their birth parents. As long as my father is living, I intend to respect his wish not to know. But it saddens me to think that there is potentially an entire branch of my family out there somewhere wondering what happened to those boys.
Please find your dads birth family cause like other people said Your father and your uncle was kidnapped for sure Jennifer. Can you imagine the pain his birth familiy live their whole life?? A mother suffering all her life until her dead!!
My late husband, Robert Gribble was one of the children Georgia Tann stole along with other siblings; one of them was sold to a hihg profile newspaper owner in Florida. Quancidine Hinson-Gribble
Just found out that my maternal grandmother and her sister were in this orphanage in the late 1920s and early 1930s. They were adopted out to a great family, however the scars of what went on there were visible in my grandmother her whole life. I found out this information by trying to research who their birth parents were not knowing that it was something so much darker than I ever would of thought. Make me sick to my stomach.
Yes. Mine too. It's easy to separate ourselves from history, but this is still affecting real people alive and well with real families and real stories in our communities.
Another piece of trivia concerning this story is that James Frederick Smith (one of the founders of Greyhound Bus Line and Toddle House Restaurants and father of FedEx founder Frederick W. Smith) was the one who donated the home used by the Tennessee Children's Home Society. He also sat on the Tennessee Children's Home Society Board of Directors.
We just found a previously unknown cousin via DNA. The cousin had just passed away in November but her daughter had put DNA on Ancestry and the match led to a connection to the mother's living sister. It is an amazIng story and we are enjoying sharing our information.
I just got done reading Before We Were Yours. Just heartbreaking! Fitting that devil called Tann died of uterine cancer. Just evil. Thank you for sharing this additional information.
Just finished "Before we were yours". This story leaves a hole in my heart from the devastating ways of Tann. I can't believe this was going on. 😥 Shame on the ones who assisted this evil woman. May peace be with all who were negatively effected. This was a great summary video. I encourage you to continue your call. Thank you for sharing this.
You will be saddened to know that a lot of her practices are still being followed to this day. Many countries do not allow US citizens to adopt because the system is so unethical
Excellent series starter. Just finished "Before We Were Yours" and I am actually using it in a ladies book club setting. I knew nothing of the Tennessee Adoption Scandal until I read this book and have been doing extensive research to learn all I can about the scandal. Thank you for sharing and I look forward to hearing more of your series as you move forward.
I saw this movie when I was a child and a few years ago. I also read this book Before We Were Yours, I read it in a day and it was so sad. I feel sorry for the biological parents who could no bet reunite with their child. I feel sorry for the siblings being separated from one another because of Tann.
I fell into the black hole of researching all of this when I read before we were yours last year! I love that you're making it a series!!!! if you like this subject, check out the podcast missing murdered finding cleo season 2! It's kinda similiar during the time when indigenous people in Canada were signing their rights away without knowing or just getting their kids snatched away and they were adopting them out to white families in Canada and the US plus residential schools which was a whole other thing. Definitely listen to the podcast if you haven't yet! Would be a cool story to do for this series too.
I finished reading Before We Were Yours yesterday, and started searching for more information about the Tennessee Children's Home Society. I found you via a Google search. Thank you for posting this. I like the way you presented the information, and am looking forward to watching more of your nonfiction Fridays content.
Oh wow! Thank you, Linda. I am so glad you enjoyed the video. This in particular is a fascinating, yet tragic, story. Thanks for sharing how you found me. It's surprising to me that I showed up in a google search. Very cool
Great summary of the events surrounding Georgia Tann and her crimes as well as the history and culture that lead to such crime. Before We Were Yours is an excellent read. Thank you for sharing follow up book Before and After. Looking forward to reading.
This is so crazy I just heard about this for the first time today!! I live in TN and love TN history and had NO CLUE! How awful!! This definitely deserves so much more attention! There are a lot of laws still in place that exist bc of her. These really deserve to be reviewed
My mother was never able to find any of her biological family members and Unsolved Mysteries even referred her to an woman that they said would be able to help,But she wasn't able to find them either.
This was so professional! What are your career goals? Your delivery was precise, informative, caring very professional. Excellently executed. Congratulations!!
Love this series! Truth is so much stranger than fiction. I haven't read these books but they're on my wish list. I'm both fascinated and horrified by this story.
I just finished the audiobook, "Before We Were Yours". I loved the readers in the book. I could see everything clearly in all the descriptions. As soon as I finished the book, I googled the Tennessee Children's Home Society on RU-vid and found this. I am horrified by this story and also very interested in it. I am becoming more and more aware of children being abducted in today's world, but they are not abducted for adoption. As a mom of an adopted child from Ukraine, I just can't fathom this story from the 1930's. Yet, I know things like this still go on and I'm driven to know what I can do to make a difference...to save kids going through these experiences.
I enjoyed your informative video… It’s awful to think about the horrors that horrible woman and those working with her caused so many families. My mother has Georgia Tann’s name on her adoption papers. Her birth certificate has inaccurate information on it. My sister -in-law did extensive research on Ancestry and believes she found some of my mom’s “real” family. This was before Ancestry did DNA. She is now in her 80’s and said it’s too late. Her real mother and father are no longer living. She has had her own wonderful loving family and that was enough for her. I am reading “Before We We’re Yours” at the moment. As soon as I read the book summary, I knew I had to read it. Then I happened to research Georgia Tann, and I found your video. I am blessed to still have my mom… and to know that she is happy❣️❣️❣️
Welcome to the first episode of Nonfiction Friday! I would so appreciate your feedback, especially as there are seven more episodes to go! Is it too short, too long? Did I talk too fast or too slow? I want each to be better than the last :) Thanks for watching! hope you enjoyed it!
It sometimes hurts to dig into family history and learn things one didn’t know regarding relatives. As much as I love history and families, it is painful to imagine what the stolen children endured, even in continuance. I wanted children but cannot have them for I am sterile. To imagine adopting a child is a wonderful thought but how tragic it has become to the stolen ones and their adoptive parents. The Tennessee records need to be opened so the rest of the perpetrators of the evil they have done can be revealed. Your story is magnetic to me and i will find a copy for my own library. Thank you for the work you have done with the story of these savage deeds, “wounds that never close.”
I finished reading Before we were yours and wanted to find out more about the atrocities of Georgia Tann and how she got away with it. Thank you for this summary of GT.
Great job explaining the history behind Georgia Tann's horrible wrong doings. It doesn't sound like she had a heart and was driven by greed at the expense of children and their families. It is really hard to believe that this went on for so long. Very sad! I just finished reading Lisa Wingate's "Before We Were Yours" which was such an amazing story that was full of heartbreak, horrifying events, and yet redemption in the end. This book is definitely one of my top 5 favorites. I was definitely curious about The Tennessee Children's Home Society and Georgia Tann, so listening to your first episode helped me to understand more of this horrific scandal. Thank you!
I have read Before We Were Yours. It is wonderful! I recently discovered Before and After and will be reading it this year! Wonderful video to bring these two books to people’s attention and the facts behind this sad chapter in Tennessee history. These were well done and the perfect length to whet people’s appetite for these books. Yes, do more of these!
Kristin Fields perfect!!! That is exactly what I was hoping for! I want to tell a bit of the story, but also leave it so you can enjoy the books too. Thank you for the great feedback, I really appreciate it. I hope you enjoy Before and After! Judy christie writes very well
I have just finished Lisa Wingate’s book Before We Were Yours. I was amazed at the storyline and the. Even more by the postscript at the end. I cannot find any of the books she referenced except for one but it is very expensive online. Thank you for this story!
My pleasure! I am so glad to hear you found value in my video even after reading her book. It's one of those stories so painful it is hard to believe it is true. I admire you for trying to find her references! That is the tricky bit of research, not everything is easily accesible
I wonder how the families who adopted from her felt, when they found out her agency was working illegally. When the news broke, and they realized "their children ", were actually kidnapped from loving parents. I can't imagine what the birth parents went through after realizing they would never see their baby again. Sad and tragic
Yes, it is wholly complicated on both sides. It is hard to know what the way to fix it would be... I guess that would be impossible and that is why it is so truly terrible. Thanks for watching
My maternal grandmother was a Georgia Tann baby. I don't remember her, but I do think the trauma she endured greatly impacted her and bled down to my mother and her siblings. From what I understand of the events, her parents left her at some sort of park or playground one morning when she was just a few years old and said they would come back for her. She waited for hours until Georgia Tann or someone associated with her came and took her. I don't know if it was allegedly supposed to be a temporary situation until my great-grandparents could afford to take care of her, or if they never intended to reclaim her, but they never did. She was adopted by an older couple who were childless, but were apparently wonderful people. Something that's become disturbing to me as I've gotten older is that my mom used to threaten to sell me when I misbehaved, which her own mother threatened to her. To me this indicates that my grandmother might have internalized that she had been trafficked as some sort of punishment for bad behavior, which makes me so sad to think about.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. It's always enlightening to study ourselves and what built us. I guess the bigger question is, where do we go from here?
Awesome, thank you! It's the highest compliment when somebody decides to share your video. I really appreciate it! I hope you and your book club have a great discussion over Before We Were Yours. Certainly there is a lot to digest there
Sadly eugenics is still alive and well. Planned parenthood clinics are predominantly located in poor black neighborhoods. The founder Margaret Sangar, was an outspoken racist and eugenicists who would be proud to know what her brainchild has grown in to.
My grandmother was a part of this society while she was growing up.. I wish I knew more about her life and I am researching her life now but it so hard to find information..
I love how this series has begun. Well done. Can I ask a technical question? Are you using some kind of teleprompter or app? I have avoided scripting any reviews because I wasn't sure how to make the filming work with a script. Can't wait to see more of the series and maybe next year, we can entice you to judge for the BookTube Prize?
Of course you can! I am not using a prompter actually, though I hate how many jumpcuts I have to make XD I just have notes on a piece of paper in front of me and then I craft what I'm saying based on those, so I know to include them. I have used a prompter in the past (not on youtube, but in some of my training videos). I found it actually makes things worse for me! I am better off just trying this middle ground Tell me more about the booktube prize? I'm not familiar?
@@outofthebex That makes sense. I've been filming without editing for quite a while now, and that works for my casual Friday Reads discussions, but I don't think it's good enough for Reviews. You do a great job with the editing in that your cuts aren't a distraction. I've seen some channels that are very obvious jump cuts every single sentence. I started the BookTube Prize last year so that content creators and viewers within the BookTube community would have their own literary award. Last year we had some 35-40 judges. This year, we have 172 judges from more than 20 countries. The website is booktubeprize.org and it has its own channel here now, too.
Same as when it's discovered that a person was wrongfully imprisoned/convicted. They fight against release or retrial to protect the police/lawyer/judge's reputation and standing in the community or state. It does cone out eventually and that law enforcement official's name still gets publicly defamed.
I just heard about this and was looking online and it's even worse that she abused the kids- sexual abuse, discarding the weak to die, drugging them. evil woman. and the number of authority figures who aided her.
I liked this short explanation of a terrible period in the history of trafficked children and would have liked it to be a bit more in depth investigation
That terrible period of history isn’t over. Many of her practices are still being used today. It’s slightly better than it was, but things are far from being ok
As an adoptee - this is why adoption needs to be completely dismantled. It is trauma. It is pain it is literal trafficking. This still goes on TODAY. They prey on low income families and young moms. I was sold for 50,000.
Wow, baby raffle... Wtf ... Soo, if you were not well off, and doing it tough, it was thought you couldn't give your child a good home..Shocking.. Lots of families fall on hard times. But love their children and try to do their best. I know not all do this, which is sad. But most do..🙂
Yes Georgia Tann was a monster but take into consideration what your government does with children...CPS/DCS whatever they call it in your neck of the woods, their model is based off of what Tann was doing, take that into consideration when you assume someone is a bad parent and make a report because what may happen once taken into that system is far worse than you might think. It's all about money
So sad. So incredibly wicked. There is no doubt that even tho Tann wasn't brought to justice in this life, God is seeing to her and justice is being meted out at this very moment.
I didn't know the part about the people having to pay to get their records unsealed. That's fucking criminal that they have to be put through that just to know if they were a victim or not by the stupid state of Tennessee.
I'm here after hearing about the greatest pro wrestling champion ric flair how he was a victim of tann well now ric is untouchable so suck on that tann women
Good question! I get asked that a lot. Purely preference in a very small space. I did make a video explanation about it awhile ago if you're curious. However, we've since moved and now my books are scattered in a much less organized fashion
georga tann, louise wise, the doctor in the south selling babies out the back of his clinic... how did people not realize what was going on. I am an adoptee adopted in 1961 myself thru louise wise and my records are screwed up completely, sealed files tampered with, files missing from the hospital, records now passed to spence chapin are screwed... I will never know the real truth about who i really am or where i came from. its very sad for me and its unfair. I have a right to know the truth and i never will. The entire adoption situation is a fraud and illegal
My grandma was in an orphanage called porter-leath because her mother couldn't handle her the time because it was The Depression. She used to tell stories of people sneaking babies out. Yeah the story is our black spot. But since we have the number five crime rate in America it's no wonder
Awesome film for its campiness but a near total fabrication from start to finish. JC also adopted twin girls (presumably from Tann) and they state that she was nurturing and supportive. She didn’t believe in sparing the rod and they definitely received spankings when they misbehaved, but that she was a wonderful mother.
Yep It is really weird how a parent can treat one child in a nurturing way and another child in a abusive way. It’s hard to believe the other side. But it happens more often than you think.
