This is the link to Hoping's other thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/donor_conception/2756989-donor-sperm-from-uk-or-abroad
The other posters are interesting too, but to avoid a weird conversation split over two threads, here's what I said over several posts:
In the end I decided the priority for me was a donor who was likely to be in the U.K. when the child reached 18 in case they wanted to try and contact them, so I used a clinic based here (London Sperm Bank) and narrowed it down to donors who were either British or who sounded completely settled here. Obviously there are no guarantees that they will still be here in 18 years time, or that they will welcome contact at that point, but I thought it increased the chances!
Once I started looking I found I wasn't too bothered about appearance - I look nothing like my sibling so I was fairly relaxed about the resemblance thing. It also struck me that if I was having a baby the 'normal' way with a partner, I wouldn't screen him out as a potential father based on his family's medical history, so I decided not to worry about that - at least they are screened for the serious genetic stuff. The only thing I did try and avoid was allergies, because I don't have any and I find it hard to imagine a life without pets. But if the clinic hadn't listed that as an attribute it would never have occurred to me!
So in the end I just picked someone who, based on the clinic's description, sounded nice. In a way I would have liked to see something the donor themselves had written (you don't get that until later), but even that's not really a substitute for meeting someone. And it's not like me or the future child/children have to have a close relationship with him if we don't want to.
I know what you mean about the information, it's there so you feel responsible for using it!
Talking about this is reminding me of my thought process - one of the other things I considered was that a donor conceived child might want to try and contact half siblings (the HFEA has a register to facilitate contact if both parties want it). I'd like to have more than one child so they will hopefully have a sibling anyway but if they did want to meet others then again it might be easier if they were in the UK.
Another thing that impacted my choice was how I personally felt about using the information - I was quite uncomfortable about picking based on lots of information. Partly because I didn't like the idea of trying to select certain physical/health attributes to create the 'ideal' baby. And partly because I felt like if I picked based on personality traits I'd be creating this fantasy that the baby would turn out be a particular type of person and I thought if I had less preconceptions then I'd be more likely to just wait and see what they are like and give them a bit more space to become themselves. Those are both quite personal things though and I imagine other people would think completely differently about it!
Oh, one other thing. I also wondered whether knowing they had a donor from another country/culture would feel like a gap that was harder to fill. Although I also think that maybe finding your own identity always involves feeling like there is something to fill in. I have one parent from another European country and we didn't have much of a connection there because of the cost of travelling and the dynamics of the family relationships. So that's probably a personal thing too. Though I have to say it doesn't matter now - that 'gap' is just part of who I am.