Husband donated sperm in the 1980s and wants to offer information to his donor-conceived children

[Dery]

My husband was a sperm donor in the early 1980s, at a time when donors were guaranteed lifetime anonymity.

While he’s long been mildly curious about the children who might have been conceived from his sperm, he realises that the curiosity which flows the other way, namely from donor-conceived children who want to find out about their biological parents, is often vastly stronger.

Inspired by the TV series ‘Born From the Same Stranger’, he’s looking for a way to enable his donor-conceived children to find out background information from and/or about him. He’s not at this stage looking for information on his children or direct contact with them, though he’s not permanently excluding that possibility in future if any of his donor-conceived children wanted that.

Can anyone suggest a way through which he could make himself available for his donor-conceived children to find him and find out background information about him, whilst continuing to preserve his anonymity until such time as he chooses to accept more direct contact or reveal more about his identity?

He could put himself on Ancestry.com or a similar website.

if you have seen the tv show you will know the children find the dads from matching dna on ancestry websites. He should get on as many of them as possible and see if he gets any matches. Wait to see if anyone contacts him.

Yes, this. There might be a few kids out there burning to know about their biological Dad.

I did this in the early nineties under the same setup - fully anonymous, because that was all that was allowed. As far as I can remember, you can contact the HFEA to pass on some biographical information to any offspring querying them. They used to be quite strict on what the bio contains so as to prevent identification, but I guess now they're more relaxed. He can also apply to find out the results of his donations, just the sexes and number of children born in any given year. Be prepared for that to be quite a large number - donations were used for up to ten families, each of which could have multiple children.
Once he has that information, he can choose to 'open the register' so that any children born from his donation can apply to the HFEA for his details, but that's completely optional. It's a one way process - the children can apply for his details, but obviously not the other way around.

There is a website called donor sibling registry

https://donorsiblingregistry.com/

As above, contact HEFA

Thanks very much, everyone! We will follow these leads.

I watched the TV series too. Fascinating and thought-provoking. Would love to know how you and DH get on OP. Obviously nothing specific or outing.

I am the parent of donor conceived offspring and linked with their donor when the children were still young (through irregular channels) It has been an extremely rewarding experience for all of us.

there Is a site specifically for people like your husband on the UK that allows men who donated before the UK law changed in 2005 (banning permanent anonymity) to register their personal information in case their offspring come seeking

https://www.hfea.gov.uk/donation/finding-out-about-your-donor/donor-sibling-link-dsl/#:~:text=The%20UK%2Dbased%20Donor%20Conceived,provides%20counselling%20and%20peer%20support.

"The UK-based Donor Conceived Register (DCR) matches donors who donated before August 1991 and donor-conceived people conceived before August 1991 and/or donor-conceived people sharing the same donor using accredited DNA testing, and provides counselling and peer support."

you are welcome to dM me if you'd like more info.