It's now been a year since China ended international adoption. Over the course of three decades, more than 160,000 children were adopted abroad, with at least half coming to the U.S. Many of these children are now adults, and they’re looking for answers.

After graduating from college, Beth Henry traveled to China for the first time since her adoption in 1995.

“It was surreal. There were so many people that looked like me, which is something I’ve never really experienced,” she said.

Henry grew up in Arizona raised by a white American couple. That first trip back to China left her wanting to know more about herself and her past.

“There’s eight or nine months of my life that nobody knows anything about,” she told Marketplace. “And there’s no photos and there’s no documents. And I’m curious about it.”

Next April, 30-year-old Henry will return to China to look for her birth family, and she’s hiring a Chinese “searcher” to help. They’ll spend four days in the city she was adopted from, passing out flyers, posting social media videos, and talking to government officials. For this, Henry will pay her searcher upwards of $700. She estimates the total cost of the trip will be around $2,200. She’s taken up a side hustle to pay for it.

“I do pet-sitting as my extra income, and so all of that money goes straight to China,” said Henry. 

She found her searcher through word of mouth. Most searchers are individuals who’ve developed reputations for tracking down information about birth families. But at least one private company also has a piece of the market.

“Since I started My China Roots in 2012, birth family search services overall have grown,” said Huihan Lie.

Huihan Lie is the founder and CEO of My China Roots, a Chinese genealogy company that helps clients trace their ancestry. He attributed the boom in business to “the increasing number of adoptees reaching an age where they might be more consciously interested in determining their place in this world.”

About 200 adoptees and their families have hired Lie’s team to gather information about their origins. They pay up to $1,500 for DNA services, social media ads, and field research. A custom trip to China can cost up to a few thousand dollars. Lie said advances in technology have shifted the way he does business.

“In the first few years, we really focused on TV and newspaper ads,” he said. “Now, it's really online social media outreach. Also, from really focusing on paper-based trails, we moved to a starting focus on DNA.”

With these new resources, increasing numbers of adoptees are finding their birth families. But the chances are still low. Many searchers like the one Beth Henry is hiring report only about a 10% success rate.

“I just want to say that I tried. I just want to know that I did my best,” Henry said. She’ll continue to seek the truth about her origins, regardless of how things turn out.