This post not of the norm.  Today I need advice on something very important and very dear to me.  A little background info:

Thirty years ago in August of this year, my mother gave birth to a baby girl named Joanne (I need to double check that spelling).  Because of the complexity of the situation at the time she was immediately put up for adoption.  Basically I have a sister I know nothing about aside from her birth name and the name of her birth mother.

My question is this:

How do I even begin this search?
(Don’t you just love these easy questions?!)

Obviously being 8000 miles from our birth place is going to complicate things a bit.  However, this being the age of the interwebs you have to believe that there is some way of getting around that little inconvenience.

I’m going to be pretty much on my own with this one as half the family won’t speak of it and the other half don’t know about it.  Any suggestions or ideas would be very much appreciated.