Do you know anyone who found out they were adopted later in life?

No, but I found out as an adult that the foster family I had when I was a toddler loved me and tried repeatedly to adopt me and the state gave me back to my mother. I have never recovered from the knowledge of that and everything I went through after they gave me back. My life could have been so different. I still cry when I think /type about it.

I'm sorry about that, rescue chick, there are so many sad stories about kids being removed from good, loving foster families because the state was so obsessed with reuniting bio-families.

I had some neighbors who were raising their grandson. The story was weird. Their fat, lazy 26-year-old son had knocked up his 27-year-old girlfriend. From the moment the baby was born, neither parent was interested in him at all. The grandparents went to pick up the baby and raised it as their own. The parents eventually got married and lived in the same town as the kid, but still had no interest in raising their kid. At least they realized their limitations, and they didn't have any more kids. (I don't know why they didn't consider abortion or adoption, though.)

The grandson was 11, and had no idea. He he wasn't old enough to question why his "mother" was 49 when he was born and why his older "brother" was 26 years older than him. His "dad" got cancer and died when he was about 11, so he had to experience that loss.

The neighbor moved away with her son to be closer to family, so I don't know when he found out the truth. But he had every right to be PISSED at all of them.

I found out when I was 40 that my grandmother was my mother and that I was raised by my aunt because my "mother" didn't like boy babies.

My Mom and my Uncle were both adopted separately at a few months of age. Everyone else in the family knew, but they didn't know for sure until after both of my Grandparents died and a letter from the adoption agency was found in the bank safe. My Uncle felt betrayed and it cost him a lot of the love he had for them. My Mother correctly felt that one's parents are the ones that loved you and put in the work and money to raise you, and it didn't really affect her. Both searched out their real families, with my Uncle building a relationship his birth relatives and my Mother meeting her birth sibling but not having a single thing in common with him, so it was a one time meeting.

The adoptions happened in the late 30s and early 40s so there was a lot of stigma. Because of a lack of official documents, to this day I run into trouble when I have to officially identify myself (i.e. passport/citizen applications, medical forms, and on a few occasions work-based security clearances), as did my Mom.

In our family's case, adoption worked out for the better: two children were adopted into an affluent, loving family who treated them well and set them up for good lives, lives they wouldn't have had if they had stayed with the birth families who gave them up for various reasons and problems.