About
About this archive.
A public-interest project that exists for one reason: so that the story of what was done to the subjects of the Neubauer twin study, and the case for releasing the records that describe their lives, has a permanent address on the open web. This page sets out who runs the archive, how it is built, where its sources come from, and how to reach it.
Editorial position
This archive is not neutral. It takes the position that the Neubauer twin study should not have been conducted, that the institutions involved compounded the wrong by sealing the records, and that the records should be released to the surviving subjects and their families now — not in 2065. Within that frame the archive aims at something else: to be careful, well-sourced, fair to people who are no longer alive to answer for themselves, and useful to readers who want to engage seriously with the material.
The position is set out at length on the advocacy page and is reflected in the framing across the site. Where this archive disagrees with an institutional position — Yale’s, the Jewish Board’s, the position of any individual figure — that disagreement is named and argued, not implied.
Methodology
Pages on this site are written from the public record: the documentaries, the published memoir, the print journalism, the institutional statements that have appeared since 2018, and the academic literature on twin research and research ethics. Where a claim cannot be supported from the public record it is either omitted or marked as not yet possible to confirm. Where the public record itself is incomplete — particularly on the question of what is in the sealed Yale collection — that incompleteness is named.
This archive does not draw on private communications with subjects unless those subjects have themselves placed the material on the public record. Where a subject has chosen to make their experience public, this archive treats that public testimony as the primary source and links to it. Where a subject has not made themselves public, this archive does not name them.
Sources
Specific source citations appear on individual pages where claims are made. The general source map is:
- Documentaries. Three Identical Strangers (Tim Wardle, 2018) and The Twinning Reaction (Lori Shinseki, 2017) are primary sources for subject testimony. Both are recommended in full to any reader of this archive.
- Memoir. Identical Strangers (Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein, Random House, 2007) is a primary source written by two subjects.
- Magazine and newspaper journalism. Reporting in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other major outlets across the 1980–present period; see the articles index.
- Books on twin research and research ethics. See the books index.
- Institutional statements. Public statements from Yale University, the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, and surviving institutional successors of Louise Wise Services and the Child Development Center.
- Subjects’ own public statements. Where surviving subjects have spoken on the record, in interviews, panels, or written form.
Where this archive has misrepresented a source, the appropriate fix is correction, and corrections are welcome through the contact channel below.
Contact
For corrections, additions, source recommendations, and inquiries from subjects who have not previously been in touch:
- By email:
contact@neubauertwinstudy.org
The position of this archive on contact from subjects: anything you send is yours. This archive does not publish private correspondence and does not name subjects who have not chosen to be named publicly. If you are reaching out because you suspect you may have been a subject of the study and do not know where to start, the practical first step is to contact the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services through their general adoption-records channel; their staff have, in some cases, disclosed sibling information on request.
Acknowledgments
This archive owes everything to the subjects who have spoken publicly about what was done to them — without their work, no public account of this study would exist. It also owes a debt to the journalists, archivists, and filmmakers who have done the unglamorous work of keeping the matter publicly legible across decades when it would have been easier, and more profitable, to let it fade.