Almost 7,000 people have joined a national register set up to establish contacts between adopted people and their natural parents.
And 500 people have been matched through the National Adoption Contact Preference Register since it was established almost two and a half years ago.
According to the first report into the register, 71% of those who applied were adopted people, the remaining 29% were natural parents or relatives.
The report also found that the majority of adopted people who contacted the register were female.
Some 39% of the adopted applicants were aged between 31 and 40 years of age.
The Chairman of the Adoption Board, Geoffrey Shannon, said a high number of older natural mothers who had given birth in the early 1970s had not registered.
He said the board would be launching a campaign to encourage more women from this age group to come forward.
The report also expressed concern that adopted people in the teens and 20s were registering without fully considering the implications of entering into the process.
