Lucky are the children who can pull a baby book off a shelf to pore over their medical records, their photos and their mother’s handwritten memories of their earliest days.

It is this physical evidence, along with the rich storytelling of a healthy family life, that helps children discover who they are and where they come from.

Sadly, children growing up in Washington’s state foster care system often lack these important family documents. For them, most of the concrete records of their childhood are in the thick files of the state Children’s Administration. And six years after a child has left its care, the administration often destroys his records.

Thankfully, the Children’s Administration recently said it will review this practice.

It came to light this fall when a reporter for The Spokesman-Review, Benjamin Shors, explored the issue. He reported the case of a woman named Mary Dees, whose files were destroyed even though Stevens County court records indicate she was abused by her former foster mother. That foster mother was Carole Ann DeLeon, who later adopted another child, named Tyler. She’s since pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the death of the 7-year-old boy.

If the state had been aware of Dees’ experience, an administration official told Shors, it never would have given DeLeon a license to care for children.

He also wrote of Michael P. Smith, whose life has been tormented by his upbringing in the home of a pedophile. Smith had hoped to examine his records to help unravel the answers to questions that haunt him. He discovered those files no longer exist, and he may never know why no one protected him from living with a convicted child molester.

The Children’s Administration oversees the care of approximately 10,000 children on any single day. Washington law requires the state to keep the records of adopted children, but not those placed in foster care.

In the last two years alone, Shors reported, the state destroyed the records of more than 1,700 Spokane children.

The ramifications of this practice appear not to have been thoughtfully considered.

Now digital technology has opened up immense capacity for the storage of state archives. A new policy should take that into account. It could also give grown foster children the option of obtaining their records or requesting their file’s destruction.

The decision should not be left to state workers mindlessly checking off the pages of a rule book.

These files may contain important clues to a foster child’s past. There may be rare letters from parents, whereabouts of scattered siblings, significant medical and school records, or childhood mementos.

Notes in these files may help the Children’s Administration make better decisions about protecting the kids under its care. And the records can leave a paper trail useful in analyzing the agency’s effectiveness.

A wounded adult may need this information to pursue justice, reunite with siblings or simply reconstruct the story of a life.

Certainly, as long as that life continues the potential value of these records will be great.