When the adoption is finalized an adoption decree is issued. If a child was NOT adopted formally or had gone into an orphanage or foster care the natural parents names would still be on the birth certificate and the child could get it. Anyone can relinquish a child but only those whose children get adopted have their birth certificates altered. This raises the question of confidentiality. If the records reflect the truth until the adoption and then are closed and the amended birth certificate is issued when the adoption is finalized who is being protected?... more

An adoption search is like putting a puzzle together. Adoption is probably always going to have the shroud of mystery to it. It would take a book, not a blog to list all of the possible puzzle pieces that you may have already acquired. Trying to put the puzzle pieces together can be frustrating as well as obvious that key pieces are missing.

It is frustrating at times to try and discover the mystery of your own life. Many times I have associated adoption search with Nancy Drew, The Case of the Girl without a Past.

There are laws in each state that... more

The Social Security Death Index is a several million name database that comes from the Death Masters List of the Social Security Administration System. For a person to be listed on the Social Security Death Index the individual would had to have received benefits while alive. The second part of the criteria is that if the deceased did not file for benefits, his or her survivors had to have requested and received benefits. Third, the Social Security Administration had to have filed this information electronically so that it could be available for input into the appropriate... more

I believe that in my previous post regarding accessing original birth certificates, I used an incorrect term in mentioning the DE legislation that was passed several years ago. The DE law that provides access to the original birth certificate does NOT contain a “contact preference” but rather is referred to as a “disclosure veto” in the legislation.

The difference between a contact veto and a disclosure veto is that a disclosure veto is a document filed by one party to register a refusal to the release of any identifying information. A contact veto is a document filed... more

Another option when petitioning the court is to use the Indian Child Welfare Act if you have Native American in your heritage. In fact, it can be the key to a successful petition to open a sealed adoption file.

The Indian Child Welfare Act was passed in 1978 to address congressional findings that "an alarmingly high percentage of Indian families are broken up by the removal, often unwarranted, of their children from them by non-tribal public and private agencies and that an alarmingly high percentage of such children are placed in non-Indian foster and adoptive homes and institutions; and..... that the States, exercising their recognized jurisdiction over Indian child custody proceedings... more

The Adoption Decree or Order of Adoption (your adoption might have come with one or both), is generally the final order of adoption. Many times the Adoption Decree can contain some potentially upsetting and draconian language for adoptees adopted several decades ago, or even more recently. Often, the decree announces that the adoptee, haa been 'abandoned' or 'rejected' by your natural mother. The adoptee, might be referred to as illegitimate or in other derogatory terms, until the end of the document when you are judged to have, by virtue of your adoption, obtained "all rights, privileges and immunities of children born in lawful wedlock." take all of this in stride, and write it off to sheer... more

If in the course of your inquiries, you are able to determine if you were baptized shortly after birth, or if you were placed by a private agency with a religious affiliation, particularly a Catholic agency, you might be able to obtain a baptismal certificate that could contain information about your birth name and birth family. Churches in general keep excellent records.

In some states and with some agencies, or late, if the child has been baptized prior to the placement for adoption, the church where the child was baptized is provided with the pertinent information on the adoption. The agency may request a change to the baptismal certificate so that it bears the name of the adoptive... more

The records of your birth can contain a lot of useful information and in some cases can be relatively easy to get, as in many hospitals, after a certain period of time the records are moved to an archiving company and stored in warehouses staffed by people who know little about adoption and have had little contact with medical requests. The place to start, is with the hospital.

If you do not have your birth name, you have a few options. You can request the records under your adoptive name and that of your adoptive parent(s), hoping that, especially in the case of a private adoption, they might be listed as responsible parties and therefore the records will be cross referenced and... more

Whether you are a birthparent or an adoptee, file waivers of confidentiality! This document will reassure record keepers that if the persons you specify come looking for you, you WANT them to get your identifying info. You want to file these with the agency, attorneys, but especially with the county court in which the adoption was finalized, which is usually the home county of the adoptive parents at the time of the adoption. If you are a birth parent and do not know what county your child was adopted to, you want to find this out so you file your waiver in the right court. You may be able to get this through the agency that facilitated the adoption if you tell them why you need it- to file... more

When a person is adopted, their original birth certificate in most cases will be sealed in the court file and a new certificate, with all reference to the birthparent(s) names, and the adoptee's original name removed, is issued. This new certificate, referred to as the 'amended' birth certificate, usually will list your adoptive name and your adoptive parents as your mother and father. The remaining information, such as addresses, age, occupation, previous births, and race of parents, is usually the information as it applies to your adoptive parents, although mistakes have been known to be made. The hospital of birth is usually accurate, although that information, too, can be altered and was... more