Birth Certificate: Adopted

[ambers]

Hi nantig,

I am so sorry to hear that you have found out that you were adopted this way

I hope you have someone close to you that you can confide in and hopefully help you think things through.

Ambers

[Topham26]

Hello Ambers,

Thank you for your reply and comments.   They were very much appreciated, and it's good to share thoughts and questions surrounding adoption.

Ann

[ambers]

Hi Ann

Although I am not adopted myself, I feel for people who are having gone on a very emotional search with a close friend.

I also remember the sixties when things were be quite impossible for woman to keep their babies...it's so sad from both sides 

Ambers

[Gillg]

Natalie

If you are only 28, then you had the right to have information about your adoption and birth parents by law.  Had you been adopted through an Adoption Society, this information would have been presented to your parents to pass on to you as you grew up.  My children were both adopted in the 70s through a society, and we were presented with a dossier about their birth parents for them.  However, as I understand it, your mother kept you, and it is only your father's name you are seeking.  If your mother chose not to reveal his name, you could perhaps talk to a relative of her generation, who might know who she was associating with at the time. 

Your feelings of disappointment and distress at this time are understandable, but as time passes you may be able to look at the man you have always thought of as your father again and consider that he accepted the situation and cared for you as a daughter.  It is sometimes very difficult for parents to "own up " to their adopted child.  My adopted brother was not told of the fact and was kindly informed on his first day at school that the parents he named as his  were not in fact his, because he was adopted and didn't have any real parents - this from another 5 year old!  My parents had been told that they would never have any children and had adopted him as a baby, so he was very precious to them,  Imagine their surprise when my mother found herself pregnant with me a year later!  Despite that early upset we were always a very close and happy family, and my brother chose to try and trace his parentage only after both our parents were dead.  He found an uncle and several cousins in Canada and the US, but his mother had died and just as on your birth certificate there was no father's name on the birth certificate.

I hope that time will heal your pain.

Gillg

[Just Kia]

And there is always the possibility that he IS your biological father. If he wasn't named on the birth cert because your parents were not married and he didn't go at the time of registration to have his name put on the cert.
There are a lot of possibilities and it would really be in your best interests to talk to those involved in as calm and cool manner as possible about the events - remember it may be distressing for them too.
Lot of useful info in the posts above.

[coombs]

Hi

My mum has a friend who was adopted in 1937 and she gave us permission to send for her original birth cert as she wants to find who her birth family was. She was born in May 1936 and the cert said she was adopted in August 1937.

Ben

[Gillg]

Ben

I'm a bit surprised that you were allowed to send for a friend's birth certificate.  I thought that only the adopted person was allowed access to the original, and then only after counselling - this is what happened a few years ago to my adopted brother.  If the original birth name is known, anyone can find the birth registration from the GRO index.  My brother is there under his birth name, but didn't know it, of course, until he was told following counselling.

Gillg

[Just Kia]

You need the birth name to get the birth cert which may say "adopted" in the far right column but doesn't say when. You need the birth forenames and the adopted surname to get the adoption cert which does say when but doesn't give the birth surname. At least concerning birth/adoption c.mid-thirties in England that is.

I did not have to recieve any counselling prior to getting the adoption certs - I wonder if that is because both people that I requested certs for were deceased.

[coombs]

My friend is 74 this month and t was 2 years ago that she asked us to obtain her original birth cert.