Child adoption

[mickmack1942]

     As a general may be an odd thought back in the 1800's I have found a child
  appearing to change family, back then she was base born to a daughter in one
  family and appears in another with the same surname 51 c to the 61c, were
  enforcement of adoption recorded any were , or was it just being kind and
  sympathetic to the other families daughter, if this is the right department for
  this oddity.

[aghadowey]

You haven't mentioned which country but Google will usually give you date of official adoptions. For example, 'date adoptions start England' brings up lots of death like "Adoptions were first made legal in England and Wales with the passing of the Adoption Act 1926, while in Northern Ireland it was 1929 and in Scotland it was 1930." Before these dates it was usually an informal arrangement where relatives or friends might look after the child but could also be a temporary arrangement for times when one or birth birth parents couldn't care for the child.

[Andy J2022]

If I understand your question correctly, as aghadowey says, all adoptions before 1927 were said to be informal and therefore the state did not record them as such. The most usual time when an adopted child had to be formally acknowledged was where the matter of inheritance became an issue. So for instance, a parent would often differentiate between their natural children and any adopted child when making a will; without this acknowledgement the adopted child would not have stood to inherit anything even that was the parent's intention. This was because, irrespective of the adoption, the child remained illegitimate, ie it had few legal rights, such as in inheritance law or property law.
As your example seems to show, adoptions were frequently arranged within extended families without the need for an intervention by a charity such as Barnado's or The Children's Society etc. Where such a charity was involved, there are likely to be some records of the adoption.
National Archives Research Guide here

[mickmack1942]

         Thanks for the info , the families in question lived in west Sussex, I cannot
       find a family connection as yet only the surname, in quite a small village so
       one assumes they were friendly if only for the surname and as life was overtly
       hard, the father of the receiver of the child was base born, so may be sympathetic
       to the mother and child.

         Fitting the child in to my tree I am finding awkward or may be just leave it
       lose, see if I can find if the child got married and just to see what fathers name
       is applied on the cert.
          Any way thanks for your help.

[aghadowey]

I wouldn't depend on the marriage certificate giving correct details for his father. It's not uncommon to find illegitimate children list another relative (father, uncle, grandfather, etc.), stepfather, mother's partner or a completely made up name.

[cjhampson53]

Re Andy J 2022 - does that mean that "Adopted" entries on English birth certificates only appear if the adoption was after the 1926 act came into force?

And therefore there will be corresponding adoption records somewhere (though we may not be able to see them)?

I'm looking at the birth cert for my wife's aunt born late in 1921 which has an "adopted" note added by a registrar who was in post up to 1930 - so could the adoption be as late as that?

Best wishes to all.  Chris

[aghadowey]

When was the birth certificate in question issued? after 1926?

[Andy J2022]

Re Andy J 2022 - does that mean that "Adopted" entries on English birth certificates only appear if the adoption was after the 1926 act came into force?

And therefore there will be corresponding adoption records somewhere (though we may not be able to see them)?

I'm looking at the birth cert for my wife's aunt born late in 1921 which has an "adopted" note added by a registrar who was in post up to 1930 - so could the adoption be as late as that?

My understanding is that for adoption to be recorded on a birth certificate there would have needed to be an adoption order issued by a court. In order to get a court order the birth mother and the adoptive parents would have needed to petition the court. As far as I am aware a copy of the adoption order would then be passed to the Registrar General, either via the local Registrar or direct to the GRO. It would then form part of the Adoption Register which was set up by the 1926 Adoption Act.

Perhaps AntonyMMM will be able to confirm this.

[AntonyMMM]

Andy J2022 is essentially correct - (in E/W) when the court issues an adoption order a message is sent to the superintendent registrar who holds the original birth entry for the child and they will add the word "adopted" in the margin and initial it. There is no other indication made on that entry to connect to the adopted identity of the child.

A record is also made in the Adopted Children Register (ACR) held at GRO which will have the details of the child (under their new name, if it has been changed), details of the adoptive parents, and the court issuing the order. The place of birth may just say "England" or "Wales" rather than a specific location to make tracing the original birth more difficult, although later entries do show the registration district. There is no mention on the ACR record of the original birth name. The link between the two documents can only be accessed by an authorised adoption intermediary service.

Certificates from ACR entries can be obtained from GRO, but the index is not available on-line - it is viewable on microfiche at the few designated libraries that hold full copies of the GRO indexes.

As already said, the centralised court run system started from 1927 (in E/W), but that doesn't mean that adoptions before that left no trace - there are often records to find in charity papers, church records, poor law unions etc. although they can be difficult to track down.  I even have a copy of an adoption contract drawn up by a solicitor in about 1911 recording the handing over of a child, and listing the conditions agreed between the birth mother and adopted parents about how the child should be brought up.

I'm looking at the birth cert for my wife's aunt born late in 1921 which has an "adopted" note added by a registrar who was in post up to 1930 - so could the adoption be as late as that?

The adopted annotation does mean that there was a court process sometime from1927 onwards, and therefore there should be records somewhere. It was quite common for children adopted before the act to be adopted again through the courts later to provide legal confirmation of the relationship and prevent any issues arising later about inheritance for example. These adoptions could be done anytime until the child was 21, so can be many years later.