Adoption records in USA, merged families, formal or informal?

[elliot]

The mother Rena was married several times. It is believe that some children were 'adopted' by one of her husbands. However, I would like to establish if all the different children were just 'merged' or if there was a formal adoption process with accessible records. Thank you.
Rena Joy SHAPIRO
Birth 31 OCT 1934 • Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio, USA
Death 13 OCT 2023 • Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio, USA

[oldohiohome]

Adoption File Information
https://odh.ohio.gov/know-our-programs/vital-statistics/adoption-file-information

unless you are the adoptee or a lineal descendant (children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the adoptee) I don't think you are going to get the records. As I read it, it would also mean that if you are a lineal descendant, you could get the papers for your ancestor but not for his/her siblings/half-siblings. - You'd have to find a lineal descendant of that sibling who would qualify.

[shellyesq]

I agree with the above.

I am an adoptee born in Ohio, and I am in the online Ohio birth index under my adopted name only. If you know that one of the siblings in question was born when Rena was married to someone else, but they're on the index under husband #2's surname, that's a likely sign that they were adopted by husband #2.

If the potential adoptees are deceased, their Social Security application would typically include the name of their legal father.  In the earlier days of Social Security, I think they were a little loose on checking on that though.

[oldohiohome]

They seem to be a pretty prominent family in Cleveland [edit: and national] Jewish circles. Both she and her father are easily found on Google. He got an obit in the NY Times. I can't say I remember them but I had left by the time she had her radio program, which started in 1972 according to one obituary.

But you probably know all that.

[elliot]

They seem to be a pretty prominent family in Cleveland [edit: and national] Jewish circles. Both she and her father are easily found on Google. He got an obit in the NY Times. I can't say I remember them but I had left by the time she had her radio program, which started in 1972 according to one obituary.

But you probably know all that.

OLD OHIO HOME and SHELLY
many thanks for your research.

I am still at my early stages of developing my BLUMBERG tree [one of Rena's husbands] and am stumbling with so many large Jewish families arriving in USA from Russia/Poland. However I am slowly making contact with some elderly family members who sometimes share the family interpretations of what the family got up to and the frequent forename changing as they adapt from Eastern European to Anglicized US names and nicknames.