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 sometimes done so if the hospital was a maternity home for unwed mothers. The filing date, depending on the practice of the office issuing the certificate, sometimes remains the filing date of your original, or is sometimes the filing date of the amended, resulting in what several offical agencies such as the U.S Passport Agency, refer to as a 'delayed' birth certificate, which can cause great difficult in receiving certain official documents such as passports and visas. The name of the doctor is worth a special look, as you will be attempting to contact him or her later in your search.

The original birth certificate of a person adopted at birth or shortly thereafter, often will list the person's name as Baby Girl or Baby Boy, plus the last name of mother at the time of birth. This does not mean that your birthparent(s) did not name you. If an adoption plan had been made, often the individual taking the information for the birth certificate did not bother to ask, or to respect, the wishes of the birthparent(s). In general, even if your birthfather was named by your birthmother, his name will not appear on your birth certificate if your birthparents were not married at the time, although there have been exceptions. If your birthmother was married to someone other than your birthfather, usually her name and your last name on the certificate will be her married name, and sometimes her husband will be listed as the father. Again, there are no hard and fast rules, and you should look closely at the information on both the amended and original birth certificates and be willing to dismiss some of it as false or misleading. The file numbers and/or registry numbers located on the original and amended birth certificates are, frankly, a mystery to me. In many cases, I have seen that the file numbers on both the original and amended birth certificates are the same, which could be helpful. In my case, the file numbers located in the upper righthand corner of both of my certificates, are completely different from each other. In this area, a local search and support group can be helpful so that you can compare experiences and documents with other triadians searching in the same area of the country or province.

If you were not lucky enough to have been adopted in one of the few states, Provinces, or countries, that provides the original birth certificate to adoptees upon request, aside from petitioning the court, there are a few other ways in which you can attempt to obtain a copy of your original birth certificate. First off, as with all documents that are listed in this post, you should ask your adoptive parents. Sometimes they received a copy when the adoption was finalized. Secondly, if you do have your birthname or your birthparent(s) name, or you suspect it, it never hurts to write for to Vital Statistics requesting your original birth certificate. Don't mention you were adopted, do not include any information related and if all you have is a last name, scribble your first and middle names so they're illegible, and only fill in what you know of the remaining information. In all likelihood, you will be contacted for further information, or flat out denied, but again, it never hurts to try. If you need to know where a local Vital Records office or Department of Health is located, and what you might find there, Family Tree Maker has an excellent Webpage at that will tell you who has what records, for what years, and gives addresses and phone numbers. If you are searching in the UK or Ireland, check here.

4) Birth announcements

In most cases, a baby born to an unmarried woman or who was scheduled to be adopted after birth, will not have a birth announcement in the papers. Mistakes have been known to happen, however, so it pays to make copies of the birth announcements for babies born on your birthdate at the hospital or in the city or town of your birth. In addition, further inquiries and information, particularly from the hospital of your birth, might require you to rule out certain names of babies who share your birthdate, so the announcements can come in handy regardless of whether you are listed. As with any other piece of information that requires you to search in the area of your birth and/or adoption, if you do not live in the area or cannot get to the library or institution of research, call the library that houses the information and ask about hiring a research librarian to do the research for you. Usually they will do so at a nominal fee, such as the cost of copying the documents, or a small hourly charge. Another option is to find a volunteer who will do 'legwork' for you in the area you were adopted. You can find a search buddy on a mailing list, post a note on alt.adoption, or check out the Volunteer Search Network.

5) Legal Notices

In most places, prospective adoptive parents are required by law to place a legal notice notifying the alleged birthfather of the impending adoption hearing. It is common practice to place these legal notices, even when the birthfather is named and has consented to the adoption, in order to erase all potential for problems later on. The attorney that represents the potential adoptors generally place these legal notices in obscure legal journals that are well known in local search circles, which is why it's a good idea to have joined a search and support group, as detailed in the post 'Initiating a Search'. Legal Notices sometimes contain absolutely no identifying information, but they *usually* will refer to you using your birthname (Baby Girl/Boy_______) and they often identify the birthfather by name as well, although sometimes he will be referred to as John Doe. The potential for payoff is enormous, however looking through the legal notices on microfilm can be an incredibly painful and time-consuming procedure. Knowing the time period when the legal notice might have been placed is tricky, and it often requires that you look through thousands of notices for several months if you are unsure when your adoption hearings were held. Knowing if the legal notice refers to you can also be tricky, unless your adoptive parents are referred to by name. Usually the name of the attorney, or the attorney's firm is named at the top of the notice, which is how you can begin narrowing down the notices.

Continue to section three of Adoption Documents

This post was authored by Shea Grimm except where otherwise indicated. It may be copied and distributed freely, in whole or part, as long as it is not sold, and as long as this notice is kept intact.