Documents:
What they are, where they are, what they mean,
and how to get them
Part 3 of:
Shea's Search Series: The Definitive Guide to
Self-Empowered Adoptee Search
Reprinted by permission
This post is designed to follow-up on the
steps taken as outlined in the first post of
this series, entitled Initiating a Search. While additional
documents in this series will cover specifically
what to do once you have obtained the name of
of your birthfamily,these steps are intended
to assist the searcher in obtaining documents
and further information related to his/her adoption
that will fill in the gaps in the information
you have accumulated from your first initial
efforts. Even if your initial questions happened
to provide you with a name, it is a good idea
to try and obtain some of the documents listed
below in order to help you narrow down your
search and to confirm the name that you have
been given.
Hopefully, you will have started reading some
of the search books that I referred you to in
'Initiating a Search'.
You will have likely discovered that in the
vast majority of instances, your adoption file,
which resides in the court that finalized your
adoption, is sealed. What this means is that
the file can only be opened by court order.
A court order can be obtained by petitioning
the court. What the court will require in order
to agree to open your file varies widely. Many
states have a 'good cause' clause written into
their adoption laws and it is up to the individual
judge to determine if you have good cause. A
few judges around the country are happy with
your sense of curiousity, others have been known
to deny petitions even in cases of extreme medical
distress. The use of the Indian Child Welfare
Act in your petition is also a possibility.
In most cases, a direct petition to the court
to open the entire file, will fail, but it is
worth pursuing as one can never be certain.
Another way to have your file opened in some
states is to have the file opened to a third
party approved by the court, often called a
Confidential Intermediary. It is my recommendation
that one not utilize the services of a CI until
they have exhausted all other options. Even
if your petition to have your file opened is
denied, nearly everything contained within the
adoption file can be obtained from other parties,
which will be the focus of this post.
The following documents are usually part of
your court file, depending on the circumstances
of your adoption:
- Original birth certificate
- Petition to adopt
- Final decree of adoption
- Your adoptive parents homestudy
- various reports from the agency or lawyer
such as intial interview with birthparent(s),
their medical history, biographical information
- signed relinquishment (sometimes called
consent form)
These documents and the information contained
within them, along with your hospital records
and 'non-identifying' information available
to most adoptees, will form the cornerstone
of your search. If you do not know from your
initial inquiries what court your adoption was
finalized in, the best place to start is in
the county where your adoptive parents were
residing during your adoption. Contact the Family
Court in that county and ask them if they can
verify for you if your adoption file resides
in their court. Sometimes, in small, helpful
counties, you'll be given the information over
the phone, at other times, they will require
you to submit a written request.
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1) Private or Agency?
Hopefully your initial inquiries will have
established whether you were the product of
a private adoption, or whether you were adopted
through an agency. In the cases of a private
adoption, usually your adoptive parents will
have arranged to adopt you through a family
doctor, family friend, minister, or family member.
They will have hired an attorney and the adoption
will have been handled through the attorney
and finalized in a court of law. In an agency
adoption, your parents will likely have contacted
an agency with their decision to adopt, sometimes
they will have been placed on a waiting list,
and are matched with a birthmother and/or child
who also had contacted or was brought to the
agency. In the States, some adoptions, which
are sometimes referred to as 'welfare' adoptions,
were arranged through the State's Department
of Social Services, or Department of Children
and Family Services. Even in the case of an
agency adoption or DSS adoption, your parents
will have utilized an attorney for the finalization
procedure. Usually your adoptive parents will
have chosen and utilized their own attorney,
although it has been my experience that sometimes
the adoptive parents were referred to specific
attorneys by the agency. Some countries only
arrange private adoptions, others only public
adoptions. You should research the adoption
laws and regulations of your state, province,
or country as detailed in 'Initiating a Search',
if you are unable to find out what agency to
contact with regard to your adoption records.
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2) Non-identifying information
"Non-identifying information" in this
instance refers to a specific set of information
given to an adoptee about their adoption and
birthfamily. A very few states define within
their statutes what constitutes non-identifying
information, and makes provisions for its release
through agencies and courts. In states or provinces
or regions where non-ID is not defined, it is
up to the court or agency responsible for compiling
and releasing the information to determine what
to give you, if anything. Generally 'non-ID'
will include some or all of the following about
one's birthparents:
- ages
- occupation(s)
- level of education
- race and/or ethnicity
- religion
- physical description
- hobbies
- talents
- marital status
- medical history
- circumstances surrounding the adoption
Other things that a lucky few may receive include
the first names of the birthparents, medical
history, ages, and physical description of the
extended birthfamily.
Where you get 'non-ID' will depend on several
things. For private adoptions handled in the
States, you must apply to the court that finalized
the adoption. For 'public' or 'agency' adoptions,
you should contact the agency directly AND also
apply to the court, as sometimes you'll get
more information from one than the other. To
find out if your state defines non-ID or makes
provisions for it at all, you may read the entire
text of most states and many countries adoption
statutes on my Website, or you may
read an up-to-date summary
of state laws brought to you by Bastard
Nation.
Canadian adoptees should consult the Canadian
Search FAQ for specific information about
non-ID and its distribution by province.
There is nearly always a fee and a wait involved
for non-identifying information. In the States,
for agency non-ID you can expect fees to start
around $50 and go up to $250 depending on the
agency. Court fees for non-ID are usually less,
around $40-60. The wait will vary from 1 week
(unusual) to years, but is usually somewhere
around 3-6 months. How ever you apply for non-ID,
whether it is a court petition or a written
request to an agency, I highly recommend that
you specifically state what information it is
that you expect, even if your state defines
non-ID. In Washington State, for example, even
thought the law entitles you to the first names
of your birthparents, you will usually not receive
them unless you specifically ask and often then
you will only receive them over the phone. Ask
for first AND last names, ask for residence,
last known address, ask for the name of the
school or college your birthparents attended
and what they majored in, ask for the moon,
but don't expect to get it. The more you ask
for, however, the more you're likely to get.
Do not inform the person or agency compiling
your non-ID that you intend to search for your
birthparents. It is best to maintain that the
non-ID is meant to answer some questions that
you have and you expect it to end there. If
you have written for non-ID in the past and
received it, it is a good idea to write again
if several years have passed, or if adoption
laws have changed. Each year in many places,
social workers and judges provide more and more
in the way of 'non-ID'. My most recent non-ID,
obtained 5 years ago, was three pages long,
and included detailed information about my birthmother's
jobs that would have been crucial for me had
I not found so fortuitously shortly after having
received it. Lesli LaRocco(lll6@cornell.edu),
on the other hand, recounts her experiences
in obtaining non-ID:
"I wrote to Cook County Social Services;
they had no record of me, but suggested that
I write to the Cook County Circuit Court for
non-id. I did so, and within a month, had
my non-id. The judge had ordered by original
birth certificate and gave me what was allowed:
- My date and time of birth
- My place of birth (listed as Maywood;
note that the Final Decree says Chicago,
my amended certificate says Maywood, and
this says Melrose Park; Melrose Park is
correct)
- Single birth
- No previous births listed
- Birthmother was 24 years old
- Birthmother was born in Grundy, VA
- Her race was Caucasian
The judge goes on to say that my birthfather's
name was "omitted," but his age is listed
as 34, but there is no other information about
him."
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3) Birth certificates
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
TreeMaker 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.
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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
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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.
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6) Adoption Decree or Order of Adoption
The Adoption Decree or Order of Adoption (your
adoption might have come with one or both),
is generally the final order of adoption. 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 you, the adoptee,
have been 'abandoned' or 'rejected' by your
natural mother. You, 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, if you can, and write it off to sheer
ignorance. Adoption Decrees usually include
your birthname, your adoptive parents names,
your adoptive name, and sometimes one or both
of your birthparents names.
The best place to find the adoption decree
is with your adoptive parents, with their important
papers. Barring that, you can contact the attorney
that handled the adoption, or his firm if he
is no longer practicing or has passed on, and
try to obtain a copy. I optained the copy of
my adoption decree through the attorney that
handled my adoption for my adoptive parents.
It contained my birthname, and within two days
I had found my birthmother, after several years
of searching. My problem was with locating the
attorney, as my adoptive parents did not have
a family attorney that they used regularly,
and so did not remember who they had retained.
If you are in a similar situation, if there
was an agency involved, they sometimes have
the name of the attorney and will give it to
you as part of the non-ID(if you ask), as will
the court to whom you petition for non-ID or
to have your file opened. If you contact the
attorney and s/he will not give you a copy of
your adoption decree, it is often worth it to
have your adoptive parents request it, as well
as all other documents related to your adoption,
in order to help in the preparation of their
wills, for instance. If you obtain a copy of
your adoption decree or order of adoption through
the court, agency, or even through an attorney,
sometimes identifying names will be 'whited'
out or otherwise deleted, however you can often
still tell how many characters in length a name
is, or find other clues. Similarly, when requesting
the adoption decree, it can be useful to also
attempt to obtain the consent to relinquish,
termination order, or other consent that your
birthparent(s) will have signed.
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7) Waiver of Confidentiality
You should contact the agency, court, adoption
services department, or other agencies or bureaus
that were involved in your adoption or house
records relating to your adoption, and ask about
filing a waiver of confidentiality. In some
states, provinces and regions,if you file a
waiver of confidentiality, then if and when
a member of your birthfamily contacts that agency
or court seeking information about you, identifying
information will be released to them so that
they may contact you directly. Do not file these
waivers or ask about them until after you have
received all of the information you plan to
request from that particular agency, so as not
to tip off Vital Statistics, for instance, that
you are adopted if you're trying to get an original
birth certificate, or so as not to seem as if
you are planning on using any information obtained
in order to search.
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8) Baptismal certificates and other religious
records
If in the course of your inquiries, you are
able to determine if you were baptised shortly
after birth, or if you were placed by a private
agency with a religious bent, particularly a
Catholic agency, you might be able to obtain
a baptismal certificate that could contain information
about your birthname and birthfamily. Churches
in general keep excellent records and if there's
any indication that your birthparents were active
in a church or specific organized religion,
it pays to look into it further.
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9) Hospital Records of Birth
The records of your birth can be a goldmine
of 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, however, is with the hospital
itself. If you do not have your birthname, 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 crossreferenced and the clerk will just
send them all to you,(do not mention adoption)
or you can engage in a number of deceptive practices
such as attempting to come up with a story as
to why you don't have your birthname,(that doesn't
involve adoption) or why you want to see the
records of all the babies born on a given day.
I am not recommending any of these methods nor
vouching for their legality in your particular
region under your particular circumstances,
and if you are concerned about the legality
of any of them, you should consult an attorney.
In addition to the records of your birth, most
Obstetrics units keep an 'OB' log that lists
the babies born each day that could be of use.
How long both the log and your particular birth
records are kept varies from hospital to hospital
but most hospitals do have the records in some
form, kept somewhere, it may just take some
persistence on your part. Do not mention that
you were adopted. You will not receive your
records even though it is not illegal for you
to request them, nor in most places is it illegal
for them to be provided to you. In fact, one
can make a pretty good argument that you are
entitled to them, but that is another matter.
One thing to keep in mind is something that
happened to me. I attempted to obtain my hospital
records without my birthname, thus tipping off
the hospital that I was adopted. My files were
promptly flagged, and once I had a name and
attempted to get my records again, I was unable
to. Lesli Larocco(lll6@cornell.edu), however,
had a differrent experience with an archiving
company:
"At this point, I had a name, an age, a place
of birth, and my hospital of birth. I wrote
to the hospital again, and learned that they
wanted by birth certificate before they would
send me the documents. I ignored them.I waited
nearly a year before writing the hospital
again; this time, the records had been moved
to an archiving company in Marietta, GA, and
that company sent me my records. "
In most cases, your birth records will not
indicate by any special flag that you are adopted,
and so if you do have your birthname, you can
usually obtain them without trouble if the hospital
has not destroyed them. On the other hand, usually
one of the attractions of obtaining the records
is for a name, so it's a classic double-edged
sword, and you should use your best judgement.
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10) City directories
City directories will likely be something that
you become very familiar with in the course
of your search. At this point, you will likely
need to use them to find out more about the
doctor that delivered you, the attorney that
your parents used, the agency that handled the
adoption, or the hospital where you were born.
City Directories are a lot like phone books.
They contain listings of businesses and individuals,
their addresses, and their phone numbers, and
are bound by city, or groups of towns, or regions.
These books are usually hardbound and can be
found in university and public libraries for
surrounding areas, usually from about 1930 forward,
but often much earlier. City dirctory listings
contain more than phone books do, however, such
as occupations, places of employment, and the
names of others living in the same household,
such as spouse or adult children. They can be
used to trace a listing for a doctor to find
out when s/he retired if s/he has, or where
they are now located or now practicing. Likewise
with an attorney. Also, if your adoptive parents
are not able to come up with the name of the
agency they used, city directories will list
all the agencies in a given area at the time
of your birth, which you can then contact. Usually
there were just a handful. Finally, city directories
can be used to find out if the hopsital where
you were born is still around or if another
hospital is now located at the same address.
Again, utilize your friendly research librarian
or volunteer search buddy if you do not live
in the area of your search.
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11) Miscellany
You are now at the point where you might be
in need of specific tricks of the trade that
only insiders will be able to supply you with
unless you happen to stumble onto some of your
own. There are certain search techniques and
documents that I have left out of this post
and are in general kept quiet by members of
the searching community, as we have had the
painful experience of having these resources
shut down once they have become known. I have
included other sources here, reluctantly, balancing
the importance of having searchers know about
them with the risks that are always involved
when a search resource becomes public. Please
utilize your judgement in making certain search
tricks and resources known to others, particularly
on the Internet. A homepage detailing your search
and including the news that there's a big leather
book sitting on the desk of a particular courthouse
where they forgot to delete all the adoption
entries, for instance, or finding an Family
History Center that has a copy of birth index
that can't be found anywhere else, is usually
not a good idea. If you have follwed the advice
in this post and the previous one,delved further
into the resources listed, and made use of the
mailing lists, local search groups, and publications,
you should be well equipped to complete this
phase of your search. Further posts will cover
what to do once you have a name to work with,
telling your adoptive family about the search,
hiring a searcher and/or intermediary, and preparation
for contact. Comments, additions, criticism,
and corrections to this post are welcome.
This post was authored by Shea Grimm, sheag@oz.net, except
where otherwise indicated. It may be copied
and distributed freely, in whole or in part,
as long as it is not sold, and as long as this
notice is kept intact.
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