Adoption Records

[guest225400]

Hello,

I am looking for information about adoption records.

Our family has recently discovered that my grandmother was adopted. We had a suspicion since she passed away in 2005. We have her birth as 15th May 1933, as we always believed it was, but they said they had no record of a Janet Elizabeth Allen being born then.
We began to investigated it last year. We had her medical card, along with her children's. The birthdays on these medical cards were all correct, apart from my grandmothers, which said that her birthday was April 21st 1933.

After a lot of discussion with people over the internet, one woman came out with a fantastic theory that turned out to be true.

She said in short that why was Janet Elizabeth (my grandmother) not registered in the Allen name, probably because the mother had already registered her. Who had chosen the name Janet Elizabeth, probably the mother. How many Janet Elizabeths born in June quarter 1933? 58. How many in Cheshire? 3. Two of the children had parents that were married, but the third was an unmarried mother. Janet Elizabeth Hill (the name of the child) was on a page of her own. On the page previous was a Margaret Elizabeth Hill, born the same day, same unmarried mother. The woman thought she could have given birth to two children, not just one.

We ordered the certificate for Janet Elizabeth Hill, and we soon discovered who Margaret was. Janet and Margaret were the same person. It looked like the mother had named the child Margaret first, after herself, and then it was adopted and changed to Janet. At the end of the Janet certificate it said 'Adopted' and was signed by the registrar.

I was wondering if you are able to look at adoption records. How would you do it?

That you so much for any help,

[a-l]

Hi I think you will find that the only person able to view the record is the person who was adopted.                             

[guest225400]

So it will not be possible to look at them, as my grandmother has passed away. I suppose the evidence is quite concrete, we only wanted to look at the adoption records for confirmation.

[a-l]

Adoption is a privacy issue so not open to public view not even for confirmation which is difficult for the adoptee's family.

[stanmapstone]

See Adoption records https://www.gov.uk/adoption-records

Stan

[guest225400]

Thank you, I'll see what I can do.

[dawnsh]

Hi

You were lucky to stumble across the real entry in the birth index and then order the correct cert. The vast majoirty of children adopted out of their birth families have their names completely changed.

The GRO maintains an adopted childrens index, which means that if you know the name after adoption, you can apply for the adoption certificate. These indexes can be found at the 7 sites who host the full GRO indexes. The certificate though will not include any details than those normally found on a standard birth cert.

The adoption cert will show the adopted childs birthdate and the names of the people adopting her along with the court where the adoption took place. Many adopted people have a short form 'birth' cert which to all intents and purposes is the same as any short form birth cert. Neither show the names of the parents but certs for adopted children frequently have England as the place of birth rather than the specific registration district. These short form certs also have a regsitration number which matches up with the correct entry in the adopted childrens index.

There is no way though of matching an entry in the birth index with an entry in the adoption index unless you know both names.

As previously mentioned, it is not currently possible for the families of deceased adopted people to have access to the files, although there are mumblings about getting the law changed. It has also been discovered by some living adopted people who apply to see their files through an intermediary service that their files have been lost or destroyed in the passing of time, especially those who were adopted close to the start in 1927.

Dawn

[guest225400]

Thank you, so it does not seem that good to get the adoption certificate as it has similar information as the birth certificate. I'll speak wth the family and see what they want to do.

Thanks Dawn,

[dawnsh]

Hi

Just to clarify...

The 'birth' cert that you have shows her natural mother, this is the one with the 'adopted' annotation.

The 'adoption' cert will show who adopted her, there will be no reference to the birth mother or actual place of birth on this cert.

The only information that will match will be the date of birth.

Dawn