Finding birth parents of children adopted WWII

[david6k]

We have recently discovered my mother and aunt were adopted during WWII (sent to countryside to avoid the blitz and never returned to birth family). Any suggestions on how to start trying to identify birth parents? We have almost nothing to go on except their first names and birthdates, which were likely not changed by adoptive family, as they would have been 5 years old when relocated. However, there is one quite unusual piece of information that could be helpful -- they were twins born a few days apart from each other. Thanks in advance for any ideas, suggestions.

[Girl Guide]

Welcome to Rootschat David 

You obviously know their names, so have you tried finding their birth records on free bmd?  If they were about five in 1939 then you could search from about 1932 to 1935. 

If you have their exact birthdates then you can narrow the search to the relevant quarter or quarters depending on how close the birthdate is to the next quarter.

My birthday is at the end of June so my birth record appears in the September quarter instead of the June quarter.

Are they still alive? If so I would assume they are in their eighties?

[ciderdrinker]

Hello
Their birth registration would give their mother's surname and then you could look for a marriage between their father's surname and mother's just before they were born.
Hopefully there will be only one.
Given they are twins there is not going to be too many entries.

We're here to help ,so if you want you could give us a bit more info ,location etc and we could see what we could find.

Twins birth reg would be somethong like
 Smith Angela Dec 1928 mothers maiden name  Saint  West Bromwich 6B 722
Smith Louisa Dec 1928 mothers maiden name Saint West Bromwich 6B 722

Ciderdrinker

[KGarrad]

Probably best if your mother and aunt applied for their adoption records?

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

[Dundee]

It may be difficult with no surname, especially if the first names are particularly common and they don't have middle names, but I think can be done.  I assume you don't know which county they were born in? 

FreeBMD have full coverage for that period.

https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl

The middle initial only is indexed for that time period, not the full middle name.

For example, just search for Mary A. in the March quarter 1935 and you will get a (probably) long list, then Jane M. in the same period.  You then just look for a common mother's maiden name as well as the same volume and page number, and district, as detailed by Ciderdrinker in post #3.

Debra 

[PaulineJ]

If either of the two have now died, do they appear in the 1939 register?

[jaywit]

So they must have been non identical to have been born on different days ( OK I know 1 can be born at 1159pm and the other at 0009am the following day and be identical) but if there was more than a few minutes between them then they were non identical.

Have you any idea roughly where they were born? A large city?

[farmeroman]

I would first search for and then obtain copies of their original birth certificates from the GRO using their father's surname and their mother's maiden name. If the adoptions were carried out legally (many were not during the war) then the word "adopted" should be written in the right hand margin.

Once you have evidence that they were legally adopted your mother (if she is still alive) or you (if she is not) can contact an agency such as Barnados and ask them to investigate.

I went through this exact process for my daughter-in-law (her mother, who is deceased, was adopted shortly after birth in 1945) with spectacular and most unexpected results.

If the adoptions were unofficial then I'm afraid you are almost certainly at a dead end.

[zetlander]

Could it be that they were not twins but two girls of almost identical birth dates who were evacuated to the same family and because of their proximate birth dates they were referred to as twins?
I wonder if the Admission Register for the first school they attended is accessible - shouldn't be too difficult to identify them.
Also do records still exist of children who were evacuated to the village where the girls lived?