Australia: Second birth certificate created a legal fiction

Across the globe, adoptees are speaking up... and that is good... TL Hentz (blog editor)

My birth mother was not allowed to name her baby. But the name she gave me in her heart is real

Legislation once erased the original names and connections of forcibly adopted children. But even with this now addressed, family remains complicated

The records of somewhere between 140,000 and 250,000 forcibly adopted babies were sealed by law, with all connection to their original family labelled top secret. Photograph: Cavan Images/Getty Images/Cavan Images RF

Anonymous

Sat 6 Aug 2022

It wasn’t until 2020, at the age of 52, that I was given the right to use my name. But as with all things adoption, nothing is quite as simple as it seems. Like other babies given to infertile couples under Australia’s “forced adoption” policies, my birth certificate was cancelled soon after I was born; a second birth certificate created a legal fiction to make it look like I was born to the infertile couple.

With a stroke of a pen I was denied connection with all of my family – my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmothers – and my first given name. After a few months I was handed over to the couple who took me home. I had no social history, no medical, racial or genetic history. It was all top secret.

The records of somewhere between 140,00 and 250,000 Australian babies were sealed by law, with a promise that the truth would never be revealed.

Things on that front have gradually changed, and adopted people are now allowed to use the names on either of our birth certificates. When I first read about these changes I cried – it was the first time I had seen the dual identity and divided loyalty that shadows adopted people fully acknowledged.

But on my first birth certificate, the name my mother chose for me is missing, and I am identified by the word “Unnamed” with my mother’s surname. According to that certificate, my name is Unnamed Champion. My second birth certificate states the name given to me by my adopted family.

The Integrated Birth Certificate allows me to choose either of these two names, but it seems unhelpful for adopted people to be known as “Unnamed” when the intention of Integrated Birth Certificates is to help adopted people connect with their full identities.

It has taken me many months to realise that this profound breakthrough does not achieve what it set out to do: it does not allow me to see the name my mother wanted for me.

The only place my mother was ever allowed to use my name was inside her mind. While she was being told to stop crying by the “real” mothers breastfeeding their babies in the beds beside her, while she was given milk-suppression drugs without her knowledge, while she signed all the papers because she did everything she was told, the name was in her head and heart: Jona.

Like the perpetual state of longing, the name haunted her for years, though even now Jona still doesn’t exist. The state of New South Wales sent me to live with people who called me something else.  They called me Eudora*, the name I’ve been called for over 50 years.

The simple facts are this: I was born and hidden where my mother couldn’t find me. She had no advocate, and she was a minor, with no legal capacity to sign me away. A girl like her was not allowed to name her baby.

That was part of the punishment of being shamed and blamed in the birthing ward as a girl gone bad. Above the bed was a three letter sign, “BFA”, to identify that here was a Baby For Adoption.

“Unnamed Champion”. Born in a small regional town on the outskirts of Sydney, on a midwinter morning in the late 1960s, and no mention anywhere of “Jona”. For me, the confusion and cognitive dissonance seems impossible to resolve.

I recently explained to a psychologist that I have two families with two divergent histories. I look like these people. I sound like these people, I think and behave like these people, the people I was born to.

Adopted people can have biological parents on birth certificates under Victorian bill

My brother, on the other hand, he is one of those people, from the other side of my life, the people I was sent to. My mum is one of those people. And my dad, well, he is one of those people too.

For an adopted person, the idea of dad is complicated. The idea of mum is complicated. The idea of brother and sister, home and belonging – it’s all complicated. Even your name, and the names we use to identify family – none of it is easy to understand.

Think of the words – mum, dad – how can anyone experience them without a visceral response in the belly, in the heart, in the throat? When I hear those words, there is a glitch, a realigning moment, while I track who holds those roles in my life. None of it gets easier over time.

In 2021 I applied to the Department of Community and Justice for my birth records. It is now July, 2022. A few months ago, I was asked to place an extra signature on the form, and told to wait another nine months for my Integrated Birth Certificate to arrive. This document gives me the choice of using either the name from my first birth certificate, or the second one – whichever I prefer.

After a whole lifetime, I finally get to choose. But first I must wait a whole new gestation period for the documents to arrive. And then, I will not be given the choice between identifying as Jona or Eudora. I will be offered the choice between Eudora or Unnamed.

The legislation governing my separation from my birth mother erased the history written into my body as though my DNA never existed. But it does exist, it’s real. And the name she calls me in her heart is real too.

* Name has been changed

In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978. In the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. In the US, Mental Health America is available on 800-273-8255

CT Adult Adoptees want access to OBC

By MICHELLE GOLLADAY , The Connecticut Law Tribune , July 26, 2013

"Who am I?" "Why am I?" These are two basic questions human beings ask themselves upon growing older—especially when one's birth parents are not the same as the parents he or she grew up with.

For now, in Connecticut, it's nearly impossible for some people to find answers. Adults who were adopted when they were children don't have access to their true birth certificates. Now, an organization that includes a handful of lawyers, and a legislator with a J.D. degree, are advocating for a law change that would lift that restriction.

Access to birth certificates would not only identify a person's birth parents and connect them to other blood relatives, but it would also allow them to find out about possible genetic probems and address and anticipate possible health issues.

"To cut a human being off from their genetic heritage is insane," said lawyer and psychotherapist Karen Caffrey, who has a counseling practice in West Hartford. "We have to correct this inequality and injustice to Connecticut citizens, just like we did for women voters years ago."

Caffrey and other advocates are members of a group called Access Connecticut, which is lobbying for a change in the law.

Working alongside Connecticut's movement is state Representative David Alexander, an Enfield Democrat, an adoptee and a member of the legislature's Public Health Committee. He plans to try to push a bill through the committee in the 2014 legislative session that would allow adult adoptees to receive both of their birth certificates.

"I am a captain of the Marine Corps, and initially when I joined, I had to obtain and produce my birth certificate," said Alexander, who graduated from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 2006. "My original [birth certificate] existed, it was there in the government office, and the town clerk was like, 'I'm sorry, I can see it, but you can't.'"

Alexander said he has lined up several co-sponsors, and if the measure passes the Public Health Committee, it will be forwarded to the Judiciary Committee. The bill would allow adoptees over the age of 18, and who were adopted after 1983, to get their birth certificates. "It's weird that the government and the state have complete acccess to this document, said Alexander, and the adult adoptee does not.

Two Certificates

For most people, obtaining a birth certificate is as easy as visiting a government office in the state of birth upon turning 18 years old. For those same people, there is only one birth certificate to obtain—the original documentation of birth.

Read more: http://www.ctlawtribune.com/PubArticleCT.jsp?id=1202612721271&thepage=3#ixzz2aS6M0Gs1

Coleen Rajotte: Accounting for the 60s Scoop

By Coleen Rajotte, Winnipeg Free Press



Rajotte as a toddler: 'I still struggle with the reality of trying to re-connect with my birth family and culture.' (FAMILY PHOTO)

 

My adoption story as an Indian child starts at the old Grace Hospital in Winnipeg in 1968. That's the year I was legally adopted by a white, middle-class family. Like 20,000 other aboriginal children taken from their families in the 1960s, '70s and early '80s, I have been on a life-long journey to reconnect with my family and culture and to figure out how to fit into both of these worlds.

For many adoptees, this was a traumatic experience. Many were sent across Canada, into the United States and some ended up in Europe. This all happened under the unfettered authority of provincial and territorial child welfare agencies.
This dark time in Canada's history became known as "the Sixties Scoop."
I consider myself lucky. I was placed with caring, adoptive parents who loved me, and an adoptive grandmother whom I cherished and adored. However, like all adoptees I still struggle with the reality of trying to reconnect with my birth family and culture.
Others weren't so fortunate. Many were deprived of love. We were all cut off from any sense of what it was like to belong to a community of our own people. We were not provided with any information about how to reconnect or find our birth families.
In a first for North America, the state of Maine, in an agreement with tribal leaders, is launching a reconciliation process next year to examine the history and legacy of the child welfare system's treatment of aboriginal people.
There is a growing sentiment that Canada, too, needs its own inquiry.
Justice Murray Sinclair, chairman of the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the Indian Residential Schools, says a similar reconciliation process is needed to understand the impact of the Sixties Scoop.
"I would personally support there being a TRC process for Sixties Scoop kids because I think that their stories have never been given an opportunity to be brought to light," he says.
The Sixties Scoop followed the Indian Residential School era. The unstated intention of the scoop, many believe, was the same -- assimilate aboriginal children into non-aboriginal society.
A Manitoba review of native adoptions released a scathing report in 1985. It referred to the cultural misconceptions held by child-care workers about aboriginal peoples and about the way they raised their children.
"Cultural bias in the child-welfare system," the late Judge Edwin Kimelman concluded, "is practiced at every level from the social worker who works directly with the family, through the lawyers who represent the various parties in a custody case, to the judges who make the final disposition in the case.
"However, they were not the only ones to blame. All parties have been at fault -- federal and provincial governments who failed to resolve their jurisdictional dispute for the care of Treaty Indian children; former directors of child welfare who neglected to build accountability into the system; the child-care agencies, both public and private, who failed to examine the results of their policies and practices and who failed to keep accurate statistical data; the native organizations who remained too silent, too long before demanding control of their children."
My journey to find my own biological family is the topic of a film I have been working on for the last decade.
My birth mother was young and she had travelled from Saskatchewan to Winnipeg to live at what was called Bethany Home, a residence for unwed mothers run by the Salvation Army. The files show she was reluctant to give me up but she did sign the adoption papers.
There are also letters in my adoption file that she wrote to the agency begging for information about what happened to me. My mother was a residential school survivor and I believe that her lack of family connection contributed to her decision.
I am part of the generation that believed we were better off with white families. And this in my view was an act of assimilation and an act of colonization.
I remember like it was yesterday meeting my family 10 years ago. I remember flying to Saskatoon and then driving two hours to the Little Pine First Nation, a Plains Cree community with 700 people living on the reserve.
I was trying to pretend everything was OK. I was doing a bad job -- when I look at the video today, I was a stress mess.
As a journalist I had covered other "reunions" between adoptees and their families and I knew the heavy emotional toll they took on everyone. I remember thinking during that drive how can this be a reunion when I don't know these people?
In my own experiences and working with many other adoptees, I found that we shared a common hope that one day there would be official recognition of what happened to us.
Opinions vary on what should be done but many talk about a formal process to provide answers, compensation, an official apology or support for continued healing and reclamation of our culture and languages. We all agree that it's long overdue.
A process such as the one unfolding in Maine can and should happen in Canada, it only needs political will and public support.
Marlene Orgeron, an adoptee from Manitoba, was sent to New Orleans in 1974. Orgeron and her brothers, Christopher and Eric, were placed with a family in New Orleans after their parents were killed in a car crash.
At the time, extended family who were caring for them were given no explanation as to why they were being taken away.
"I still feel today that this was just another attempt at genocide for aboriginal people," Orgeron says, her voice cracking.
There are no reliable statistics on how many adoptees have returned home. Many have not, either because they are dead, in jail, homeless, have given up or have no idea how to find their homeland and families.
I have seen the deep pain, displacement and anger experienced by adoptees, their families and the adoptee's own children who have inherited the pain and loss of family and community connection.
I was lucky. I have a good relationship with my adoptive family. I continue to try to build relationships with my birth family, many of whom I haven't yet met.
I hope one day my adoptive family and my birth family could meet with the goal of healing, sharing and putting the painful parts of my adoption behind all of us.
More important, I want a formal process to start the healing process.
Source: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/westview/accounting-for-the-sixties-scoop-185134321.html

Coleen Rajotte is a journalist, TV host and filmmaker based in Winnipeg. www.watchvitality.com or join her on Facebook under the name Coleen Rajotte

The New Abolition: Ending Adoption in Our Time

Here is more from my brilliant articulate adoptee friend Daniel Ibn Zayd, a follow-up to my interview (on August 13).  He posted The New Abolition: Ending Adoption in Our Time on the website DISSIDENT VOICE... Here are a few quotes that resonated with me... He is working on a book!

"The implication here is that the adoptee also traverses the phases of being “colonized”: coddled by the seeming safety of his new-found place, seduced by the imposed mythology of a dominant culture, and abetted by the willfully distanced memory of his generational past. ...a clear definition for what is often referred to within adoptee circles as “the fog”, or “drinking the Kool-Aid”: the acceptance of a fragile notion of security sustained by a false sense of self within an alien and alienating environment....

"As our activism has grown over this near decade, I have been greatly inspired by adoptees in South Korea, for just one example, who have helped shut down adoption in that country as of this year. Other source countries are following suit, and I am further heartened to see an expansion of this activism, here citing just a few examples: mothers in Guatemala, demanding the repatriation of their kidnapped children; in Argentina, demonstrating for an accounting of the infants born to the imprisoned and then disappeared; in Spain, investigating the stolen children of the Franco era and beyond; in Russia, criticizing the despicable treatment of their children exported abroad; in indigenous American Nations, parents reclaiming their stolen progeny. This list grows longer every day.

"I invoke this term (abolition) fully aware of its weight as concerns the movement to abolish slavery, and to clarify this usage, I define adoption as follows:

Adoption is, in and of itself, a violence based in inequality. It is candy-coated, marketed, and packaged to seemingly concern families and children, but it is an economically and politically incentivized crime. It stems culturally and historically from the “peculiar institution” of Anglo-Saxon indentured servitude and not family creation. It is not universal and is not considered valid by most communal cultures. It is a treating of symptoms and not of disease. It is a negation of families and an annihilation of communities not imbued with any notion of humanity due to the adoptive culture’s inscribed bias concerning race, class, and human relevancy...

 "...And thus American Indian reservations, secret bases of extradition, Japanese internment camps, urban and rural ghettoes, the corporate-industrial prison complex, vigilante terrorism directed against immigrants, the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans. Shamefully added to this list are the children sent to adoption rehabilitation camps in Montana, Russian boys returned alone on airplanes, disrupted adoptions, deported adoptees, the stockpiling of children by adoptive collectors and hoarders, RAD therapies, rebirthings and other pseudo-treatments bordering on outright torture, over-medication of our “mental illnesses”, as well as our “treatment” and study by an army of therapists, social workers, academics, assorted quacks and other misery-industry profiteers. The very existence of this cavalcade of systemic jerry-builders is a greater condemnation of the dysfunctional societal structures undergirding the industry of adoption than anything possibly expressed by the critics thereof. This, in and of itself, should give us great pause...."

http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/08/the-new-abolition-ending-adoption-in-our-time/

Daniel Ibn Zayd currently lives in Beirut.  This article is distilled from a book in progress comparing the political and economic aspects of adoption. He can be reached by email at:daniel.ibnzayd@inquisitor.com. Read other articles by Daniel, or visit Daniel's website.

Abusive Adoption Practices (abstract and links)

The Aftermath of Abusive Adoption Practices in the Lives of Adoption Triad Members: Responding to Adoption Triad Members Victimized by Abusive Adoption Practices
by David Smolin and Desiree Smolin (via email)

Abstract:
The above-titled presentation was given as a plenary presentation at the Annual Symposium of the Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS) on April 18, 2012. 
It is important to note that the original context for this presentation is Intercountry Adoption to the United States. However, some of you may find some of these points relevant to domestic adoption issues as well as Intercountry Adoption to other nations (Canada, Italy, Spain, etc.)

Especially at the event itself, with our own commentary added, this was a presentation not just on abusive adoption practices, but especially on how the intercountry adoption system, as shaped by the United States government and United States adoption agencies, is “designed for failure.” Abusive adoption practices thus are not merely problems in themselves, but are symptoms of a system that chronically produces abuses and breakdowns in the system: a system that fails to self-correct and thus is self-defeating.

Further, these features of the current dysfunctional system were not necessarily inevitable, but have arisen from specific choices made during the construction of the system by the U.S. government and U.S. agencies. The governing rules they advocated for, and chose, created the dysfunctions that have doomed the system to continuing cycles of abuse.

This is very much a presentation about the inestimable human costs of those failures for all those impacted by adoption: not only adoption triad members, but also siblings, extended families, communities, and even nations. It is also a presentation about a system that fails to assist or recognize its own victims.

The presentation is very much of a joint project: each of us wrote about half of the material, and each critiqued the other’s materials. The process of converting material into PowerPoint format was done initially by Desiree, although again the final product was reviewed, modified, and critiqued by both of us. Overall, the concepts and information presented represent years of working together to analyze adoption systems.
We certainly do not expect everyone to be happy with these materials and critiques may come from all sides. Please keep in mind that the PowerPoint cannot embody all that we said; also please keep in mind the original audience and occasion for the presentation. We welcome vigorous and respectful dialogue, from which we hope to learn, as so much of what we do know to this point in time is due to the many people who have shared their experiences and thoughts with us.

For discussion and further commentary, please go to the blog: http://fleasbiting.blogspot.com/

Thanks,

David and Desiree Smolin

Link: http://works.bepress.com/david_smolin/12

I do hope everyone will watch this presentation - we need to be informed about the billion dollar adoption industry and its practices... Trace

How many children were adopted in 2000 and 2001? STATiSTiCS

It's important to know the most recent statistics on adoption; here is the most recent report (2004)...

The Children’s Bureau and its Child Welfare Information Gateway (Information Gateway) are grateful to the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) for its important work in verifying adoption information from courts, bureaus of vital records, Native American Tribes, and private adoption agencies.

The purpose of this ADOPTION report is to estimate the number of children adopted in each of the States for 2000 and 2001 and to use these numbers to estimate the composition and trends of all adoptions in the United States.
Key findings are summarized below:

• In 2000 and 2001, about 127,000 children were adopted annually in the United States. Since 1987, the number of adoptions annually has remained relatively constant, ranging from 118,000 to 127,000.
• The source of adoptions is no longer dominated by kinship adoptions and private agency adoptions. Public agency and intercountry adoptions now account for more than half of all adoptions.
• Adoptions through publicly funded child welfare agencies accounted for two-fifths of all adoptions. More than 50,000 public agency adoptions in each year (2000 and 2001) accounted for about 40 percent of adoptions, up from 18 percent in 1992 for those 36 States that reported public agency adoptions in 1992 (Flango & Flango, 1995).
• Intercountry adoptions accounted for more than 15 percent of all adoptions. Intercountry adoptions increased from 5 percent to 15 percent of adoptions in the United States between 1992 and 2001 (U.S. Department of State, n.d.).
• The other two-fifths of adoptions are primarily private agency, kinship, or tribal adoptions. With the available data, it is not possible to separate figures within this group, although the percentages of all adoptions in that group as a whole have decreased. In 1992, for example, stepparent adoptions (a form of kinship adoption) alone accounted for two-fifths (42 percent) of all adoptions.

No one agency is charged with collecting data on adoptions. The National Center for State Courts’ (NCSC’s) Court Statistics Project collects data by calendar year (which most States use) and State fiscal years for the total number of adoptions processed  through courts. NCSC’s figures are incomplete, however, for several reasons. Some parents who adopt in foreign countries choose not to file in a U.S. court. While all domestic adoptions are finalized in U.S. courts, adoptions are such a small percentage of court caseloads that they are sometimes included in a larger category, such as “other civil petitions,” and cannot be separated from other civil petitions.

Three other sources of adoption information provide numbers of adoptions by type: the Federal Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), the State Department, and the Office of Immigration Statistics within the Department of Homeland Security. AFCARS provides data on adoptions through public agencies, and the State Department and the Office of Immigration Statistics provide the number of visas issued for intercountry adoption. There is no overlap between the AFCARS data and the data provided by the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security. Other data sources are inconsistent in terms of reporting period and population reported and are not mutually exclusive.  The number of adoptions in the third category—private agency, kinship, or tribal—can be approximated by subtracting the AFCARS and intercountry adoption numbers from the total adoptions reported by courts. The result is an approximation, but any difference due to gaps and overlap among counts from the three types is probably only slight.
To access a copy of these Highlights, go to www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/s_adoptedhighlights.cfm.
This material may be freely reproduced and distributed. However, when doing so, please credit Child Welfare Information Gateway. Available online at www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/s_adopted/index.cfm.

CITATION: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2004). How many children were adopted in 2000 and 2001? Washington, DC: Child Welfare Information Gateway.

Adoption by Type

Three sources of adoption information provide numbers of adoptions by type: the Federal Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), the State Department, and the Office of Immigration Statistics within the Department of Homeland Security.
AFCARS reported 54,627 adoptions in the United States during fiscal year 2000 and 50,136 adoptions in fiscal year 2001.

1992

PUBLIC: 18%

INTERCOUNTRY: 5%

PRIVATE, INDEPENDENT, KINSHIP AND TRIBAL: 77%

2001

PUBLIC: 39%

INTERCOUNTRY: 15%

PRIVATE, INDEPENDENT, KINSHIP AND TRIBAL: 46%

This number includes private agency, independent, and tribal adoptions with public agency involvement that were reported to AFCARS.

Adoption information in AFCARS is updated continually based on new reports submitted by the States. The data in this report were those available on May 15, 2003. In Illinois, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Arizona, in both 2000 and 2001, the public agency adoptions comprised the largest share of all adoptions. More than half of all adoptions in these States were public agency adoptions. Of all States, Alabama and Wyoming had the smallest percentage of public agency adoptions.
More stats available online at www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/s_adopted/index.cfm.

[I was asked recently how many children are adopted each year...These statistics tell us plenty...Trace]

PENN STATE: SILENCE IS NOT AN ANSWER

My years as a College Student 1974-1978

By Trace Hentz (blog editor)

Why it took me years to write my memoir - why I didn’t want to write about me at all - is because I was sexually abused by my adoptive father. I broke my silence at age 22 when I went to my first therapist for counseling (right after college). I wasn't telling everyone what had happened - I kept silent. Writing about my childhood took me nearly 5 years. I published my memoir in early 2010. At age 53, shame could still do that - it tried to silence me.


Did I want to remember those years?  No.  Remembering what he did to me paralyzed me: to go back in time to think about those years seemed like a bad idea, like I’d be reliving it.  I had therapy twice and it had helped. Writing helped more. The more you tell what happened, the old terror loosens its grip on you.  I had therapy to release it and writing about it was hard but not horrible. Our minds do bury what is hard to comprehend. When we feel safe, as adults, after time has passed, we can go back and look at what happened.  Talking about it and writing about it releases the shame.


Did I want the world to know? No. I checked with a few of my female cousins to make sure that my dad made me his only victim. Of course this was years after it happened. After my memoir, my cousins then knew what happened to me and yes, they did back me up and support me emotionally. They knew my dad was a bad alcoholic. Now they knew the truth and everything else.


Did I have to write what happened? Absolutely. WARNING: This kind of thing can define the rest of your life. If you don’t face it head-on, it can control you and destroy you and your confidence.


For years and years I didn’t want anyone to know - because of my shame. I never confronted my dad as a teenager. To me, my father was sick. He was the monster who I had to live with. I endured more than five years of inappropriate touching and non-stop talk about sex - what he wanted to do to me in graphic detail.


Why didn’t I go to police or to a trusted teacher or a relative? First I was afraid no one would believe me. Second, I was afraid I’d be blamed - my mother had called me a whore. I was 12 when my dad first molested me - I was not a whore. Our family was sick and damaging in many ways.


I want each and every sexual abuse victim, at PENN STATE or anywhere else to know: your silence keeps you the victim. Silence is not an answer. To heal this, you have to speak your truth.
First, find a really good therapist; then hire a really good lawyer.

Now I am a survivor of sexual abuse, not a victim.

How to Open an Adoption Part One (UPDATED)

By Trace L Hentz

August 18, 2011

Depending on where you live, what state you were born and what records and information your adoptive parents have shared with you, every adoptee can now search for their birthparents and biological relatives. Despite the closed adoption records and laws, many adoptees are successfully finding their birthparent’s identity.

How do they do it? A wealth of information and the Internet, including Facebook.

As I am writing this, I remember how I used to think more about my birthmother. Let me remind adoptees - you have two parents and each has their own medical history and genealogy. Like I did, an adoptee may only have one parent’s name but that is enough to begin a search.

As I wrote in my memoir, I opened my own adoption through a kind judge in Wisconsin. I didn’t actually meet my mother after I found her. I met relatives on her side of the family. My uncle helped immensely. Then after I wrote to my mother requesting my father’s identity, I met him and we agreed to do a DNA test to prove his paternity. Many adoptees will do DNA with their dads.

Since I started my search in the late 1970s, I did it without the internet. Yes, I used the phone book. (There are later steps when you do get a name which I will outline in Part 2.)

Why is it so hard? Why are laws sealed? It’s complicated, convoluted, medieval, appalling and simply aggravating – yes, my friends said this – but it can be done. If I could do it, you can do it!

First, there are websites to register your birthdate information on the internet. For many adoptees, a birthdate (and hospital) may be all the information you have. First, look closely at your amended birth certificate issued when you were adopted. The hospital where you were born is probably listed and correct. But may be not! The hospital in Minnesota and county where I was born was correctly listed on my amended birth certificate. (The amended birth certificate is issued after an adoption and lists your adoptive parents as your natural parents.)

Check the date when your birth certificate was notarized and what state signed it. I was born in 1956 but the amended birth certificate wasn’t signed until 1958. Like many adoptees I was born in a state different than where I was adopted. In my case, I was adopted in Wisconsin. Adoptee birth certificates are usually missing information. Mine did not list my birth-weight or inches. Missing information is the sure sign you were in a closed adoption.

There are different types of adoption: Foster-to-Adopt; Infant or newborn adoption; International adoption; Step-child adoption; Semi-open adoption; Older Child adoption; Closed adoption; Relative – Kin adoption; Foster Child adoption; Special Needs adoption; Military Overseas adoption; and Embryo Adoption. If possible, ask your adoptive parents which type of adoption and ask them to show you all the paperwork on your adoption. If your adoptive parents are deceased, you may inherit your adoption paperwork, so you need to read them carefully for clues.

Sadly, adoptive parents are not always the best source of information. Asking them could upset them or they might be unwilling to talk with you. This might be the riskiest step of all. If you are not able to talk to them directly, use another family member to collect the adoption paperwork and information for you. They can explain why to your adoptive parents. A compelling reason might be future medical conditions like diabetes and cancer. They can say you need to know about ancestry, siblings, ethnicity, religious heritage, the genetic background of each birthparent, or possible inherited medical conditions. This is a very sensitive step and careful decisions need to be made to keep the peace between family members but it’s important to get all the information you can.

One example: My adoptive mother saw papers you don’t normally see when they adopted my brother. She had his birthparent’s names but did not write them down. This may be the case for other adoptees. Your adoptive parents may know your birthparents name and what you were named at birth. My adoptive mother told me I was named Helen. That was not my name on the adoption paperwork that I read when I was 22. I was named Laura Jean. My birthmothers name was Helen. So remember some information your adoptive parents have may or may not be correct.

INFORMATION

For adoptees, there are two types of information you will need: identifying and non-identifying. Identifying information is the real deal with real names – yours and your birthmother. Non-identifying information has no names but descriptions.

In the past, nearly all States required a court order for adoptees to gain access to their original birth certificates. In 26 States: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, and Puerto Rico, all require a court order (reported in 2009). This will require a lawyer and a judge in the state you were born.

Access to your identifying information is not always restricted to birth parents and adoptees. In 36 States biological siblings of the adoptee are allowed to seek and release identifying information upon mutual consent. They are: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. Depending on where you were born, adoptees should write a letter and consent to be contacted.

Some States have a search and consent procedure called a confidential intermediary system: States using confidential intermediaries include Alabama (when consent is not on file), Colorado, Illinois (to obtain updated medical information), Michigan (when consent is not on file), Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.

Some States have imposed limitations on the release of identifying information. Arkansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas require the adoptee to undergo counseling about the possible consequences of search and contact with his or her birth family before any information is disclosed. In Connecticut, release of identifying information is prohibited if it is determined that the requested information would be seriously disruptive to any of the parties involved.

Other States use an affidavit system so birth family members can file their consent to the release of identifying information or they can refuse to be contacted and deny the release of identifying information. In Alabama, Alaska, California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the written permission of adoptee and birth parents is called a consent, waiver, or authorization form. Some state laws allow information access: Through a court order when all parties have consented - Idaho, Mississippi, and the Northern Mariana Islands. At the request of the adult adoptee: Alabama, Alaska, Maine, Oregon, and the Virgin Islands.

Never give up, adoptees. It may seem impossible at first but help is out there.

FIRST STEP:

Ask your adoptive parents for your adoption paperwork, if they have it.

Find the Department and Application Website for Your State

According to sources such as U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Child Welfare Information Gateway, states with open adoption records include Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Kansas, New Hampshire, Maine, Oregon and Tennessee. If your adoption took place in one of these states -- or in states such as Massachusetts that allow some adoptees to access their pre-adoption birth certificate -- you can find out how to obtain your original birth certificate by going to the vital records department of that state for the appropriate address and procedure.

Complete the Application

The application form to access an original birth certificate, also known as a pre-adoption birth certificate, asks the adopted adult for information such as your full name, current contact information, place and time of birth, and names of parents if known. Most states require that you include a copy of your state-issued picture ID with the request. This may be a driver's license, a passport, a military identification card or a tribal identification card; follow the specific requirements of your state. Most states charge fees of about $20 to process the request. Wisconsin charged me $50 per hour to search for my adoption file last year. Details about the fees and who the check or money order should be made out to will be included on your state's application, which will outline your options for submitting your materials.

State Vital Records Websites

Specific information from several of the states that allow open access to pre-adoption birth certificates to adopted adults can be found on the websites of the vital records departments of the individual states. The state of Tennessee's website instructs adopted adults to contact its Post Adoption Services office in Nashville. In 1999, the state of Tennessee upheld a 1996 law when its court system concluded that making adoption records accessible "does not impair the vested rights or violate the right to privacy under the Tennessee constitution."

Adoptees need to know what to request, and how much it will cost and what conditions need to be met to access your adoption records and original birth certificate.

STEP TWO

Register with every Reunion Registry:

http://www.isrr.net/  - FREE, The International Soundex Reunion Registry is a non-profit agency founded in 1975 by Emma May Vilardi. ISRR is a mutual consent reunion registry for persons desiring a reunion with next-of-kin. This agency serves the needs of family members who have been separated from each other by adoption, divorce, foster care institutional care, abandonment, etc.

http://www.registry.adoption.com/ - FREE, The Internet’s #1 Adoption Registry.

http://www.gsadoptionregistry.com/ - FREE, for adoptees desiring a reunion with their birth family, or to learn about their medical history and birth family genealogy and for birth mothers, fathers, siblings and birth family members desiring a reunion with the adoptee that was given up for adoption, or to give the adoptee their medical history or birth family genealogy. They offer Search Forms for the US and other countries, helpful links, live chat, state adoption laws, links to support groups, a Black/Grey Market registry for adoptees, and Search Angels.

http://www.adoption-free-search.org/  – FREE, Emergency Medical Locators for Adoptees (EMLA) is a nonprofit organization that conducts free biological searches for those who are in critical need of their family medical histories in times of life-threatening medical crisis. Each year, thousands of adopted men, women, and children lose their precious lives to catastrophic illnesses because they are unaware of their biological medical histories. Many more live day to day without knowing that they are at risk of contracting any number of disorders—including diabetes, heart disease, and many forms of cancer —that could be effectively treated, if not prevented, had they sufficient time, adequate information, and access to what is rightfully theirs: their family medical histories. EMLA is equipped with a worldwide, around-the-clock team of expert emergency medical locators who have successfully retrieved vital information on behalf of countless adoptees facing medical emergencies. This information has ranged from critical data on familial disorders to links that have resulted in lifesaving bone-marrow transplants.

http://adopteebirthparentsupportnetwork.org/ - FREE, The Adoptee-Birthparent Support Network (ABSN) is an all-volunteer search and support group serving those in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC and related areas, whose lives have been affected by adoption. ABSN is an affiliate organization of the American Adoption Congress and is active in adoption reform efforts locally and nationally.

http://www.metroreunionregistry.org/  – FREE, help in searching VA, DC, MD and more!

http://registry.adoption.com/ –FREE, Reunion registry for adoptees, adoptee blogs and information.

http://groups.yahoo.com/search?query=Adoption+Search  – FREE, There are several Adoption Search groups in states like New York, Michigan, South Carolina and more. Look up Adoption Search and your state and join the yahoo search group to get daily emails, advice and free assistance. For example: Finding-in-Florida@yahoogroups.com – This is the Florida Search Angel Group on Yahoo.

http://almasociety.org  – NOT FREE, The Adoptees Liberty Movement Association, or The ALMA Society is a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation funded entirely by registration fees and donations which are tax-deductible. ALMA does not do the search for members. They assist with your search through our chapters and search assistants. They do not act as an intermediary in contacting birth relatives, etc. Registration fee of $50 covers expenses. Volunteers are strictly volunteer. EMAIL: Marie Anderson, manderson@almasociety.org or write a letter to: The ALMA Society, P.O. Box 85, Denville, NJ 07834

http://www.miraclesearch.com/  -NOT FREE, Paul Brown (Private Investigator-Adoptee) offers a free search evaluation but will charge a fee. Their website: We are a premier search organization with two primary search programs for Adoptees, Mothers, Fathers and Siblings separated by adoption: Consultation Approach - We will consult you throughout the search until you find who you are looking for. Our coaching will help you narrow down the choices and identify your biological mother, biological father, or biological siblings. Full Search Approach - We will conduct a full search on your behalf until we locate the individual. We will find your biological father, biological mother, or biological siblings where ever they may reside.

Google Adoption Search Registries for more but these are some that were recommended.

THIRD STEP:

Get your non-identifying (Non-ID) from the state where you were adopted. Non-identifying information includes birthparents age and (in recent years) medical history at the time of the child's birth; their physical description (height, weight, eye color); heritage (religion, national origin, race); number of other children, and whether they’re adopted. More detailed data is collected describing your birthparents, not adoptive parents.

Nearly all States allow the adoptee to access non-identifying information upon written request. Usually the adoptee must be at least age 18 before they may request information. States that allow birth parents and adoptees access to non-identifying information are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia. (This information is current through June 2009.) Also 15 States (Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, and Vermont) give such access to adult birth siblings.

You simply must have your non-identifying paperwork so search angels and registries can post all your information. Put a consent letter in the state files where you were born. LAWS in each state govern when and how adoptees and birthparents may be allowed to contact each other. When both the adopted child and the birthparent want to be found, each can file a "letter of consent" with the appropriate agencies. Read this tutorial:  http://www.gsadoptionregistry.com/beginnerstutorial.html.

Policies on what information is collected and how that information is maintained and disclosed vary by State. Read more: http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/statutes/infoaccessapall.pdf.

FOURTH STEPS:

Go to a judge in the county where you were born and request to read your adoption file. (I did this in Wisconsin in 1978, a sealed record state)

Ask your adoptive parents to file a request for your adoption file and court proceedings. If they signed the documents, the adoptive parents have the legal right to request them and read them with the adoptee. Your birthmother had to sign the paperwork, too.

File a court order through an attorney to access your adoption file citing the reasons why you need this information. (Use medical reasons)

Contact a local newspaper where you were born and tell a reporter your story, and follow up especially if you find your parent or sibling. Some adoptees run ads in newspapers or create a Facebook Page with their birthdate. There are free ads on Craig’s list. One adoptee wrote a tribal newspaper and his siblings recognized him in his photo and contacted him right away. Use the media!

Contact your own state’s Social Services/Human Services and work with a social worker to gain access your adoption file.

Use SEARCH ANGELS: Search Angels like Soaring Angels http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SoaringAngels  and Mary Weilding’s I-CARE in Wisconsin are volunteers who help you though all aspects of the complex process of a search, from start to finish. They may direct you to Web pages or other resources that you may need to explore. Some may ask for gas and expenses for their time and effort to search records.

Use Mutual Consent Registries - they are available in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and West Virginia. A mutual consent registry requires at least one person from the birth family and one from the adoptee/child's family to register. These registries often fail to work because birth certificates are often falsified in closed adoptions when birthdates may be altered or incorrect. The original adoption agency from 10, 20 or 30 years ago may no longer be in business. Or, the birthparent or adoptee may not know or remember the agency's name or address (or state or country). Also, accidents happen, so mutual consent-forms that were filed previously may have been lost or damaged, due to fire or flood or human error. Plus, some adoptions did not involve agencies at all, or were not fully legal, so there may be very few (or zero) paper-trails or current-day administrators or storehouses of the adoption agencies’ paperwork. Mutual consent is not the best but do it.

Helpful SUGGESTIONS:

Watch “Adoptees - Knowing Your Family History Can Save Your Life” by Jean Strauss: http://vimeo.com/23282016 .  The Surgeon General of the United States and top geneticists concur - family medical history is a key component of a person's health. He said for adopted Americans, even knowing your original last name can be of great benefit, for it may give clues to their ethnic heritage. Access to information could, quite possibly, save your life. Get educated on why you need to open your adoption and have the tools to make your case when you speak to your adoptive parents, the media and others who inquire.

If you need help and support, visit: http://www.adoptionhealing.com/ - Adoption Healing is the largest network in the world for helping those separated by adoption with over 400 adoption search and support groups worldwide. A not-for-profit 501(c) 3 charity, Adoption Healing has adoption-related literature, support groups, healing weekends, conferences and a nightly chat. They are dedicated to helping people who have been separated by adoption to find each other.

Remember, knowledge is power. Every adoptee must do the emotional work to be ready for the next steps which include the searches and reunions. It will take more courage and persistence. The adoptees I know seem to have that in abundance!

UPDATE: LAWS in Washington state, Rhode Island and Missouri have changed so it is very crucial that you check with your state as to its laws. Some adoptive parents WERE allowed to change your place of birth so adoptees may have only their birthdate to start with. Just be aware that it is difficult to search if you don't know WHERE you were born!

Part 2 (2015) here: https://blog.americanindianadoptees.com/2015/03/states-with-open-adoption-records.html

(Copy and paste, print, or share this with every adoptee you know, please! Megwetch.. Thank you.