Genealogy: What is the best way to find adoption record for a deceased relative?

Question

I am working on my family tree and my father's mother (my grandmother) was adopted. She did not know this until late in her life when she went to get a passport to travel out of the US. She was born in 1925 or 1926, and the only record I can find of her online is the 1930 census, in which her information is filled out as if her adoptive parents are her true parents. Apparently it was a big "hush-hush" secret that her adoptive parents tried to convince her of her whole life, so she never had any indication of being adopted until late. How can I use genealogical resources to locate her adoption record or birth record or both? My ultimate goal is to find out the names of her birth parents to begin tracing their ancestry. Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

First thing I picked up on when you said it was "Hush, hush" and that she found out late in life and was not enumerated as adopted is the possibility that she is the child of a relative, perhaps even the child of your great-grandparents daughter. If you email me her name and location in the 1930 I will see what I can do. I have dealt with uncovering adoptions and much depends on the state where the adoption took place. Beware that many births under scandalous circumstances took place in the house and were never properly recorded, or were recorded as the child of the adoptive parents. Even today, it would be very easy for me, a registered nurse, to keep my teen daughter's pregnancy a secret, have her give birth at home, and register the birth as the child of me and my husband. The state cannot compel you to have a midwife present or force you to have an exam to prove you gave birth, and it was even easier back then. I have people in my family tree whose birth was kept secret and the child was "adopted" or raised by the parents and had to later get a birth certificate based on affidavits.

Answer 2

The answer, simply enough, is that you can't find the records. In that era, most children never had a birth certificate...my own father never did. The only records most of them used were their baptismal records if they had to prove their age. Secondly, not all adoptions went through a court. Because there were no records to change, a family could simply take in the child, give her their name, present her as their child, and that was the end of it.



Even if it did go through a court and did have a birth certificate, one of the steps in the adoption process is to amend the original birth certificate to remove the names and identifying information of the birth parents and replace it with the information of the adoptive parents. The last step in the process was to seal all records by court order IN PERPETUITY. If she is still alive and knows where the adoption took place, she alone can petition to have the records opened. But that assumes the adoption ever went through the courts and that she knows which court handled it...which is rarely the court in the county where her parents lived at the time. It would have been the court in the county where the adoption agency was located.



Your odds of ever getting anywhere in this search are less than 1% if your grandmother is no longer alive...and maybe 10% if she is alive. Things were very, very different back then.

Answer 3

the word "challenge" was invented for adoption searches.

My advice is to do everything you can to get acquainted with the older family members, one of whom MIGHT have the clues, or know the story. Do what you can to fill out the family tree as much as possible ie allied families, etc. In laws... Many adoptions (like my son in law) were sister of a friend of a cousins wife... someone known to the family.

No, the odds are not good. On the other hand, I found an adoption affidavit for a family member, recorded among the land records. I think they wanted to insure it being official and didn't know what else to do with it. This was from 1869.

In short.. be realistic about your odds, but continue to search as if you didn't.

Answer 4

You won't find this online... at least I haven't been able too... you will have to go to the COURT that issued the Adoption Decree... they will have the records and you can get a copy... and good luck... many of those older records have not survived one of the many courthouse fires that have destroyed the direct link for so many people doing geologies

Answer 5

The best way might be to go to the courthouse (they should have records of her dob & dod. You may have to show ID of your name, if you both have the same last name it shouldn't be a problem there. Tell them you're working on a family tree and you need this information for it. They should give it to you.



Good Luck.