48 How to Find Your Original Birth Certificate If You Have Been Adopted: 11 October 2024

If you were adopted after birth, you probably want to know who your biological parents were. In most cases, getting a copy of your original birth certificate will let you do this. Your original birth certificate will almost certainly identify your biological mother, and it may also identify your biological father. Your original birth certificate may contain additional details such as the addresses of your parents and their occupations.

While researching my book “Sailing to The Moon”*, I worked out many strategies to make progress in my research. One particular dead end concerned my immediate family. As a child, mum had told me I had an older “sister” who had been “stillborn”. She also told me I would have been American if she had accepted a marriage proposal from an American serviceman.

* Sailing to The Moon is not yet finished. I hope to finish it and publish it in 2025

While writing Sailing to the Moon, I started looking for my “sister”. My research resulted in a paper how to do it called “You Have Been Adopted: How Can You Find Your Original Birth Certificate?”.  If you click on this link, you can read and download a copy of my paper.

Unfortunately, because of limits imposed in most countries on the availability of birth records, I cannot promise that you will always be able to locate your original birth record – but if you follow

the steps set out in my paper, many of you will finally be able to identify your biological mother

and (perhaps) your biological father.

 

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Mum and dad married in March 1945 so I looked for a record for my sister after their marriage but before the birth of my older brother.  I found no birth record for my “sister”.  I learned the UK keeps a separate register of stillborn babies, so I asked for my sister’s record.  I was stunned when most of my application fee was refunded.  There was no record of my “stillborn” sister.

After the news from the stillbirth registry, I connected the story of my lost “sister” and mum’s story about the marriage proposal from an American soldier stationed in Liverpool during WW 2.

Mum had been 15 when WW 2 started in 1939.  Her father - my maternal grandfather - had died in 1938 when mum was 14 and living in Bootle, north of Liverpool city centre.

American soldiers began arriving in Liverpool early in 1942 and an American Army base was established at Aintree Racecourse in 1943.  Bootle and Aintree Racecourse are within walking distance of each other and Bootle is about 3.2 kilometres (2 miles) from Aintree.  Mum turned became 18 in 1942 and was 19 when the Aintree army base was established in 1943.

I realised that if an American serviceman had proposed marriage 1942 or 1943, mum would certainly have said yes, so the father of my sibling must have been mum’s American soldier fiancée - but mum never married her American fiancée and her marriage to dad did not happen until March 1945.  I realised my “sister” had not been stillborn but had been born alive.  Unfortunately, my “sister” was born to a single mother at a time when unmarried mothers and their children were rejected and were seen as “disposable”, embarrassing burdens.  My “sister” had almost certainly been born alive and then forcibly adopted after birth.

Dad’s youngest brother unexpectedly contacted me through Ancestry.  When I met him, he confirmed mum did indeed have a child before she met dad, but he did not know if it was a boy or a girl.  The child had been born alive and had been taken by the nuns running the unmarried mothers’ home where mum’s baby was born.  Presumably, the child had been adopted.  Unfortunately, dad never revealed any specific details – perhaps he never knew them

I then began a search for my “sister”, working out various strategies to help me find her.  The research paper available for downloading at the end of this blog is a result of my search for my lost sibling, whom I have not yet found my “sister”.  All of my searches were made on the basis that my sibling was a sister.  Having found no trace of my “sister”, I now think my “sister” was not a sister but a brother.  When I have the time, I will resume the search, but this time looking for a lost brother.

Even though I have not yet found my lost sibling, I hope the strategies set out in this paper will help some adopted children to find their biological parents.  I have written this paper to help you do this.  Before you start your search using this paper, I point out because this paper is based on probabilities and assumptions, there can be no guarantee of success.

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Yes, I REALLY have written a paper on how to do this - and yes in many cases, but unfortunately NOT in all – if you have been adopted, you will be able to find your original birth certificate if you follow the steps set out in my paper.

This is the link to the “how to do it“ paper I have written on how to find your original birth certificate – meaning the one issued before you were adopted.

 

“How to Find Your Original Birth Record” - https://hankinredden.au/documents