Adoption Records

Whether you yourself were adopted and are looking for your biological roots, or you come across an ancestor you know or suspect may have different blood relations, this research can be complicated and difficult. Contemporary adoption cases may be fraught with legal restrictions, and may need cooperation from all living parties involved (the child, the birth parents, and the adoptive parents). Earlier adoptions may lack official documentation, have difficult to find records, or were not recorded at all. All cases carry with them an emotional weight that should be handled with care.

You may be starting from a blank slate or have some known information already. Like with all genealogy research, the first thing you do is start with what you know. Write down or what you already know, and how you have learned this information as well as any sources you may need to record. It may help to build a family tree with estimated ages and possible birth dates of parents or unknown individuals.

Go through the basic steps of genealogy research and see if they apply - is there anyone alive you can interview? Any home sources you may be able to uncover? Make a timeline of events, map known locations, and create a clear research plan with objectives.

A few questions to consider during your research:

When did the adoption take place?
- View this Timeline of Adoption History to understand more about the events taking place in that time. Might your ancestor have been a part of a child emmigration movement like the Orphan Trains for example? Read more about those movements further down this page.
- The Minnesota Act of 1917 made adoption records confidential. Before this they were open to the public, and you may be able to find what you need in vital record collections or by requesting them from local courthouses where the adoption took place. Keep in mind not all adoptions were official or recorded.
Where did the adoption take place?
- If you are an adult adoptee in the state of Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Hawai’i, Kansas, Oregon, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, or Rhode Island you have unrestricted access to your original birth certificate, thanks to adoptee rights organizations like Bastard Nation and others.
- Look up federal and state laws related to adoption. Look up statues on who can access original birth certificates, who can request non-identifying information, as the laws vary by state.
- Track down the adoption agencies and child welfare programs in the state of the adoption that may be able to help you with your research: National Foster Care & Adoption Directory Search
Are you able to closely examine the adoptee’s adoptive family (the family they lived with)?
- Might the birth mother have been an older “sister” or other relative, that may have been too young or unmarried at the time to care for the child?
- Were the parents given any documents or photographs from the birth family?
- Are the parents or family members willing to interview with you to discuss the process and any memories they may have?
- Was the family religious? Might they have taken in someone in need through their church?
- Did the father have any relatives, like a brother or nephew, that died leaving children behind? When early courts appointed guardianship of a minor in the event of death, they were likely to appoint the closest male relative.

Types of Records to Research for Adoption:

Adoption records, including:
- Non-identifying information about the birth parents: generally this information is available to the adoptee when they reach a certain age, such as eighteen, with a written request. This information can include their own date and location of birth, the birth parent’s age and physical description like hair and eye color, their medical history, ethnicity, religion, education, occupation, as well as if their parents had other children, and possibly the reason for adoption.
- Original birth records: kept by the state registrar of vital records, laws vary by state on who can access. You may need a court order.
- Court papers: showing the adoption details and appointment
- Certificate of Adoption: some states create documents, forms, and paper trails that may be sealed with the adoption records and / or given to the adoptive family.
Census records: children in a guardianship or apprenticeship may show up with other families, others may show up in an orphanage or home, or may even be listed as an inmate in an institution.
- Look for children to show up with relatives, or on lists of orphanages or agencies. Look for abbreviations like “AD” in the relationship column to stand for adopted. Keep in mind even if they showed on lists of orphanages, their mother may still have been alive. Legally through the mid-19th century, children were called orphans if their father died. Other times one or more parent was still living and a child was sent to an orphanage for a brief amount of time because the family was too poor to care for them.
- Did you find them in a home in the 1880 census? See if they were freed in the special census schedule: Defective, Dependent and Delinquent
City Directories: find orphanages and homes near the place of adoption
Court Records, from the county the adoption took place in, may include:
- Guardianship appointments (early adoptions): was he or she sent to work for another family because their birth family was too poor to care for them, or to help provide? Or were they appointed a guardian in the event of a parent’s death? If a child was appointed a guardian, perhaps because of their father’s death, the guardian may have been their closest male relative.
- Apprenticeship or servitude records (early adoptions): was your subject a servant or apprentice? Even young infants may be shown as “bound unto” others, to work for them until they reach a certain age to help raise money for their biological family, or because their own family could not afford to keep them. Court records may show this binding-out or apprenticeship.
- Probate Records or Wills: may list a minor child or dependent in a will, giving guardianship to a relative or other person
- Quit-claims, in which parents surrender children (this is rare)
County histories and commissioner logbooks, can show old court cases of adoption and guardianship
Church records: parish notes about the community, baptism records, or certificates can be requested from the local parish, archdiocese, or archives, with some collections available online. See Church Records for more information.
Financial records: may show record of a payment to an adoption agency or individual
Hospital records: may be restricted to adoptee or adoptive family, and may not keep records for a long period of time.
Newspapers: look for adoption notices or stories
Poor farm or poorhouse records, also called almshouses, if the child became a ward of the state. They could show up on census records or indexes of poor farms.

Child Emmigration Movements

Orphan Trains in the US: From 1854 to 1929, hundreds of thousands of children were moved on trains from orphanages and other agencies from New York to the Midwest, to be adopted by families and put to work on farms and in fields. It was the idea of Charles Loring Brace, founder of the Children’s Aid Society. Read more about the Orphan Trains on History.com
British Home Children sent to Canada and Elsewhere: From 1869 to the late 1930’s, thousands of poor and orphaned British children were sent to Canada, to be adopted by local Canadian families in exchange for help on the farm or in the house. Research British Home Children on the Library and Archives Canada. These “Home Children” were also sent from the UK to Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa (wikipedia). Many of these children suffered from abuse and hard labour conditions, and some left siblings and living family members behind.
British Children to the Colonies: As early as 1618, the destitute children in England were rounded up and shipped to the Colonies to help with labour, starting with 100 children sent to the Virginia Colony.
Jewish Minors fleeing Nazi Europe: Around World War II, many of those fleeing Nazi Europe where unaccompanied children, who found refuge in places like Mandatory Palestine (now Israel). Others were moved from cities across England to more rural places, or other countries. Read more about Evacuations of Civilians in Britain
Native American Children Sent to Boarding Schools: Across America and Canada, Native American children were taken from their families and forced to attend boarding schools, often called “Indian Residential Schools” in an attempt to assimilate them. Read the wiki of Cultural Assimilations of Native Americans.

Using DNA to find your roots

Use a home testing kit from Ancestry.com or 23andme.com (or multiple tests, for more results). If someone with matching DNA has also taken the test, they will show up under your matches - if there are any. Contact these matches, whether they are close family members or distant cousins, to see if they can offer you any insight on your biological family. You can also upload your raw DNA to other databases like GEDmatch to expand your chances of getting matches. Read more about DNA Testing.
In addition to using DNA to attempt to find others related to you, these tests will give you a heritage, a broad overview of your ancestry and ethnicities. You may discover you are 12% Irish for example.
Use your DNA data on sites like Adopted.com to match with others
Wiki: DNA testing for adoptees - from the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) , many helpful links
Visit DNAadoption.org to understand “the Methodology” they use for grouping DNA matches