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Unseal Adoption Records – Opening the Past
Adoption records are often sealed to ensure that birth parents and the child
they have given up for adoption are kept secret. But if you want to have your
adoption records unsealed, there is a way…
To unseal adoption records is to allow everyone, primarily those who were
adopted, to have complete access to the adopted child’s birth records. However,
open adoption records were not always the norm. Before the popularity of open
adoption records, sealed adoption records ensured that there would be no contact
between the birth parents and the child that they gave up for adoption.
In fact, it was usually a lawyer or an adoption agency that would arrange for
the adoption, providing the adopting family with hardly any information about
the birth parents. The identity of the birth parents was kept a secret for a
number of reasons, with the protection of the child foremost among them.
This also allowed the adopting parents to keep the status of the child's
adoption a secret not only among themselves but within the community. The birth
certificate of the child is changed upon adoption and the child never gets to
see the original birth certificate in a sealed adoption.
As of late, however, there have been movements toward the unsealing of adoption
records primarily for purposes of returning to individual roots and discovering
their true identity. Although there are only four states in the United States
that allow for full open access to adoption records, there is an ongoing
campaign for this legislation to be passed in other states as well.
How to Unseal Adoption Records
You can unseal adoption records that rightfully belong to you through a court
order or a legal action. Oftentimes, you need to provide some justification as
to why you would like your own adoption records unsealed and it must prove that
it is for the benefit of all involved parties.
In some states, you need to go through a search and consent procedure to have
your adoption records unsealed. A third party agency is often responsible for
getting in touch with the birth parents or the adopted child to ask if they are
amenable to meeting each other. It is only when both parties have given their
consent does an encounter take place.
A mutual consent registry is another way in which you can have your adoption
records unsealed. If both parties register, then the information that will help
identify the other party will be shared and a reunion can be arranged on their
own. If you want to unseal adoption records, the road is often long and
difficult, but the reward could be lifelong contentment.
Tip: Even if you may not think so, your birth records may offer some
clues regarding your adoption. Check out our list of
birth records search
providers for valuable information
regarding birth record searches.
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