This is a great question I'll answer in a thread. If I miss any details hopefully someone else will chime in (1/x) - ThreadSky

anxiousrage.bsky.social • 53 days ago

This is a great question I'll answer in a thread. If I miss any details hopefully someone else will chime in (1/x)

Reposted from ✪ Jonathan H. Gray says: “Beware the Tide Pods of March” ✪

How (why????) do adopted people not have access to their original birth certificates? I legit don’t understand that

Comments

Read the whole thread and Sweet Jesus.

I’d thought about adopting since I don’t have a partner and thus, no children. Now what seems like it would a wonderful thing to do (one of my cousins was adopted and she’s told me she’s glad she was given her birth parents whom she’s met) seems… horrible?!??

anxiousrage.bsky.social•53 days ago

I think I told you I’m an adoptive parent. I have learned so much from adopted people + families of origin and my perspective on our systems of family separation has completely changed. I now believe that they’re deeply unethical, oppressive and don’t center the needs of vulnerable young people.

anxiousrage.bsky.social•53 days ago

(2/x) The practice started with social worker Georgia Tann. In the 1920s she was literally kidnapping the children of poor families and selling them to big name clients (Joan Crawford was one). She would change the children's birth certs (naming their adopters as their parents) to cover her tracks

anxiousrage.bsky.social•53 days ago

(3/x) Sealing original birth certs + creating "amended" ones that falsely name adopters as the parents wasn't a widespread practice enshrined in law in the US until the '30s. Good overview of the history by @bastardnation.bsky.social

anxiousrage.bsky.social•53 days ago

(4/x) @janinebaer.bsky.social wrote a book about this!

anxiousrage.bsky.social•53 days ago

(5/x) It's not a global norm to change the birth certificates of children who are being raised by people who aren't their parents (I'm pretty sure it only happens in the US and UK)

The practice is also a clear violation of their rights.

anxiousrage.bsky.social•53 days ago

(6/x) Article 8 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states: "Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference."

Surprise! The US never ratified this

anxiousrage.bsky.social•53 days ago

(7/x) VA Adoptee Rights Alliance has a good run down of myths that have propped up this practice.

drbaseball.bsky.social•53 days ago

I think it happens/happened in Canada too. I’m adopted and had no access to information about my birth parents until I was in my late 20s

anxiousrage.bsky.social•53 days ago

Thank you! I forgot about Canada. I’m sorry adopted people there are experiencing similar things

annaleela.bsky.social•53 days ago

It happened in Australia too. While it is now possible to access birth records, there is a long wait. There is a legal process to have original birth certificate reinstated but must prove bio relationship (Ancestry DNA not accepted) and have to sever link with adoptive family.

guswatanabe.bsky.social•53 days ago

It happens in Canada too. I've never seen my original birth certificate.

toffph.bsky.social•53 days ago

There's some indication many states may have been making ABCs in practice before it was specifically authorized by law. In a 1936 NY Governor's Message report under "III. Correction of Birth Records [...] Upon the Adoption of a Child":

toffph.bsky.social•53 days ago

"The majority of the states allow a correction in the birth record so as to give the name of the foster parents in the cases of children who are adopted. Many of these states do it as a matter of practice, implying their power to do so from some general provision in the law."

toffph.bsky.social•53 days ago

Possibly looking at old rules & regulations and newsletters of state vital statistics departments would turn up more on this point.

queenofdragonpass.bsky.social•53 days ago

There's a Behind the Bastards episode about this absolute ghoul! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs1gr7ETmIQ

misterhickson.bsky.social•53 days ago

And she got covered in an episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/The_Children_of_Georgia_Tann

lampjaded.bsky.social•53 days ago

I was adopted in Scotland in 1971 and was able to see my originals because it was Scotland; if it had been England or Wales, I was told I would be out of luck.

fourmoyle.bsky.social•52 days ago

📌

agtmadcat.bsky.social•53 days ago

Huh. Good thread, thanks. I didn't even know that this was a thing, and now I'm mad at it. I hope this stupid system can get corrected sooner rather than later!

guswatanabe.bsky.social•53 days ago

1) I was told I'd have to ask a court to unseal my adoption record. While born in Newfoundland & Labrador, my adoption was finalized in Ontario so all my records are there.

NL was able to provide a copy of my birth registration which clearly stated the name of the woman who birthed me.

guswatanabe.bsky.social•53 days ago

2) I learned in my late 40s for the first time in my life that I was baptized as Catholic mere weeks after my birth. I hadn't known.

It made me wonder what other info had been withheld from me that is central to my identity.

Who decided what I am allowed to know or not know? I'm not a child.

guswatanabe.bsky.social•53 days ago

3) In the end, the post-adoption social worker I had spoken with was wrong. After I pushed for more of my file, I was given more. There was my original birth certificate, w/o a court order. It was a B&W copy and redacted. My own name on my BC redacted.

Why did I have to ask twice? FFS.

othurone.bsky.social•53 days ago

Timely thread. Adopted and after 63 years finally doing the DNA tests. Shall see what that yields before seeing if I can pry anything out of Cuyahoga County, OH.

anxiousrage.bsky.social•53 days ago

I’m sorry you have to do so much work to get info you should be entitled to. Wishing you the best of luck and that whatever you find gives you at least some of what you need 💜

knighted2.bsky.social•53 days ago

If you haven’t already done so, check out the https://adopteerightslaw.com website which has info on all the various US states, including Ohio.

knighted2.bsky.social•53 days ago

Good luck with the DNA testing! Have you gotten non-identifying info from your state yet? Sometimes even non-identifying info yields clues that help in the search. And sometimes they mess up and don’t redact all the identifying information.

othurone.bsky.social•52 days ago

I’m quite a while from really digging in, so nothing yet but this thread is giving me cool sites to check - sweet.

steamrob42.bsky.social•53 days ago

📌

stefene.bsky.social•53 days ago

for whatever reason, my mother had a copy of both my and my brother's original birth certificates from
the mid 60s. names and all.

johneola2.bsky.social•53 days ago

This I did not know.

s4lt0r11.bsky.social•52 days ago

I don't entirely get the emotional toll, I get the rights issues, but additionally, jesus, what if you have an unaddressed heritable condition?
It's hard enough with how little my family likes to talk and has separations to know as is for me to answer doctors on these questions.

adoptee.bsky.social•52 days ago

Spent the day with my best friend, who has always known I'm adopted. She has two adopted grandchildren. She didn't know that our birth certificates are falsified documents. She was shocked to hear it, and now wonders what is on her grandchildren's birth certificates.

basedacid.bsky.social•53 days ago

Always screengrab when quoting adversarial persons/materials. Always.
cc @audiojillian.bsky.social

anxiousrage.bsky.social•53 days ago

They might just be blocked for you

basedacid.bsky.social•53 days ago

Understood. Probably bc I follow someone I don't agree with. I do it a lot. Blocklists are for the weak and a scourge of good social media. Block me because of what I say, not because of who I follow. I'd follow both Hitler and Churchill during WW2. Call it a principle. Peace and success, my friend.

audiojillian.bsky.social•53 days ago

No block on my end, but if you need it…

notalegalrecord.net•52 days ago

thank you for working so hard to educate people about this, A. 🙏🏻❤️

anxiousrage.bsky.social•52 days ago

GM! Of course. 💜💜 I’m impressed only one person (so far) showed up to yell at me about privacy

notalegalrecord.net•52 days ago

anything i say to those folks will end up catching me a block.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply