> From: [email protected] > Subject: [BKM] Adoption > To: [email protected] > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" > > Dear All, > Can SKS please tell me if there were adoption records in the late > 1890s/early 1900s and where would I look? My grandmother was > adopted. Heather Webb > There was no offical adoption until the 1926 Act came into force. before that, a child was sometimes taken into another family unofficially, either because the natural parent/s were relatives, or because the child was fostered to them by some relative who paid or because an arrangement was made either by a Union of parishes, a church or a charitable society. There will not normally be any sort of record of this, since 90% of the 'adoptions' did not involve officials at all. Very occasionally, if the Union (workhouse) arranged the fostering of a baby, the fosterers took a liking and kept it. In this case, there could be the first placement note in Workhouse records - but you would need to know which workhouse, before you could pursue this. I would check very carefully to see if the 'adoptrers' are in any way related to the natural parents - childless sisters or aunties did sometimes take on their relative's child.