Hi Nora -- Speaking of birth certificate irregularities, you jogged my memory. When I adopted my foster daughter in WA State (circa early 1970s), I was amazed that my husband and I were issued an "official-looking" birth certificate that listed us as if we HAD actually been the parents - our names, our ages at the time of birth, our address, even my husband's occupation. (It did have the original/correct birth date and hospital and doctor, I believe.). In those days it was believed to be beneficial to all parties involved to keep details of an adoption inaccessible, in sealed files. After being registered foster parents for the State and having this wonderful little girl part of our family for over two years, you can imagine how devastated we were when notified by the State that we had to give her up as she was finally free legally for adoption. We were heartbroken and decided to hire a lawyer and fight the system. We prevailed, although the chances of success, per the lawyer, had been overwhelmingly against us. (Perhaps rules regarding adoption by foster parents have subsequently loosened). Whether or not her original birth certificate still exists in some legal file, or has been expunged, I don't know. While I was ecstatic to be able to adopt her, I also felt somewhat dishonest in having been issued a "dummy" certificate. Prior to that, we had been advised by our lawyer that we might want to change her given name. I remembering thinking at that time that her name was the only thing she had left of her birth mother, so we did not change her first name but I did change her middle name. I imagine at that time all this was done to somehow "protect" the child from the truth, protect us from interference by the birth parents, who were forced to relinquish their legal rights against their will. Before we began the adoption process, we had been told by the State that while they recognized that we had taken good care of her, we were "only foster parents" and to "stay in our place - if we continued to "buck the system" we could never be foster parents again. Because we had four children of our own, they wanted to place her with a childless family. That made sense to them, but they totally disregarded any feelings or bond that now existed between thiis little girl and our family. (It should be noted that when they placed her with us at age 11 months, no one from the State called or came out to check on her to see how she was doing for seven months!) Worst of all, they went so far as to coldly offer us another child in her place, an older child, or one of mixed race or with a handicap. that we could adopt if we would just agree to give up our foster daughter gracefully. They said that because she was young, healthy, blond and Caucasian, that there were hundreds of childless couples on their list who would want to adopt her. Of course, we loved her and rejected that offer! After hiring a lawyer and being persistent - and with all the anguish involved in worrying that she might be taken away at any moment, the legal fees, the one-year background check by an adoption agency - we ultimately prevailed. And we told our daughter right from the start that she had been adopted by us because we loved her and could not bear to lose her. When she turned 18, we decided to petitioned a judge for her medical records and I was verbally given a few facts including (begrudgingly) the birth surname. As it turned out, the surname was unusual enough I discovered her aunt and uncle in town via the phone book on my second try!. (In fact, I was so taken aback, I hung up to collect my thoughts and did not call them back for a week). The aunt and uncle were delighted and came over the very next day with their photo album containing snapshots of our daughter as an infant and her birth family. Unfortunately, as it turned out, her birth parents all these years later were continuing their unhealthy lifestyles - but my adopted daughter was glad, nonetheless, that she had the opportunity to meet them (her birth father died shortly afterward) and now knew her roots. (She also told me that she was glad that we had adopted her). She has subsequently meet half-sibs and a grandmother with whom she is close, and she and her birth mother have met and now correspond by mail. My adopted daughter, ever the optomist, feels now that her birth mother had subsequently "straightened out her life." Her birth mother has phoned me (in tears) to thank me for letting her know that her daughter was safe, to say that she had thought about her every day and was happy to have the opportunity to renew ties. Although certainly less than a perfect outcome, I feel I made the right choice in searching for her birth parents, for her sake and for her birth mother's sake. I have also been able to trace her family genealogically with the use of USA Federal Censuses. Some state adoption files are no longer closed to the public, perhaps WA State is one of them. We haven't pursued this further, although I guess we should. Jean ----- Original Message ----- From: <Irishcolleen45@aol.com> To: <IRISH-AMERICAN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 6:00 AM Subject: [Irish-American] adoption and applying for Irish citizenship > Hi listers, > > Just want to share this with you. I was at a wake last night and was > reacquainted with a late cousin's son. My cousin died in 1972 when his son was two > years old. My cousin's wife remarried in 1974. Her new husband wanted to > adopt the son but the son didn't want to give up his surname. When the son > was 16, he agreed to be adopted by his step father as long as the son could > keep his surname. Apparently that is allowed at 16 (New York State). > > Fast forward to this year. The son wants to apply for Irish citizenship > (his paternal grandparents were both born in Ireland) and tried to get a copy of > his original birth certificate. He couldn't. It was expunged at the time > of adoption. Fortunately for him, his mother did have a copy of the original. > > Has anyone ever a problem like this? > > > > Nora Hopkins FitzGerald > Searching for Fahey/Hogan/Keane/Hopkins in Chicago > Hopkins - Castlebar, Co. Mayo/New York City > Grant - Drumboniff, Co. Down/NYC