Mimi Reed wrote the court house guide http://www.rootsweb.com/~pahuntin/courthouse.htm so I asked her about adoption records. She referred me to this excellent explanation of PA Adoption records - http://www.bastards.org/activism/local/pa/paseal.htm Mimi, who isn't subbed to the mailing list, said --- and I quote her here --- "From the Register and Recorder of Huntingdon County I learned that adoptions which took place in Huntingdon County prior to 1954 were not sealed. I have found adoptions in the continuance dockets prior to that time, although I didn't go looking for any real late ca 1940s adoptions to prove the point. The later ones I can assure you are sealed, as the padlocked docket attests. "It has been my experience that whenever officialdom, especially at the state level, is officially approached about adoption they say everything is sealed because they don't want to touch the issue. While I do not work with adoptees and have done almost no research on the issue in PA, I did have one client who was adopted in 1945 from a PA county. When she asked for her adoption records she was told she could have them if she could prove that all parties to the adoption were dead. At the time that I did this research I also did some research into adoption in PA. Please see the attachment I have enclosed." The attachment was a .doc version of what's on the page for which that link is provided, above, which can't be included here as we can't send attachments to RootsWeb mailing list messages. Mimi also said, "If this person's mother was adopted I would suggest that she go to the county where they think the adoption took place, and without announcing that they are looking for an adoption (at which point they will be told they are all sealed), that she look at the continuance dockets, for her surname name both in the plaintiff and defendant indexes. "Any further questions can be addressed to the Register and Recorder in Huntingdon County. Feel free to mention my CH guide as the source of information." --- Mimi Reed Be sure to read the court house guide at http://www.rootsweb.com/~pahuntin/courthouse.htm if you have further questions. There are links on the page to the court site and a contact email. Hope this helps, Judy