Is it possible to get an adopted individuals birth records if they are sealed?
My grandmother was adopted and we know nothing about her family. She was always told that her parents were killed in a car accident, but I seriously doubt the validity of that story. My grandmother has passed away and my grandfather had attempted more than once to obtain her birth/adoption records before his death, but each time he was denied. Once he was told that the courthouse that held the records had burned down and all the records were destroyed. Another time he was told he couldn't get them because they were sealed. She had a rare hereditary blood disorder so we are interested in finding her family to see if anyone else may have it and also so my Daddy can finally find his biological family on her side. My Daddy and I both have taken Ancestry's DNA test, but it's been a long process trying to sort out his paternal matches from his maternal matches and I haven't had any luck with that yet.
The rumor was that she was born Ora Elizabeth Acres in 1920 or 1921, but her name was changed to Marie Elizabeth Cosper when she was adopted. She was adopted by William Rounsville Cosper and Rosa Bell Traylor Cosper when she was a year old. They lived in Randolph County, Alabama at the time.
Any help or direction you could give would be greatly appreciated. We've been looking for a really long time and just can't seem to find anything.
Answers
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Alabama Birth Records are unsealed for the adoptee. I am not sure if you can access these for a relative though. You might need to clarify this. If you contact the State of Alabama and ask for clarification, please share the results with us.
https://www.alabamapublichealth.gov/vitalrecords/adoption-information.html
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My grandmother was adopted in Clanton, Chilton Alabama... it is noted in her records in the birth index online.... perhaps you can find info this way? I mean we always knew the circumstances of her birth and adoption, but if we hadn’t , we woulda found it that way. Maybe you can check the records on FS for Alabama. Also check Probate Records
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I am surprised how many adoptees from a previous generation were told the "parents died in a car crash" story. I think that stories were often invented to make it easier for a child to accept their new reality. There was so much secrecy and deception, but this was the way that people thought would be the best for children. Research is now proving that honesty and openness is often a better approach. It is true that not all birth parents are safe to have a connection with, but I do believe that adults should know the circumstances of their birth, and that many children can understand some of the situations when they are young.
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For sorting DNA matches you now have the capability of sorting matches with colored dots for custom groups. There's an article at Ancestry about how to create a group: https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/Grouping-and-Filtering-AncestryDNA-Matches.
The next step will help determine the great-grandparents of a match.
Create a group from the first "Second Cousin" of your matches & tag them with a colored dot.
Tag each of their Shared Matches with the same colored dot.
Go back to the Second Cousins on your match list -- select the next Second Cousin match who doesn't have a colored dot. Create a new group/new color, and mark all of their shared matches. Rinse & repeat until the matches have dots.
These colored dots are now the prospective great-grandparents. For the matches with trees, look for names in their trees that are the same or similar. Start building a tree of the matches.
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Thank you all so much for the great tips! I'm really excited to try these and see what I can come up with!
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