Adoption

A-Z how to find information > Finding people

	Are you an adopted person looking for birth family or are you looking for someone who was adopted? If so, you can contact services that specially help people who have been adopted and their families To begin, take a look at the Adoption Search Reunion web site, developed by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) The web site is intended to be 'the first port of call for anyone thinking about searching for or making contact with birth and adopted relatives or researching an adoption that took place in the UK' The web site helps you search for the location of adoption records and for registered Adoption Support Agencies in your area that can offer you help in your search. The site also explains the legislation relating to your search and gives advice on how to approach reunions Other helpful organisations are listed on the links page of BAAF's main web site. One of these is the National Organisation for Counselling Adoptees and Parents (NORCAP), a charity providing help and support for people who are adopted, birth relatives of adopted people and adoptive families. It has a large Adoption Contact Register If you are adopted, you can apply to the General Register Office for access to your original birth record. See the General Register Office Adoptions page If you are a birth relative you may also apply for access to an adopted person’s adoption registration but this must be done through an intermediary agency. See the General Register Office Adoptions page If you are adopted, or if you are a birth parent or other relative of someone who was adopted, you can ask for your name and address to be added to the Adoption Contact Register at the General Register Office. See the General Register Office Adoptions page. If a connection is found, the General Register Office sends the adopted person the details of the relatives and informs the relatives that a connection has been found   You can search indexes of legal adoptions in England and Wales since 1927. For locations of the indexes, see Index Searches New Arrangements after 15 March 2008. The indexes contain information under the child's adopted name only. It is not possible to cross-check with registered birth names. The main use of the indexes might be to gain information necessary for ordering an adoption certificate You can order adoption certificates by post or by telephone from the General Register Office. Adoption certificates refer to the adoptive parents and the child's adopted name only. They do not give details of the child's birth parents or original name The book 'Where to find adoption records: a guide for counsellors, adopted people and birth parents, 3rd edition', edited by Georgina Stafford and published by BAAF, 2001, is a directory of adoption agencies with details of the years for which they have records, but such information is now searchable a BAAF's Adoption Search Reunion web site Return to Finding people

Page last updated: 11th August 2008

If this remains visible on your browser, you may have style sheets switched off, or you may be using a browser which is not compatible with current standards. Newer browsers will give a better experience of this site.