do you think we have a right to know

[barbie]

hi i was reading some threads about a adoptions and i agree an adoptee as a right to know who their parents where but do you think some people like me that have a brother that supposely been adopted whom i not met have a right to know about them too. i mean i heard my brother lives a few miles down the road from me but i have no idea what he looks like. what if he has a son and my daughter met him or he has a daughter and my son met her and they have relationship because you would'nt know they were related cos children who are adopted have diffrent names so it would not ring a bell. my children often go to this town nice clubbing and i wonder sometime if they have bumped into my brothers children. Am i making sense here. when i go shopping in the town my brother lives in, i am always looking around hoping that i will sense him but i know that wont happened. is there any one out there that have that same problem

[v.wells]

And you wrote that all in one breath! Sorry if I offended you but your post was kind of difficult to read.

I would suggest you speak to your adoptive parents and/ or social services in your area. Read the threads in the adoption forums and you will find everything you are wanting to know.

[Peter Goodey]

Several people seem to have answered this question elsewhere including information on tracing adopted birth relatives.

Did you perhaps lose track of the thread that contained thses messages?

http://www.british-genealogy.com/for...ad.php?t=27093

[barbie]

yeah sorry. i think i got carried a way but there are so much about my family background that i could write a book. I need alot of info on different things i guess i could be going the wrong way about it. maybe i am trying to rush things but need to slow down and do things bits at at time. About my brother being adopted, what i was trying to say is that if i manage to find where he actually is, he can refuse to meet me which i think is wrong because of our children could end up meeting each other not knowing they could be related. does that make sense.

[Heather Barford]

I understand exactly what you mean a friend of mine married very young had one child divorced then married later in life had two more children. One of her daughters came home from another city and told her mum about this really neat guy she met at the weekend and you probably have guessed it was her half brother. So that romance came to a quick stop, but there have been cases where brothers and sisters have married because of adoption and then forced to separate because of this reason. However cousins are allowed to marry so you need to stop worrying about this happening to your children.
Heather

[barbie]

Hello..can anyone tell me that in the 1950's, if a child was adopted at about age 3 years old, would they change their first name cos surely it would be confusing for the child to be given a new name at that age

[Waitabit]

. maybe i am trying to rush things but need to slow down and do things bits at at time.

Hurry slowly barbie, if you rush,you may trip over what you are looking for.

Is there in your area a local paper or magazine with a personal section in which you can ask for news of a lad born ? & adopted in ? to please contact you? You could have a separate email for just that purpose.

Many people may want to change a childs name,saying it's to make him/her more especially 'theirs' but still have on hand the real name should it be required. A 3yr old might well forget if the new life is full & happy.

[terrysfamily]

This such a hard subject. I have a half brother out there somewhere. His adoptive mother rang us once after getting our number from my Mum's brother. We always knew about him, it was never hidden. My Mum had him for 6 weeks but was made to give him up, she really didn't want to, but the said brother was in charge of the household and Mum had nowhere else to go. In fact she went into Hospital and helped out on the baby ward a month before she was due as her brother didn't want her at home.

The adoptive parent rang to find out if the lad's intended wife was any relation. I remember that my Mum got very upset as it brought all that loss back into focus. The other parent said he didn't want to meet Mum, which upset her even more.

But when an adoptive mother says that the child doesn't want to meet the real mother is it always the case? Maybe she hasn't actually told the child that she has contacted their real Mum. After all they are the ones that have been there through the childhood illnesses and to wipe their tears away.

Or maybe they don't actually want to meet their real parent?

Like I say it is such a hard subject. I have decided to let sleeping dogs lay. If he wants to contact us so be it, but he can now never meet his real mother.

[Guy Etchells]

Yes you have a right to know it is enshrined in the Human Rights Act and also in the UN Children's Rights unfortunately at present UK law deprives you of such basic rights.
The law in England and Wales was formed at a time when unmarried women were practically forced to give their babies up for adoption. The confidentiality surrounding adoption was put in place to stop such women pestering the couple who adopted their baby and trying to get it back.

Cheers
Guy

[Heather Barford]

Possibly the child would be given a new name, after all people acquire nicknames in life that end up being used instead of proper names, my first name was changed at two and a half and I can't remember being called anything else. Boys often answer to sonny, girls to sissy and girlie and I have known teenage girls to change a first name they didn't like. Also often people send for a birth certificate and are surprised at the name on it, as they have always been called something else.You only have to look at census results over a few years to see the name variations in siblings, new life new name, very possible.