Myths and History Earlier this week I read a New York Times opinion piece. The piece, written by Steve Inskeep, is about adoption, adoptees, birth records and the law. I usually hold my breath a bit when I start reading these sorts of articles. Sometimes, they include references to “pitting” non-existent birth parent privacy rights…
Fairly early on in my reunion, I began to hear bits and pieces about my Seminole heritage. One ancestor in particular, my 4x great-grandmother, Margaret, stood out in these conversations. I’m not entirely sure why, but families often seem to focus on specific ancestors. And, in our family, Margaret was one of those people. Some…
Reunions happen all the time in spite of sealed record laws. Mine certainly did! Adoptees’ ability to access their own birth certificates is a matter of equitable rights, not reunion. It is independent of whether or not the parties involved select to have contact with one another. One’s adoption status should not remove a right…
Finding my Enslaved Ancestors Given my ancestral background, I knew there was a high probability of finding enslaved ancestors in my family tree. Even so, when confronted with the evidence, it still filled me with a range of emotions that time has had to assuage. At the same, time, however, the way in which I…
Mayflower Ancestry I’ve always held an interest in the early years in the New World. The settling of the original colonies up through the Revolutionary War has always piqued some passion in me. Having lived on the east coast, I felt my soul connect somehow with the past and those brave, early comers. I found…
Deep California Roots One of the lines on my father’s side is the Crow line. As a Californian, our Crow family history is of particular interest to me. Like so many families of the era, the Crows made their way across the country from the East coast. They left Maryland and, as they migrated, they…
In November of 2001, two months after I was reunited with my biological family, the Superior Court of California, Contra Costa County (where I was born), informed me that I needed to file a court petition in order to obtain a copy of my birth certificate. That document is sealed because I was adopted when…
Consumer DNA testing is helping to answer questions for for more and more adoptees every day. A few times a week, I read about adoptees, or children of adoptees, who’ve successfully used this technology. They are able to learn of their heritage or find biological family members. As testing has come more affordable, it has…
Some argue that there is a right to “birthparent privacy” under the law. However, the law as written proves to say quite the opposite. Birth records don’t seal when birth parents give up or lose their parental rights. Changed Legislation, Lost Rights Sealed birth certificates are an issue of an entire group of citizens, adopted…