Perhaps even more shocking than the discovery of poverty in the family tree is the realization that not all our ancestors were legitimate. Actually, there was far more illegitimacy around than you might perhaps think, and you may well find that all was not as it might appear. This chapter describes the changing attitudes towards illegitimacy and adoption through the ages, and how records were generated by society’s attempts to deal with the issue.
Illegitimacy has been frowned upon and deemed a social evil for generations, yet most people will discover at least one illegitimate birth, if not several, in their family tree, regardless of their ancestors’ social standing. The abusive connotations attached to the word ‘bastard’ in the modern language bring home to us just how awful this label must have been to our ancestors who bore it on their baptism certificates. At worst the illegitimate child was blamed for the sins of their parents, condemned as being of ‘bad blood’, ostracized from society and had limited prospects of finding employment. Records of the nineteenth-century assize courts show that an alarming number of murder cases were against women for killing their illegitimate babies, such was the shame of bringing a child up alone. Baby farming and informal adoption were preferable alternatives for many mothers, however, and a lot of us will discover that our predecessors covered up the existence of an illegitimate child within the family by pretending the mother and child were siblings. Legally, illegitimacy hindered the likelihood of an inheritance being awarded if the parents died intestate, because an illegitimate child had no legal parents in the eyes of the law.
It is only recently that illegitimacy has started to lose the social stigma that has clung to it for centuries. Pressure from the Church and other religious institutions for couples to marry before having children was behind this, but a number of other factors came into play as well. Local communities begrudged having to financially support those children whose fathers could not be made accountable, and in aristocratic circles the continuation of the family’s name and wealth depended on there being a legitimate heir.
Hundreds of ordinary families have been told stories about a distant ancestor who was the illegitimate lovechild of a Lord or Duke, and indeed there were many illegitimate offspring from upper-class affairs, especially as often aristocratic marriages were little more than arranged dynastic unions and wealthy husbands were almost expected to take mistresses. However, the majority of us will stumble across illegitimate ancestors whose origins lie in the misery of a workhouse as opposed to the luxurious surroundings of a courtesan’s bedroom.
Up until the mid-eighteenth century young women were known to consent to sex with a suitor after a promise of marriage, as common law ruled that a verbal promise of marriage should be binding. However, an engagement that took place in private could be easily denied when there were no witnesses, which often happened if the woman fell pregnant before she managed to get her lover to the altar. Men could escape their obligations by joining the army or fleeing the parish, and many women and babies were left dependent on parish relief (see Chapter 24 for more details on the workings of poor law relief). Poor Law Administrators would investigate who the father of an illegitimate child was in an attempt to force him to pay maintenance, and from 1732 unmarried pregnant women were required to identify the father under oath. Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753 put an end to the ambiguity surrounding marriage and common law, requiring all legally upheld marriages to take place in the presence of a priest. However, the practice of sex before marriage continued to be widespread.
Adoption and family secrets
The eccentric antiques dealer David Dickinson found out by accident that he was adopted at the age of 12. David had always been led to believe by his adoptive parents that they found him in a Barnardo children’s home, but in the course of the programme David’s search of the Barnardo records proved inconclusive. He discovered by talking to other relatives that his adoption had been a private affair. David’s adoptive mother Joyce had actually been the hairdresser and a friend of his natural mother, Jenny. Joyce offered to look after David when he was born because Jenny had become pregnant by a married man and her strict Armenian father would not tolerate any shame being brought on the family. Jenny later married and moved to Jersey, creating a new life for herself where nobody knew about David.
The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 reflected parish authorities’ fears that the old poor law system, which allowed unmarried mothers to take maintenance money from the father of their child, was actually encouraging bastardy. Therefore the 1834 Act transferred all financial responsibility for an illegitimate child onto the mother. This new system caused more hardship for women because they were invariably unable to work while caring for a baby, but if they went into the workhouse the poor law authorities were of the opinion that it was better to separate the child from its morally irresponsible mother.
This double bind of social stigma and poverty meant that illegitimacy and adoption often went hand in hand. Many children were given up for adoption if they had been born out of marriage for fear of bringing shame upon the mother’s family or in the hope the child would have a better upbringing if the natural father could not be made accountable.
‘Social stigma and poverty meant illegitimacy and adoption often went hand in hand.’
If you are tracing the line of an ancestor who was adopted it can be difficult to get any further back than that individual without knowing something about their life before the adoption. Prior to the late 1920s and early 1930s all adoptions were arranged privately and the only way you may have of finding out more is by asking living relatives what they know. However, home truths like this can be hard to come to terms with, so if you plan to speak to relatives about a suspected adoption, be wary and sensitive to their emotions even if a long time has passed since the event.
Researching adoption
Griff Rhys Jones unravelled the truth behind the adoption of his maternal grandmother Louisa Price, who was not illegitimate but was raised by a second cousin and his family. Griff’s mother had been told that Louisa was orphaned at a young age after her parents died in a train crash, but Griff discovered that in actual fact Louisa’s father died from injuries resulting from a drunken brawl and her mother seemed to disappear after an unsuccessful attempt to get parish relief. Distant relatives who watched the show were able to fill Griff in on what happened to Louisa’s mother after her husband’s death. It emerged that Louisa’s mother, Sarah Louisa Price, was eventually forced to enter the workhouse, but not wanting her children to be brought up in such surroundings she accepted the kind offer of her husband’s cousin to care for her young daughter.
Foundling children, who were abandoned by their parents in the hope that someone would literally find and care for them, were usually suspected of being illegitimate, though some foundlings’ parents were married but felt forced to abandon their children due to excruciating poverty. The births of foundling children are often listed in the birth indexes without any names, written simply as ‘male’ or ‘female’ after the letter Z, and it is extremely unlikely you will be able to find out anything about their origins. If a foundling child was lucky they may have been taken in by a local family and brought up as one of their own children, but most were looked after by the parish authorities and an apprenticeship found for them when they were old enough to work. In 1739 Captain Thomas Coram established the Foundling Hospital to look after children abandoned on the streets of London, which cared for over 27,000 children between 1739 and 1954. And Dr Barnardo established one of the most famous organizations dedicated to caring for orphaned and abandoned children, opening his first home in Stepney in 1867. When the last of the Barnardo’s homes closed in 1981 around 300,000 children had been helped by Dr Barnardo’s organization.
Whether like David Dickinson you were adopted and need to discover who your natural parents were before you can work back any further, or like Griff Rhys Jones there’s an intriguing story of adoption further back in time, the sources here should help you to uncover the truth about your mysterious past.
The term ‘illegitimate’ covers a multitude of situations – it could be that both parents were single, or one or both parents were married to another person, that the parents were unmarried when the child was born but they married later on, or a variety of more complex situations which could lead to the legitimacy of the child being questioned. The possibility of sexual exploitation should not be overlooked either. There are many stories of domestic servants being taken advantage of by their employer, and allegations of rape were very difficult to prove so few women were prepared to go through the courts. If you have reason to suspect the mother of your illegitimate ancestor may have pressed charges against the father of the child for rape or sexual assault, then Chapter 27 will help you to trace the case.
If you have the birth certificate of an illegitimate child, then take note of the address where the child was born. If it was a workhouse or a maternity home then records of the establishment might survive. Special homes were set up for ‘fallen’ women from the early nineteenth century. The National Register of Archives can help you to locate the repository for such institutions. In Ireland, where Catholicism had a strong hold, the birth of an illegitimate child was considered particularly problematic. Thousands of young Irish women were sent to convents run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of the Good Shepherd from the nineteenth century until the late twentieth century, where some were kept for long periods of time and forced to work unpaid in miserable conditions washing laundry, cleaning, and caring for elderly nuns.
The lives of the girls and women who spent years in institutions such as the Magdalene Laundries are shrouded in mystery and the abuse suffered by many inmates has only recently come to light when mass graves of unidentified women were unearthed at a Dublin convent. The last Magdalene convent closed down in the 1990s and support groups have since been set up for the survivors and relatives of those who served time for their ‘penitence’. Justice for Magdalenes is a support group whose website can be found at www.magdalenelaundries.com and while records for such institutions are difficult to unearth, they may be able to give you some guidance and direct you to indexes of the names of some of the women who lived and died in the convents.
If you are researching the background of an illegitimate child from a poor or working-class family, your first port of call should be the records of the Poor Law Administrators. You may not have found any evidence of your ancestors entering the workhouse from census returns or certificates, but if they lived on the bread line and an illegitimate child was born it is worth checking the records of the local workhouse to find out if they were forced to enter it for a while.
There are very few official records created by illegitimacy, and the majority of us will find out about an illegitimate ancestor by stumbling across a marriage or birth certificate where the father’s name has been left blank. In this case the child will have usually taken their mother’s surname, so finding out who the father was can be an impossible task. Up until 1875 if a mother registered the birth of her illegitimate child and told the registrar who the father was, the registrar could enter the father’s name on the birth certificate. After 1875 this could only happen if the father was present at the registration and consented to his name being put on the birth certificate. The shame surrounding illegitimacy often produced a web of lies, making a search of the records even more difficult. In rare cases it is possible that an unmarried mother would tell the registrar that she was married and register her illegitimate child’s birth under the surname of the father, given that proof of the parents’ marriage was not a requirement of registering a child’s birth. These factors should be taken into account when searching for the birth certificate of an illegitimate child.
Parish records can be more accurate than civil registration records, particularly if the child was born in the parish where the mother lived, because the local community would usually know the truth about the mother’s situation. Baptism records sometimes state that the child is a ‘bastard’, or ‘the base child of’, or more politely, ‘the natural child of’ the mother, meaning that he or she was born out of wedlock. Occasionally the baptism record will state the father’s name as well, so it is worth locating the child’s baptism record if their birth certificate leaves you with the suspicion they were illegitimate.
Census returns can be used to provide substantiating material. Returns just before and after the child’s birth should be looked at to find out whether the mother was listed as single. Clues such as an unusual middle name given to the child may also hint at what the father’s surname was, so take another look at the names of neighbours, employers and visitors found on census returns with the mother.
Census returns, civil registration certificates and parish records are the best tools available to genealogists investigating illegitimate births. They can tell us a lot about the impact illegitimacy had upon the child’s life. If the mother married at a later date you may find that the child’s stepfather took the child in as his own. This might be assumed if the child started using the stepfather’s surname, or if the stepfather is listed as the father on the child’s marriage certificate. Equally, evidence like this can prompt more questions than answers – was the stepfather the child’s natural father after all? Some illegitimate children were raised by their grandparents as their own child, so that their mother might lead a normal life, particularly if she became pregnant while still quite young. If you find a census return where there is a big age gap between the youngest child and the other children in the household it is often worth ordering their birth certificate to find out whether the mother’s name could be one of the females listed as a sibling on the census.
Poor law records can help in the hunt for the missing father of a child. It’s easier to uncover documentary evidence about paternity for illegitimate births prior to 1834 because the local parish was required to either pay for the upkeep of the illegitimate child or chase the father to arrange maintenance payments. This means that a lot of evidence was gathered by parish officers, who would try to obtain a sworn statement from the mother ascertaining the identity of the father. Parish officials drew up bastardy bonds, or affiliation orders, as a sworn statement by the father that he would pay maintenance for the child. When establishing which parish to look under you should be aware that while most people were chargeable to the parish in which they were deemed to have settled, usually where their parents had lived, illegitimate children were chargeable to the parish in which they were born, which may differ from that of their mother’s parish of settlement.
The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 may have put more responsibility on the mother for the maintenance of her child, but the parish authorities could still chase the father for payment in the quarter sessions if the mother became chargeable to the parish and she could provide corroborated evidence that he was the father of the child. Therefore, if you find that your illegitimate ancestor and his or her mother received parish relief between 1834 and 1844, it is also worth searching records of quarter sessions in the local record office.
Prior to 1732 parish officials were known to forcibly remove heavily pregnant women to other parishes to pass responsibility for her unborn child to a neighbouring parish authority, but after 1732 the practice became illegal.
Mothers were given more power to claim maintenance payments directly from the father from 1844, as well as costs such as paying a midwife or seeking legal advice. These records may be found among affiliation orders in the petty sessions in county record offices, and the system was used to claim money by unmarried mothers well into the twentieth century. You may find reports about the case in local newspapers, some of which have been indexed by local family history societies. Between 1844 and 1858 each petty session and quarter session was required to make an annual return of bastardy cases to the clerk of the peace, who in turn should send a copy to the Home Office. The bastardy returns of this period are usually found in the local record office amongst records of quarter sessions and petty sessions, but unfortunately the copies sent to the Home Office are not known to have survived.
… trace an illegitimate ancestor
1. If you are investigating an illegitimate line in England or Wales then Ruth Paley’s My Ancestor Was a Bastard (Society of Genealogists) is worth consulting for an in-depth look at all the possible sources available to you, from Poor Law records to legal records.
2. If the illegitimate child was a pauper then apprenticeship records might mention them because the parish authorities sometimes organized for a bastard child to be apprenticed to keep them off the poor rates.
3. The records of quarter sessions and church courts for charges of immorality against the parents are also worth searching.
4. The repositories of ecclesiastical courts in England are described in D. M. Owen’s Records of the Established Church in England and the types of records these courts produced are explained in Sin, Sex and Probate: Ecclesiastical Courts, Officials and Records by C. Chapman, and Church Court Records: An Introduction for Family and Local Historians by A. Tarver.
If you suspect your illegitimate predecessor was the product of an aristocratic love affair, and you have a notion as to the identity of the father, then look for circumstantial evidence that might place your well-connected would-be ancestor in the right place at the time of the conception and birth of the child. The movements of the well-to-do classes were chronicled in contemporary newspapers and journals, and biographies can give you more clues about their whereabouts at certain times. Hopefully you will be more successful in finding the answers you want than John Hurt was when he tried to prove that his great-grandmother, Emma Stafford, was the daughter of the Marquess of Sligo. By comparing the date his great-grandmother was born with an extended Sligo family tree John found that the dates did not work for Emma to have been conceived by the Marquess.
Always try to find the will of the person you believe to have sired your ancestor because they may have provided for them given that legally an illegitimate child had no automatic right to their parents’ legacy. The National Archives holds records concerning the transferral of property belonging to illegitimate people who died intestate. Usually their property would go to the Crown, but petitions can be found in series T 4 from 1680 to 1819 from next of kin requesting that letters of administration be granted to them instead. TS 17 contains papers relating to the administration of estate papers for people who died without leaving a lawful heir between 1698 and 1981. Estate records found in local record offices and private repositories may also list regular payments made to the mother of the child for maintenance.
The majority of adoptions prior to the 1930s were arranged privately, either by the child’s mother or family, or by a charitable organization. In this type of set-up the adoptive family would act as foster parents and the child may or may not have taken a new name, but there was no legal requirement to change the child’s name officially even if they became known by a different surname. This highlights the main struggle with researching an adoption at any point in time: knowing what name to look for in the records. Some adopted children kept the name they were registered with at birth, but most will have taken their adoptive parents’ surname and some will have been given a new first name by their adoptive parents, though this is more likely if they were adopted at a very young age. If the child’s first name was changed within 12 months of the original birth registration the entry should be indexed under both names, as long as the child was not baptized with the name originally entered on the civil register.
Anyone researching an adoption arranged through the courts will hit many brick walls if they are not the adopted person or are not directly related to the adoptee. If you are researching the adoption of a distant relative, or a relative who has died, it is worth trying to access the resources described in this section even if the official line is that they are only available to the adoptee to find out more about their origins. Speak to the General Register Office and the relevant adoption departments, explaining your relationship to the adoptee and how much information you know about them already to find out what type of records they can provide you with. Bear in mind that the privacy of the adopted person will always be prioritized over a relative’s interest in their family history.
Adoption registers for adoptions arranged through the courts with the aid of adoption agencies and charitable organizations exist from 1927 for England and Wales, from 1931 for Scotland and Northern Ireland and from 1953 for the Republic of Ireland. For most cases it is possible to order a copy of the adoption certificate if you can provide the adoptee’s adoptive name and date of birth. The certificate will tell you the names of the child’s adoptive parents and the court in which the adoption was granted. Alternatively you can order the original birth certificate if you know the child’s original name and date of birth, which should provide you with the natural mother’s name and possibly the father’s name if it was recorded, as well as the place and time of birth.
In order to protect the identity of the adopted person it is not possible to cross-reference the information given in the original birth indexes with that given in the adoption registers. Therefore, while an entry in the birth registers may note that a child was adopted, it will not give the child’s adoptive name, and the adoption registers will only give the child’s adoptive name and date of birth, but not their place of birth or original name. You are therefore required to know a certain amount about the child before you commence a search. If you know what the child was called before they were adopted you should be able to order their birth certificate in the normal manner and use the information on that to work backwards. However, if you think they were adopted but do not know the name they were adopted under you will struggle to find out anything about their later life. Equally, if you know the person’s adoptive name you may be able to order their adoption certificate and find out a little about their adoptive parents, but without knowing the child’s birth name or the names of their natural parents you will probably not be able to find out about their origins.
If you are conducting a search for your own adoption records or on behalf of a relative who has given you permission to find their adoption records, there are three main sources of information. The General Register Office will hold the original birth certificate and the Adopted Children Register. If the adoption was arranged through an agency or organization then they should have records on the case, and court records should contain records of the adoption proceedings.
Official adoptions
Nicky Campbell had known he was adopted, and decided to explain the background involved when looking for natural parents in his episode of Who Do You Think You Are? – even though he decided to investigate the background of his adoptive parents during the show.
Nicky had been given up for adoption when only five days old, but only decided to search for his biological family in later life once he was 30. He vividly described how emotionally draining the process was, and how it opened up issues with both his adoptive and natural family concerning identity, changes to existing relationships and long-buried feelings that rose to the surface once again.
Nicky Campbell followed the steps many others have taken, namely to find out as much information as possible from his adoptive parents, and then pursuing a paper trail – applying for original birth details, searching for a birth certificate, and finding information about his adoption file.
The Adoption, Search & Reunion website was set up by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering to help those researching an adoption that took place in the UK, as well as anyone who is thinking about searching for and making contact with birth and adopted relatives. The website contains a database to aid researchers in locating the repositories of adoption records which can be searched by the name of a home (such as a maternity home, mother and baby centre or women’s shelter that might be given on the birth certificate), the name of an organization or local authority involved in the birth or adoption, the name of a member of staff who worked in the home or for the organization (perhaps they were the informant who registered the child’s birth), as well as by place name. You can access the Locating Adoption Records database from www.adoptionsearchreunion.org.uk/search.
The General Register Office for England and Wales has an Adopted Children Register, a register of all the adoptions granted by courts in England and Wales since 1927. When an entry is made in the register the child’s original birth entry should be marked ‘adopted’ and the adopted child should use their adoption certificate in place of their birth certificate for legal and administrative purposes. The Adopted Children Register is no longer open for the public to search, but if you can provide the GRO with the adoptive name of the child and their date of birth a copy of their adoption certificate showing the names of their adoptive parents may be issued. Send your application to
The General Register Office
Adoptions Section, Room C202
Trafalgar Road
Birkdale
Southport PR8 2HH
If you know the name the child was registered with at birth before the adoption you should be able to locate their birth certificate using the ordinary civil registration indexes. If you are trying to find out about the circumstances of your own adoption and do not know anything about your natural parents, the GRO’s adoption service should be able to provide you with your original birth certificate. Before November 1975 many parents were told that the adopted child would not be able to find out their original name or the names of their natural parents. Changes in legislation that took place with effect from 12 November 1975 meant that it would be easier for adopted children to find out about their origins once they reached 18 years of age. Therefore, children who were adopted prior to November 1975 and wish to find out about their natural parents are required to meet with an adoption advisor before information about their original birth entry will be released. There is more information about the adoption service on the GRO website at www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/adoptions.
Children adopted in Scotland after 1931 can apply for information about their original birth entry by writing to
The Adoption Unit
New Register House
3 West Register Street
Edinburgh EH1 3YT
Provide details of their adoptive name, date of birth and full postal address. A copy of the adoption certificate can also be requested by writing to this address. The General Register Office for Scotland has advice about tracing adoption records on its website at www.groscotland.gov.uk/regscot/adoption.html.
Birthlink is a charitable organization set up by the Family Care Adoption Society in Edinburgh to provide support to adopted people and their relatives in Scotland. The organization can help adopted people to trace birth relatives and also gives advice on locating records concerning the adoption. The organization has a website at www.birthlink.org.uk detailing their services, or alternatively you can speak to a member of staff by telephoning 0131 225 6441, or write to them at
Birthlink
21 Castle Street
Edinburgh EH2 3DN
When the Adoption of Children (Scotland) Act was passed in 1930, adoptions could be arranged by charitable organizations or local authorities, and then be ratified in a civil court, usually a local sheriff court, although a very small number are passed in the Court of Sessions in Edinburgh. The process papers generated by these adoptions remain with the local courthouse for up to 25 years, after which time they are passed to the National Archives of Scotland where they are held in the Legal Search Room, but are subject to a closure period of 100 years. The only circumstances under which this rule may be relaxed are if the adopted person is over 16 years old and wishes to read them, or a person authorized in writing by the adopted person applies to see them, and in both cases proof of the adopted person’s birth and identity are required. To locate the correct legal records the NAS needs to be notified in advance of your visit of the adopted person’s birth name, the date they were adopted and the court that dealt with the adoption. This information can be obtained from the General Register Office for Scotland.
‘If you are trying to find out about your own adoption, the GRO’s adoption service will be able to give you your original birth certificate.’
The adoption process papers vary in content from case to case, but should contain a copy of the child’s original birth certificate, an official report to the court at the time of the adoption, a petition by the adopting parents, the consent of the birth mother and sometimes the birth father, the name of any adoption agency involved, and confirmation from the court that the adoption may proceed. The papers will not always give background information explaining why the birth parents wanted to give the child up for adoption; however, they may reveal distressing information about the circumstances. The NAS has produced an online guide to adoption records in Scotland found at www.nas.gov.uk/guides/adoptions.asp.
There is a separate Adopted Children Register for Northern Ireland covering adoptions since 1931, and adopted people can apply to the GRO for Northern Ireland for a copy of their original birth certificate. The General Register Office for Northern Ireland has an adoption section on its website at www.groni.gov.uk where there is information about how adopted people can go about tracing their origins. Applications for copies of original birth certificates or adoption certificates should be sent to
The Registrar General
Oxford House
49–55 Chichester Street
Belfast BT1 4HL
Legal adoption in the Republic of Ireland did not begin until 1953. People researching adoptions in Ireland since the 1952 Adoption Act should contact the Adoption Board to seek advice by telephoning +353 (0)1 230 9300 or writing to
Shelbourne House
Shelbourne Road
Dublin 4
The Adoption Board holds a file on each adoption effected in the Republic of Ireland since 1953 and its website gives further information about its services at www.adoptionboard.ie. This is unlikely to be your last port of call, but the Adoption Board should hopefully be able to give you contact details for other organizations and agencies involved in the adoption process.
Some children born in the Republic of Ireland were sent for adoption in England or the United States, particularly before the 1952 Adoption Act. The General Register Office for the Republic of Ireland will hold the original birth certificate, but the country of adoption should hold any other paperwork regarding the adoption.
‘Informal adoptions will be more challenging to research.’
• The British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) has useful information on its website for birth relatives wishing to find out more about an adoption that took place in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. They have experts on all areas of adoption and fostering and may be able to help you establish the records available for researching a UK adoption, depending on your relationship with the adopted child. The BAAF website at www.baaf.org.uk has contact addresses and telephone numbers for their numerous offices in central, northern and southern England, Cardiff, Rhyl, Edinburgh and Belfast.
• The Adopted People’s Association (APA) is a similar organization established for those who want to find out more about Irish adoptions and for adopted people who have Irish roots. The APA actively encourages research into adoptions and may be able to help you locate the records you are looking for. More information can be found on their website at www.adoptionireland.com, or you can contact them by telephone on +353 (0)1 679 0011 or by writing to
The Adopted People’s Association Ltd.
14 Exchequer Street
Dublin 2
• If you were adopted and would like to try to contact your birth parents, or if you are the birth relative of a person who was adopted and would like to try to get in touch with them, you can join the Adoption Contact Register. The aim of the register is to match up the details of registered members, and so you will only be able to find your birth parents for example if they have also joined the register in an attempt to find you. Information about how to join the Adoption Contact Register for England and Wales can be found at www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/adoptions/adoptioncontactregister and for Northern Ireland there is information on the GRO website at www.groni.gov.uk/adoption.htm, or alternatively write to the relevant GRO for more information. Birthlink control the Adoption Contact Register for Scotland and information about this can be found at www.birthlink.org.uk/adoption_contact_register.htm. The Irish Adoption Contact Register is administered by the Adopted People’s Association and is free to use either online or by post. The database includes people who were adopted abroad but are looking for birth relatives in Ireland. The APA Irish Adoption Contact Register can be found at www.adoptionireland.com/register/index.html, but there is another contact register recently set up by the Irish Adoption Board known as the National Adoption Contact Preference Register (NACPR), information about which can be found at www.adoptionboard.ie/preferenceRegister/index.php. If you are seeking information about an adopted or birth relative with links to Ireland then it is worth joining both registers.
• There is an online contact register that has been running since 2004 at www.ukbirth-adoptionregister.com, which you can join for £10 by entering as much information as you know about the person you are searching for. You can search the database of members and email the organization if you think you have found a match for your relative. The UK Birth Adoption Register will then check that the information you have submitted corresponds with the data they have about the other member and will advise you how to go about contacting that person. The Adoption Contact Registers are a safer way of contacting adopted and birth relatives than tracing them using other means because you know that if their details are registered then they are presumably happy to be contacted and talk about the past. If they are not happy to be contacted then this information will be on their registration form.
Informal adoptions that took place before the Adoption Acts introduced from the late 1920s will be more challenging to research. Court records can sometimes prove fruitful as the adoptive parents had no legal right to guardianship and from the late nineteenth century the birth mother was favoured for custody of the child even if the child had spent most of its life in the care of another family. Some mothers fought to retrieve their children through the courts from adoptive parents and if there was a dispute between the adoptive parents and the natural parents a record of this is likely to have appeared in the local newspaper. Unfortunately tracking down such evidence is not easy if you do not have a date to work with and newspapers for the area in question have not been indexed. Most of us will have to rely on circumstantial evidence extracted from census returns and birth and marriage certificates.
There is more hope for those researching foundling children taken in by a home or adoptions arranged by a charitable organization. The Thomas Coram Foundation still holds admission registers for children admitted to the Foundling Hospital from 1794. You can enquire about these by phoning 020 7520 0300, or by writing to
40 Brunswick Square
London WC1N 1AZ
although access is restricted and a fee will be charged. The majority of records in the Foundling Hospital Archive can be found at the London Metropolitan Archives, whose collections can be searched using the Access to Archives database. The LMA has produced a leaflet to help genealogists, entitled ‘Finding Your Foundling’, and its records include petitions from parents for the admission of their children, apprenticeship registers, and tokens of affection left by mothers with their children.
Suggestions for further reading:
• My Ancestor Was a Bastard by Ruth Paley (Society of Genealogists Enterprises Ltd, 2004)
• Illegitimacy in Britain 1700–1920 by Samantha Williams, Thomas Nutt and Alysa Levene (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)
• Illegitimacy by Eve McLaughlin (McLaughlin Guides, 1995)
• Illegitimacy, Sex and Society: Northeast Scotland, 1750–1900 by Andrew Blaikie (Clarendon Press, 1994)
• Where to Find Adoption Records: a guide for counsellors, adopted people and birth relatives by Georgina Stafford (British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering, 2001)
• Tracing the Natural Parents of Adopted Persons in England and Wales by Colin D. Rogers (Federation of Family History Societies, 1992)
• Search Guide for Adopted People in Scotland by Birthlink Adoption Counselling Centre (Stationery Office Books, 1997)
The National Archives holds duplicates of baptism and burial registers for the Foundling Hospital in series RG 4, though the Thomas Coram Foundation is the only place where you can find details of parentage. If you believe your ancestor was a pupil at the Foundling Hospital then you may be interested in visiting the Foundling Museum at Brunswick Square, next to the original site of the hospital demolished in 1926.
Detailed records of children taken in by Barnardo’s homes, including an extensive photographic archive of the children cared for, are held at Liverpool University but can only be searched by staff if a postal application is sent to
The After-Care Department
Barnardo’s
Tanners Lane
Barkingside
Ilford
Essex IG6 1QG
detailing as much information as you know about the child. Telephone the Head Office in Barkingside on 020 8550 8822 to find out more.