I need to find my original birth certificate from before I was adopted.?

Question

I would like to find my birth mother, I know that she lives in Michigan. I would like to see my original birth certificate from before I was adopted. Does anyone know how I can do that without signing up for one of those internet services that charge a fee?

Answer 1

Firstly, you can obtain a copy of your original birth certificate from Michigan, if both your parents signed a consent, or if one parent signed consent and the other chose not to sign, or if a sibling from your mothers family signed the consent.
Secondly, you have to be 18 years old to ask for a copy of your original birth certificate.
Call Michigan Bureau of Vital Statistics and request the forms for your original birth certificate. They will send you the forms which you must sign in front of a notary, and sometimes they allow the postmaster as a witness.
Send the forms in with a check which I believe is 20 dollars, just ask when you call.
Michigan will mail you back in a couple of weeks, a copy, not a certified copy, just a black and white copy of your original birth certificate.
Good Luck!

Answer 2

If you are of legal age in your state, you can petition the adoption agency that handled your case to start the process of finding your mother. An internet service is a waste of time. The adoption agency may tell you that the case is a closed case meaning your birth mother has not given her permission for you to find her. This is a possibility. There is also the possibility that she is looking for you. You need to get as much information as you can from your adoptive parents and then start your search. This may take a long time but it is worth it.

Answer 3

If you are over 18, you may be able to get the records unsealed, I am not certain. Quite often the records are sealed, and it is done so that the birth mother can remain anonymous. (I met one of my brothers when he was 27, after he came home from service in Vietnam), he was able to get the information from records that his adoptive parents had kept and by visiting the "Unwed Mother's Home" where my mother had given birth to him. The same home had made the adoption arrangements, and they were the source where he finally got information about our mother. (I am not sure how he did that)? Perhaps by court order? Perhaps it was not as difficult or confidentiality was not a big issue, it was a religious home. When I asked him about it, the information that he had gotten about her was her age, her maiden name and where she was from. He took his time, and followed the trail. Once he located her home town, he was able to find people who knew her and eventually he learned her married name, then one day this grown man who looked so much like my mother's side of the family just showed up with a copy of the birth record from the Unwed Mother's home. He was so familiar, when I opened the door, and when he told me that he was looking for his mother, I really thought he must have been a little off in the head (maybe) or a cousin that I never knew. But he had the papers, my own mother's maiden name was on them!

The very sad part of all this is that my full brother and I never knew he even existed until there he was! My mother had given birth to him while on "summer vacation" (as a young teen) and I had never heard anything about there being another sibling until after my Great Grandmother became senile and began to tell us that there was "a bastard" child of our mothers "out there in the world somewhere". Well we just thought old moms' arteries were so hard that she did not know what the heck she was saying! Certainly NOT my mother (the woman who claimed to be my father's virgin bride!)

My eldest half brother's arrival was not a welcomed event with my mother, and that's a chance you will take, if you persist in tracking down birth parents. She denied him. I was 17, and before the man left I put on my shoes and decided to go with him! This was 21 years ago now. Back then many 17 year old girls were rebellious and while my mother screamed out the window not to get in the car with "THAT STRANGER". I was even more sure that my Great Grandmother had not been so senile after all!

Today he's one of the best people in my life! We became great friends and I love him. My father was upset at my mother for lying, he never really accepted my new brother, and my whole brother was using drugs and a real loser, so he resented this young man who entered our lives.

When my grandmother met him, she just started crying and she hugged him and said, "I knew you would come and find us one day, I am sorry, we did what we thought was the best."

Our mother had gotten pregnant at 14, back then if your child had a baby out of wedlock, it was like "The Scarlet Letter"! The community would have ostracized her and the whole family for having a child out of wedlock!

He was better off not having to grow up with ignorant people hating him for something he could not have prevented. Now he is living in Florida with his adoptive parents helping them through their "golden years". They will always be his real Mother and Father! They loved him no matter the circumstances of his birth!

Sorry to go on so, sometimes you can get info through the Freedom of Information Act, good luck, and I hope that when you find your birth mother that she does not treat you as my brother was treated by our mother. Get all the details you can from your adoptive parents, and remember they loved you enough to really want you.