Help trying to find bm birthcert/marriage cert!!

moihugs

Hi , Ive already found my cert last yr and am only getting back up to the gro next wk, did try when I was there thought it would be so easy when I had names but didnt prove that way!!U see my bm was married with 3 kids before me, I appeared during a break in the marriage !! not sure though if she put down her married name or maiden on my cert!!She didnt tell anyone that she was preg at the time!! Have her husbands first name ....the marriage will be around 1967 few yrs either side but think from my memory that I can cross match after 67 which should leave it easier !!Before ill prob have to get lots of copies!!Contacted the agency recently that I was adopted from and the info all the same only dif is that bm now 5yrs younger when she had me!! She presumed it was her married name that would be on my cert any tips or ideas on this would be appreciated!!

goat2

what part of the country is she from, how much do you know about her, have you found out any more,

moihugs

I have got a good deal further on goat2...Went back to the gro looked up every possible marriage for 12 years before I was born.. Came across only 1 possibility and looked for births to see did this particular woman have 3 before me and she did. 1-1969, 1971, and 72.then me in 73 she also had another after me as well. Have 4 siblings and always wanted siblings. Kind of angry if it was a social worker etc that took me out of a bad situation would love some answers on that as the family seem to have done well for themselves.Know where they are all living. Have sent her a letter 3 weeks ago with no reply as yet. She probably has never told the children that I exist. Hopefully she will pluck up the courage to write soon.

rinsjwind

Hi Moihugs
Is her hubby still on the scene? if he is and, I am presuming, he's not your birth father then that could be a bit of a tricky one for your birth mum and she might need some time to sort that out as well as telling your sibs about you.

The adoption agency might be able to offer a mediation service and/or provide a postbox service where you and she could exchange letters, photos, life stories! :-) etc. before deciding to take things any further. They may be a bit miffed that you went off and did this on your own but this sort of thing is what they're paid, by us!, to do so why not use them?

As for the circumstances of your placement for adoption, in the early seventies extra-marital children were viewed by Irish society (which was still in the slimy grasp of the bishops) in exactly the same light as pre-marital kids i.e. it was usually out of the question that the child would be kept by the b/m and adoption was seen as the only alternative to an orphanage.

Anyway, it's sounds as if you're well along the way to getting what you need but in these situations sometimes the best thing to do (hard though that is!) is to give the other person some time and space to get their head around the idea of contact and all that might mean for them.

Very best of luck, I hope it works out for you.

Rins

OneIdea

I received my non-identifying information some time ago... it claimed my BM was 23years of age... after I performed my own searches over the following weeks. I too only found one match, searching 5years before and after. I questioned my BM's age on two occasions and was told on both, that it I was my BM who wrote her own age on some kind of form, so the social worker in question said, they had no reason to think that my BM was of a different age.

I have since had it confirmed that indeed the lady I found was my BM of 20 years of age. What pissed me off was after all that, I received further information from the agency involved, things like letters & copies of my actual adoption papers, one entitled "Particulars Concerning Child" which showed a typed 23 years of age and then a "Consent To Adoption" form with a hand written 20 years of age.

No real moral to this story but as Sherlock Holmes would say "Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth."

However your original birth cert should have had your mothers maiden and married name... I wouldn't know if that's a legal requirement or not, so I personally (speculating) would have assumed she used her maiden name.

Was the woman you found under a maiden name?

goat2

my guess is that she wrote 23 rather than twenty, as you had to be 21 to sign some forms, and maybe she had not told her parents and did this to avoid them finding out at the time.
i am only guessing this, but it is a thought.

OneIdea

goat2 wrote: »

my guess is that she wrote 23 rather than twenty, as you had to be 21 to sign some forms, and maybe she had not told her parents and did this to avoid them finding out at the time.
i am only guessing this, but it is a thought.

The 23 was typed not hand written on a Particulars of Child form, an unimportant general form in my eyes, it even actually says estimated age if unknown. Whereas the adoption consent form the legal one, which you would expect any social worker to gather their information from reads...

"I blah blah blah of blah blah... aged twenty-one years and upwards (or, if under age, aged (handwritten) ___20___ years), make oath and say as follows...."

anyway no her parents knew... but that wasn't the point of my post, I'm merely trying to point out as discussed in many threads here, social workers will make mistakes, mistakes that can lead a person up the garden path for months/years...

moihugs

Hi OneIdea they gave me the wrong age at first 28 then 15yrs later gave me 23...that's why I searched so far back taking in the possibility that she was 28 and that she married at 16??? It turned out she was 23.. The name on my birth cert is her married name with no formally.....!this is really what confused me in the start wasn't sure which way to look up her marriage in the end looked up the 2 possibilities, on my birth cert(Wrong names here)bm -Mary Jones, I looked up all Mary Jones marrying a John...... and then all John Jones marrying a Mary! She was married 4 yrs when I came along and was living in a one bedroom flat. They just put down her married name no maiden at all.. prob was easier to explain like that less hassle to adopt me.
Rins I have done a lot of research before I sent that letter, she is seperated a long time and even there is the possibility that he is deceased. I would not have sent that letter if he was there to cause her hassle. The place I was adopted through is not a acredited agency rins and has no social worker etc and the files have not been moved to hse or anywhere else! The nun in charge was never going to trace even back in the 90's. The nun did say it was extra-marital but who knows my bm had another child exactly 1 year before me and 1 yr after (they moved to a 3 bedroom house). She was pregnant with me 8 wk's after her last!! Who minded her 4 yr old 2 yr old and 8 wk old while she was having this affair? Questions, but I know i'm going to have to keep an open mind on this one till we see will she meet?? Am i totally wrong but in the 70's etc wasn't it very different to today even that the mothers weren't out and about too much after having a baby!!!
I have seen definate pics of her on line and pics of her kids also a pic of a possible "john" who is deceased! if this is her husband "john" then she most of had the affair with his brother as my first son is the mirror image but again...open mind...! we can trick ourselves into believing someone looks alike in these situations.
Its her birthday next month so going to send her card with wee note in it and will give her all the time she needs!!

moihugs

Meant to say there too the sister in charge did confirm that I had the right birth cert and she suggested that it was her married name but wasn't 100% sure. I said to her that I didn't know what way to go next with it and she told me with internet gro etc that its easily done now..so effectively she encouraged me to search myself in the end!

rinsjwind

Hi Moihugs
Yeah, they would have put down her married name as that was prob what she was using at the time and no maiden name so that it would look like she wasn't married (which would have caused complications- requests for evidence child was extra marital, affidavits from the hubby that he wasn't the da etc.)

The conflicting info people are given (especially from some of the nuns) is, I think, a mixture of poor/sloppy record keeping, clerical mistakes/carelessness, genuine errors, incompetence, senility (most of the nuns are getting on!) and, of course, some sheer boldfaced lies! Which may explain the thing with the age, when these forms were being filled in the last thing on anyones mind was the thought that parent and child would ever be reunited and the information being recorded would be used to trace, so the main thing was that the legally necessary forms were filled in in all the right places and acceptable to the Adoption Authorities and, later on, when the file was first re-opened, I suppose a 3 might be mistaken for an 8, especially if the oul eyesight isn't the best? ;-).

Is the agency St B's by any chance? if so, they are not accredited now but they used to be a licenced by the old Adoption Board as an adoption agency and the AAI should still have a file and there might be some info there, though getting it out of them is another matter!. The aai is also saying that the HSE will eventually take over the St B files but that a lack of resources, current economic situation, blah blah blah is delaying this. I know some accredited agencies and HSE areas are taking on tracing/mediation work from the mess that is the Sacred Heart files down in the HSE in Cork, so it might be worth asking the aai bout that as well.

Hope it all goes well.

Rins