Not sure how to proceed with my search - help

hallymusic

Hi,
I had a meeting today with the head social worker in Cunamh on St. Anne's street to receive my non identifying info. It really was farcical and very disappointing what went on in that office...I was given my birth weight, BCG details, a description of my features, blue eyes, blond hair, etc. It stated the date of my baptism and that it was held in St. Patrick's Mother and baby home, Navan Rd. I was given my mothers age and occupation, it said she came from Leinster (that really narrows it down), I was her 1st baby, it revealed how many siblings she had, it described her physique, her manner and declared her to be of average intelligence. I wasn't aware they were carrying out IQ tests on expecting mothers back in the 70's in St. Patrick's Mother and Baby Home! It stated my fathers age and occupation and the nature of their failed relationship. The document attempted to explain why my mother made the decision to put me up for adoption and the remaining information was about the family I was placed with.
So, I did not get my original name, mothers 1st name, where she was from and I'm not sure how to proceed. Can i go down to the Office of births, deaths and marriages armed with the info and expect to successfully get my birth cert....?
The social worker also informed me that I have no legal right to my original birth cert, she said I have to apply for it and as part of that process they will approach my birth mother to see if she will consent to release this information to me... is this correct?
I know I have gone on a bit so thanks for taking the time to read about my experience today, any help or advise will be greatly appreciated
thanks
hally

kathy finn

HI thats very disappointing news, i was adopted through cunamh and i got mothers first name and my first name, but i have heard that they stopped giving them details out. were you born in st patricks navan road, if so you could do a search in GRO werburge st dublin by date of birth.

hallymusic

Hi Kathy,
when did you get your info from cunamh, was it in recent years or a long time ago?

Yes I was born in St. Patricks Mother & Baby Home on the 9th of Dec 1973, I was baptized @ the same location on the 15th Dec 1973...

I don't see how searching the births registry without a name could yield any results, surely I would just be guessing as to which result might be my birth cert?

thanks

kathy finn

Hi Hallymusic,
I got my Non id information from cunamh about 10 years ago. Take alook at the searching guides, can,t be many baby girls born on that date in st patricks, the real give away in books is that surname and maiden name of mother is the same which indicates a single mother birth and st pats was dublin north. so your looking for say a female born your date of birth dublin north with surname and mothers maiden name the same, go right to the end of the books. then pull the ones you get and if one comes back as born st patricks navan road that has to be you.

hallymusic

Thanks Kathy,
Your advise is very helpful, I'm now clear as to what to look for in the register... Do you know why Cunamh stopped giving 1st names as part of the non identifying information, is this a deliberate attempt to make private tracing (which is perfectly legal) even more difficult?

kathy finn

Hi, I would guess that they know we are traceing ourselfs, did they tell you what age birthmum was, that can be very handy in traceing her.

hallymusic

kathy finn wrote: »

did they tell you what age birthmum was, that can be very handy in traceing her.

Yes, she was 22 and worked as a tailoress. Her age will help me to confirm that I have the right BC. Do real BC''s state the occupation of the mother?

kathy finn

your birthcert will not have her age or where she worked on it.

Hermy

hallymusic wrote: »

...The social worker also informed me that I have no legal right to my original birth cert...

It's infuriating that this type of thing is still going on in Ireland in 2015.
All civil birth registrations are public record and you don't need anyone's permission to inspect them.

As per Kathy's post I hope you have some luck in the GRO but if you need any further help just shout.

hallymusic

Cheers Hermy,
I'm heading to the GRO tomorrow to do some searching... I'm pretty clear as to what I'm looking for
thanks

Hermy

Good stuff.

In case you don't know, your are limited to 8 certs on the day so if you bring someone with you you can double that. Hopefully you won't need to go through that many but two heads is better than one and all that.:)

hallymusic

Yes, I have a good friend with a very analytical brain coming along...

hallymusic

Hi,
I managed to spend a few hours this afternoon in the research room of GRO with my friend searching through the 1973 birth register. We got through approx 1.5 of the 3 books for that year.
I found 2 matches for 9th Dec 1973, Dublin N and where the child's name was the same as the mothers name. The matches came in quick succession and coincidentally both 1st names were "Paul".
I couldn't contain myself so I took a break from searching the birth register and ordered a copy of each BC. Each BC gave "381 Navan road" as the place of birth and "Elizabeth Mary o' Leary" was listed as informant from the same address. I assume this address is where St. Patrick's Mother and Baby Home used to be???
So, I then had 2 potential incarnations of myself and 2 possible mother... I continued by starting to search for these ladies entry in the birth registry. My non identifying information revealed that my mother was 22 years old when she had me so we search the books for 1950 and 1951, each quarter and we came up with 3 matches from the 1951 book. " of the matches for my birth mother were from South Dublin and the 3rd was from Sligo. My non identifying information stated that my mother and father were from Leinster.

So, I will be returning on Monday to complete my search of the 1973 birth register and follow up on my findings so far. However, I'm a little confused on where to go from here with the information i have unearthed...
I would really appreciate any advise or direction on where I should go from here?
How to one proceed with a process of illumination?

Thanks
hally

Hermy

Hally, the next step is to find out all you can about the potential mothers.
[Before you do that it might be no harm to check the first quarter of 1974 in case of late registration.]
Starting with the most likely - those born in Leinster - identify their parents and any siblings. See if you can find likely marriages for the siblings and any children born to them. If they have children they may be on Facebook. Get the parents marriage cert to identify grandparents and then check newspaper archives for death notices which may provide additional information about the family.
Basically your trying to build up a picture of the family to get a sense of who they are, where they came from and where they might be now.
You can search the indexes on line at Family Search (records up to 1958) or the GRO website (births +100 years, marriages +75 years, deaths +50 years) which might save you a few Euro and give you slightly less work to do in the GRO.
The Irish Newspaper Archive and the Irish Times archive are free to access in many libraries, and if you're search is Dublin based the Thom's Directories and old phone books in Pearse Street Library are a great help for tracing.

hallymusic

Thanks Hermy,
I will definitely check the 1974 register but unfortunately its not divided into quarters, I will have to go thru it from start to finish looking for any 1973 entries from December.

Question... is there any point in me trying to get a copy of my baptismal cert, according to my info from agency I was baptized on 15th dec 1973 in St. Patrick's, Do you or anyone have any idea where these records would be kept and how to access them?

thanks

Hermy

As someone tracing my own mother and as a keen amateur genealogist I would always encourage someone getting as many documents relevant to their search as possible.

I'm not sure how you would go about it but it's definitely worth chasing up as it just may have some bit of information that pushes the search onward.

hallymusic

What stage are u @ in your own search?

endacl

hallymusic wrote: »

Hi,
I managed to spend a few hours this afternoon in the research room of GRO with my friend searching through the 1973 birth register. We got through approx 1.5 of the 3 books for that year.
I found 2 matches for 9th Dec 1973, Dublin N and where the child's name was the same as the mothers name. The matches came in quick succession and coincidentally both 1st names were "Paul".
I couldn't contain myself so I took a break from searching the birth register and ordered a copy of each BC. Each BC gave "381 Navan road" as the place of birth and "Elizabeth Mary o' Leary" was listed as informant from the same address. I assume this address is where St. Patrick's Mother and Baby Home used to be???
So, I then had 2 potential incarnations of myself and 2 possible mother... I continued by starting to search for these ladies entry in the birth registry. My non identifying information revealed that my mother was 22 years old when she had me so we search the books for 1950 and 1951, each quarter and we came up with 3 matches from the 1951 book. " of the matches for my birth mother were from South Dublin and the 3rd was from Sligo. My non identifying information stated that my mother and father were from Leinster.

So, I will be returning on Monday to complete my search of the 1973 birth register and follow up on my findings so far. However, I'm a little confused on where to go from here with the information i have unearthed...
I would really appreciate any advise or direction on where I should go from here?
How to one proceed with a process of illumination?

Thanks
hally

FFS. If that information is available through the application of your own research, why would they not just give it to you?!?

Hermy

hallymusic wrote: »

What stage are u @ in your own search?

Thread about it here.

hallymusic

Hi Hermy,
I had a read of your thread, great stuff on getting this far, I completely share your sentiments regarding the agencies, the state and the church. Throughout the years I have been lied to, fobbed off, disrespected, undermined and made to feel like a second class citizen. I made a conscience decision shortly before I began this search to limit my contact with the above institutions as much as possible. I have received non identifying info which may or may not be helpful, it also may or may not be accurate or even true. When i was 19 yrs I approached Cunamh in an effort to get some info and was told that my date of birth was not accurate, they said at the time "they were not in a position to elaborate any further". My next contact with Cunamh was maybe 10 yrs later and I had decided I was prepared to go the official route regarding the tracing of my mother, I was told there was a 5 year waiting list and it was insinuated in a very clear way that my birth mother, if she was still alive, would most likely not want any contact. You can imagine how this made me feel...

These agencies, just so we are clear, do not represent the interests of the adopted children or the natural mothers, they function as a buffer and a barrier between the victims of adoption and their truth. They have and continue to protect the institutions and the sick f***ed up people guilty of the atrocities carried out on these unmarried women and their children.

Already in my search I have 2 possible birth cert matches for the 9th Dec 1973 @ St. Patrick's Mother & Baby home, Navan Rd and 3 possible mothers deriving from those 2 certs, tomorrow i have more books to scroll thru in the GRO and expect to have a few more matches by tomorrow evening. I have decided that on Tues morning i am going to ring the social worker that I dealt with in Cunamh to inform her that I have unearthed x amount of potential mothers. I will politely and calmly explain to her that I wanted to ask her one last time for my birth name and any other info she would deem helpful before I proceeded to contact each and every potential mother on my list. In my correspondence with these ladies I would name the agency and the social worker I had been dealing with and make it very clear that they (the agency) were completely uncooperative and left me with no choice but to proceed in this crude manner. I will explain to the SW that she has an opportunity to save x amount of potential natural mothers from undue emotion trauma by simply releasing to me the necessary details that will confirm which of my birth certs is the correct one.

I have got to a point in my life where i am not prepared to be disrespected any further and whatever i need to do to find out my details I am prepared to do it.

Anyway - I'll post how i get on tomorrow and I wish u well in your own search and if I can be of any help please ask
hally

Hermy

hallymusic wrote: »

...it was insinuated in a very clear way that my birth mother, if she was still alive, would most likely not want any contact...

That lie is what lead to the I. O’T. & M.H. ruling. While I am sure there may be mothers out there who would prefer to leave the past behind for whatever reason, to just assume that as the default position for all was a very bad decision by the Supreme Court.

These agencies, just so we are clear, do not represent the interests of the adopted children or the natural mothers, they function as a buffer and a barrier between the victims of adoption and their truth.

It makes me wonder what that truth is given that no government has been willing to deal with the situation properly and thus so much of what went on will remain hidden for the foreseeable future.

I have decided that on Tues morning i am going to ring the social worker that I dealt with in Cunamh to inform her that I have unearthed x amount of potential mothers. I will politely and calmly explain to her that I wanted to ask her one last time for my birth name and any other info she would deem helpful before I proceeded to contact each and every potential mother on my list. In my correspondence with these ladies I would name the agency and the social worker I had been dealing with and make it very clear that they (the agency) were completely uncooperative and left me with no choice but to proceed in this crude manner. I will explain to the SW that she has an opportunity to save x amount of potential natural mothers from undue emotion trauma by simply releasing to me the necessary details that will confirm which of my birth certs is the correct one.

While I can understand completely you wanting to give this ultimatum perhaps it might be better to keep your powder dry. Backing them into a corner like that may have the desired affect but is there also the possibility of them pulling down the shutters completely?

I have got to a point in my life where i am not prepared to be disrespected any further and whatever i need to do to find out my details I am prepared to do it.

Agree completely. Life's too short. Get on with your own search and avoid the agencies as much as necessary. By doing that you avoid conflict and things are done on your terms rather than on the terms of those who may have something other than your best interests at heart.

Anyway - I'll post how i get on tomorrow and I wish u well in your own search and if I can be of any help please ask
hally

Do keep in touch and remember to be patient. It takes time to find what your looking for but also to figure out what to do as each new piece of information comes to hand.

kathy finn

Hi Hallymusic,
First you need to finish all the books for your year of Birth. Did Cunamh tell you how many siblings she had and the order she came in the family, anything about her parents, if so with the possible bmums look for the siblings. you will find them in books under the same surname and maiden name of mother, start with the parents marraige and work forward

Ghekko

Any update Hallymusic? I am shocked that there is such a divide amongst social workers. Dh's couldn't have been more helpful. With the info he got I was able to find his bm myself and give the sw the details of where she now lives!! It's sickening to think that some wagons get away with giving limited information. As regards getting your baptismal cert, you were probably baptised in Our Lady Help of Christians Church on the Navan Road. They won't give your original baptismal cert even if you have your name. I tried to get dh's but was told they would only give the amended one - with his adopted details. She did say I could apply to the Archbishop for it but I couldn't be arsed. Now that he has met his bm she might be able to get it.
I hope you have managed to get back to the GRO and that there weren't any more possibilities for your birth cert so that you have found your one.