What’s On Your OBR?

Julie McGue

Author

One of my kids recently needed their original birth record (OBR) as proof to a governmental agency that they were who they purported to be. As matriarch, I am the keeper of all things important. I scoured my desk for the fat red file labeled: Important Papers. Bulging under a thick rubber band, it is tattered and smudged from over thirty years of use. Jammed with social security info, birth certificates, baptismal records, yellowed envelopes with snippets of hair from first haircuts, the thick file also holds army discharge papers and a few marriage certificates. From deep within the stack, I unearthed the certified OBR in question, made a copy (just in case, right?) and sent it off to my progeny.

Before sliding the red folder back into its waiting slot in my file drawer, I unearthed my own birth certificate. Because I am adopted I have two OBR’s, and so does my twin sister with whom I was adopted and raised. I keep my OBRs paper clipped together like fraternal twins— while closely related the set is not identical. Both documents are important, but the one clipped in front is the bona fide legal document I have referenced all my life. While legal, it’s redacted. Meaning most of the original details were purged and revised as per the 1950s Illinois adoption statutes. Redacted OBRs are common if you’re adopted.

Have you ever considered the rectangles on your OBR? Now and then would be my guess. However, if you are an adoptee from the 1950s thru the 1980s when closed adoptions were the norm, I bet you’ve scrutinized your redacted certificate wishing some truth would appear like a scratch ‘n sniff. Of most interest to adoptees are the narrow rectangles where parental names appear. There are other interesting boxes on the OBR, like the hospital where the birth was recorded, birth weight and height, and the doctor’s name attesting to the live birth. There’s also a square for multiple births. A check mark in the small box labeled: Twin1 reminds me where I fit in. All of these details are somewhat boring unless some of it is missing, left blank or redacted.

On an adoptee’s redacted OBR, the birth parents names get replaced with the adoptive parents identities and their places of origin. The Department of Vital Records in most states will not release any of the biological parents’ data unless requested by the adoptee and only if the current adoption statutes provide for the release. I petitioned the state of Illinois when the adoption law changed in 2011 for my OBR.

Are you ready for some irony? The name provided in the rectangle above ‘mother’ is not my birthmother’s real name. The custom at the time was to encourage birth mother’s to don an alias to protect their privacy. Can you believe that was legal and encouraged? How I found the anonymous woman who placed two beautiful twin girls up for adoption in February 1959 is credited to a state sanctioned confidential intermediary program.

In the space marked ‘father’ on the birth record I couldn’t access until 2011, was this: Legally Omitted. We joke about this in my post-adoption support group— the irony that we all have the same birth father and his name is Legally Omitted. All kidding aside, it was astounding to learn that my first birth certificate was comprised of an alias and a non-entity. Also shocking is the fact that the customs of that era and the adoption law dictated that these fake names were as legal as the redacted OBR that replaced it.

The obvious question is whether I was able to discern the true identity of my biological father. With the assistance of the confidential intermediary who found my birth mom and a genealogist, I laid out several hundred dollars and discerned my birth dad’s true identity. He had been ‘legally omitted’ because my birth mother was not required to disclose his name per 1950’s adoption laws. Gratefully, current law dictates that birth fathers must sign away their parental rights just as birth mothers had always been required to do.

Before re-filing the important documents back in my desk, I sorted the paperwork and popped all of it in a crisp clean manila folder. My two OBRs were clipped together at the front for easy reference. I’ve grown fond of perusing my personal paperwork and feel comfortable with both the names I was given in the first year of my life. I am grateful for the two sets of parents who’ve influenced how I’ve evolved as a person. Well past the midpoint of life, I am glad I finally possess all about the names that belong in the boxes of my OBRs. Maybe the next time you poke your nose into your important files, you will consider the info on your OBR with newfound interest and respect.

“I am grateful for the two sets of parents who’ve influenced how I’ve evolved as a person.”

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