Support for adopted adults

Starting your enquiry

To begin, please complete an online enquiry form or call ACE directly. It’s useful if you can gather any paperwork or information, you might already know about your birth history. Our Business Support Officers will process your enquiry and then refer this on to our Birth Records Team. Once we receive your enquiry, a member of our team will contact you for a telephone consultation.

During this initial call you can expect a friendly, informative chat. We will learn more about your circumstances, provide guidance for the next steps, and answer any questions you might have.

Applying for information before adoption

If you’re missing key details about your birth history or don’t have your original birth certificate, we recommend applying for a Birth Certificate Information Before Adoption (BIBA) from the General Register Office (GRO). This step ensures that we have all the necessary details we need to locate your records as quickly as possible.

Access the BIBA application form and guidance (gov.uk)

What happens next based on your adoption order date

There are different routes for accessing birth records depending on the date of your Adoption Order and depending on how much information you already know.

You do not need to apply to the General Register Office if you know your birth history information, which would include:

• Your birth name
• Your adopted name
• Your date of birth
• Birth mother’s name
• Adoptive parents’ names
• Adoption Order date
• Name of court that granted Adoption Order
• Place of birth

Receiving your Birth Certificate Information Before Adoption (BIBA) will enable you to apply for your original birth certificate directly from the General Register Office.

If you were adopted before 13 November 1975, you’ll need to attend a consultation session with us before obtaining your Birth Certificate Information Before Adoption (BIBA) from the General Register Office. This is a legal requirement and is referred to as birth record counselling. The consultation is not with a counsellor, but an experienced adoption support social worker who can help you to understand information about when you were adopted.

If you were adopted between 13 November 1975, and 30 December 2005, then you’ll also need to apply to the General Register Office for your Birth Certificate Information Before Adoption. However, you are not legally required to attend a consultation although we would strongly recommend you meet with one of our team, they will be able to explain the information in the reports and provide a safe place to talk through the emotions this may raise for you.

If you were adopted after 30 December 2005 (Post Commencement) the Local Authority that arranged your adoption is responsible for managing access to your adoption records. The process for obtaining your records varies depending on which Local Authority was involved in your adoption, and where you are currently living.

For more information, please see our webpage - Information for young adults adopted after 2005 - post commencement.

Locating and accessing your records

After we have gathered all the necessary information needed, ACE can then conduct a search for your records.

We can experience delays when accessing files from other Local Authorities which unfortunately we have no control over. We will always ensure we keep you up to date regarding a file search. 

Once your records have been located, we will arrange an appointment to view them, and we will prepare a summary of the information along with relevant documents we are able to share with you, ready to discuss when we meet so that you gain a better understanding of your adoption journey.  

Please note that it is possible that sometimes we are unable to locate records or the information available is minimal.