Adoption Records UK: England and Wales Family History Guide

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Legal adoption in England and Wales began on 1 January 1927, under the Adoption of Children Act 1926. Every adoption ordered by a court since then is recorded in the Adopted Children Register, kept by the General Register Office (GRO). There are no adoption registers or indexes online. An adopted adult can apply to GRO for their original birth record, and adoption agencies and courts may hold fuller files. Before 1927, adoption was informal and has to be traced through other records.

Adoption records are personal and often emotional. The rules are designed to protect everyone involved, including birth parents who may still be alive. This guide explains what exists, who can see it, and where to get support, and then shows how an original birth entry can lead to a family in Poland.

Informal adoption before 1927

Before the 1926 Act took effect, there was no legal way to transfer parental rights in England and Wales. Children were still brought up by grandparents, aunts, neighbours or strangers, but the arrangement left no official adoption record. To find these children, look for indirect evidence:

  • Census returns may describe a child as “adopted son”, “adopted daughter”, “nurse child” or “boarder”, or list them under a different surname from the head of household (see our guide to census records and the 1939 Register).
  • Birth and baptism entries: a child registered under one surname and later known by another may have been brought up informally. Compare the civil birth entry with parish registers.
  • Poor law and children’s home records: children boarded out by guardians or placed by charities appear in poor law and institutional records, usually at county record offices (see workhouse and poor law records).
  • Foundling Hospital records: the archive of the London Foundling Hospital is at London Metropolitan Archives, and Coram has put many of the older registers online free at Coram Story. Records naming individuals are closed for a long period.

The Adopted Children Register and adoption certificates

GRO keeps the Adopted Children Register for adoptions authorised by a court in England or Wales on or after 1 January 1927. Local register offices do not hold it, so every application goes to GRO. The National Archives confirms that it does not hold adoption records and that no adoption registers or indexes can be searched online.

A certified copy of an entry in the register is the adopted person’s equivalent of a birth certificate. It shows the adoptive name and has no link back to the original birth entry. There are two versions:

  • Full certificate: a copy of the register entry, with the date of the adoption order, the name of the court and the names of the adoptive parents.
  • Short certificate: the adoptive name, sex, date of birth and country or district of birth, with no mention of adoption.

GRO’s own guidance explains that the place of birth has been recorded differently over time. For orders made from 1927 to 1949, the full certificate shows no country or district of birth. For orders from 1950 to March 1959, the country of birth appears on both versions. For orders since April 1959, a person born outside England and Wales has only the country of birth recorded. For a family historian, this means that an adoption certificate from the 1950s onwards may show “Poland” or another country as the place of birth.

Certificates are ordered online from GRO with a free account. You need the adoptive name, date of birth and adoptive parents’ names, or a GRO index reference. Check the current fee on the GRO website.

How an adopted person gets their original birth record

An adopted person aged 18 or over has the right to their original birth record. GOV.UK sets out two routes:

  • If you know your birth details (original name, date and place of birth, birth mother’s name), you can order a copy of the original birth certificate from GRO in the usual way. Our certificates guide explains what the entry contains.
  • If you do not know them, apply to GRO using the Birth certificate Information Before Adoption (BIBA) form. There are versions for people living in the UK and abroad, and the completed form goes to the Adoptions Section of GRO in Southport or by email to GRO.

If you were adopted before 12 November 1975 and do not already know your birth details, you must first attend a counselling session with an approved adoption adviser. This rule exists because, before the law changed, many birth parents were told that their child would never be able to trace them. The session is a chance to talk through what the records may show and how you might feel about it.

Adoption agency and court records

The birth record gives names. The adoption file may explain why the adoption happened. Depending on the date and circumstances, records may be held by:

  • the local authority that arranged the adoption, or its successor council
  • a voluntary adoption society or its successor (many religious and charitable societies closed or merged)
  • the court that made the adoption order
  • a county record office or a large archive such as London Metropolitan Archives

To find out where the file of a closed agency or mother and baby home ended up, use the Locating Adoption Records database on the Adoption Search Reunion website, run by CoramBAAF. Barnardo’s, which became an adoption agency in 1946, holds its own records through its Making Connections service.

For adoptions made before 30 December 2005, you do not have an automatic right to see the agency or court file. Agencies usually share background information with the adopted person, and courts decide each application. For adoptions from 30 December 2005, the Adoption and Children Act 2002 gives adopted adults wider rights to information. Guidance from CoramBAAF and FamilyConnect notes that agencies have been expected to keep older adoption records for 75 years from the order, and later records for 100 years, so very old files may no longer exist.

Contact registers and intermediary services

The Adoption Contact Register

GRO runs the Adoption Contact Register for adoptions registered in England and Wales. Adopted people and birth relatives aged 18 or over can join, and a link is made only when both sides have registered. It is not a tracing service. At the time of writing (September 2026), GOV.UK lists the fee as £15 for an adopted person (form CR Part 1) and £30 for a birth relative (form CR Part 2). An adopted person can also use the birth relative form to look for adopted siblings.

Intermediary agencies

If you were adopted before 30 December 2005, or a relative of yours (including a relative by adoption) was, you can ask an approved intermediary agency to trace and approach the other person for you. They can only be put in touch if they agree. If they decline, the agency may pass on limited, non-identifying information, such as their general health and family circumstances. People who do not want contact can register an absolute or qualified veto. Fees depend on the agency, and you can find one through GRO, your council’s adoption team, voluntary adoption agencies and adoption support agencies.

What descendants and other relatives can see

Relatives cannot apply for an adopted person’s original birth record in the way the adopted person can, and the adoption file is not open to family historians. The main routes for a relative are the intermediary service described above, the Adoption Contact Register (for birth relatives), and ordinary certificates: once you know the names, a birth, marriage or death certificate can be ordered from GRO by anyone. Some agencies, such as Barnardo’s, offer family history services to descendants of children who were in their care. If you are unsure what applies to your situation, ask the agency or an adoption support service before you start.

Support

Tracing birth family can bring up difficult news as well as good news. FamilyConnect (run by Family Action) offers guidance and the PAC-UK advice line, and CoramBAAF and Adoption Search Reunion publish practical advice. Many adopted people also use DNA tests; these can identify birth relatives outside any official process, so think about how and when you would make contact.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

Scotland has its own law and records. The Registrar General for Scotland has kept an Adopted Children Register since 1930, and National Records of Scotland (NRS) handles access to original birth entries and to adoption court records transferred from the sheriff courts. An adopted person aged 16 or over can apply. Birthlink runs the Adoption Contact Register for Scotland. See also our guide to Scottish records and ScotlandsPeople.

Northern Ireland: the General Register Office for Northern Ireland (GRONI) holds the Adopted Children Register from 1 January 1931. Adoption records are not online. Adopted people aged 18 or over can apply for their original birth record, and there is a separate application form for people adopted in Northern Ireland before 18 December 1987. Details are on nidirect.

Adoption and a Polish-born parent

After the Second World War, many thousands of Polish servicemen and their families settled in Britain, and some children born to Polish parents in Britain were later adopted. There were also children born abroad who were adopted after arriving in Britain. We have not found a single official collection of such adoptions, so each case starts from the individual’s own records.

The original birth entry is the key document. It gives the child’s birth name, the mother’s name and maiden surname, and sometimes the father’s name and occupation. If the parents were not married, the father usually appears only if he took part in the registration. Things to look for:

  • A Polish surname, often misspelt. Registrars wrote down what they heard, so Wiśniewski may appear as Wisniewski or Visnevski. See our guide to anglicised Polish surnames.
  • An occupation that points to service, such as a soldier in the Polish forces or the Polish Resettlement Corps, or an address at a resettlement camp or hostel.
  • A country of birth of Poland on a post-1950 adoption certificate, which tells you the child was born there.

From there, the usual next steps are the parent’s naturalisation records and, for a serviceman, his Polish service record from the Ministry of Defence, both of which normally give a date and place of birth in Poland. With a place and a date you can look for the parent’s own birth entry: our guide to finding a birth entry in Poland explains how. If the parent was born to an unmarried mother in Poland, the entry will look different and the father may be missing; see researching an illegitimate birth in Poland.

Official sources