Seeking truth about whether I was adopted

Thank you very much for your reply. My birth certificate does not include any revealing information. -Ray.

But is the birth certificate unaltered? If so, then you're likely not adopted. If it's been amended, then you know a change of some kind occurred. .

Yes, but how is Ray supposed to find out if the birth certificate has been altered or not? My amended birth certificate, the one given to me after my adoption was finalized, which has my adopted parents listed as my parents, provides no clues to my adoption. If I hadn't been told I was adopted, I wouldn't have known. You listed Montreal beneath your name. For clarification, is Montreal listed as your place of birth on your birth certificate. Your place of birth is important because, I believe, that the provinces each have different laws concerning adoptees

My (1st) ABC has a filing date almost four years after I was born, because that's when the adoption was finalized. Also, it wasn't signed by the attending physician. Instead, the doctor's name was written by someone else, with their initials below the signature to indicate that it wasn't original. Just an idea. .

If you weren't a newborn adoptee, there may be clues on your birth certificate, Ray. However, since your close family member only has a vague recollection of a rumor, it sounds like you would have been a newborn adoptee. Most of us who have this scenario cannot gain clues from just our birth certificates. After all, that was part of the point of altering them. We were supposed to be as if born to our adoptive parents.

Possibly look into your medical records. Things that run in one family don't tend to run in another; so if there are older medical records around, you may be able to compare theirs to yours to see if "medical history" portions of those files are consistent. If they are not consistent, that would provide a clue that you may have been adopted. As far as the birth certificate goes, my birth certificate would show that I was conceived before my parents' marriage, and that they were nowhere near my listed place of birth at the time of my birth. This may be something to check: Does the timeline of your place and time of birth match your parents' history? I think, though, that among every family, there are rumors of this sort that are unfounded. My room mate tells me that one of his relatives, to mess with him, told him he was adopted; and he believed it for years. But the statement that he was adopted certainly wasn't true. I suspect that if you were truly adopted, clues (other than rumors) may have surfaced by now. I hope you find the true answers, regardless of what that answer is, to your question.

PS -- Old photographs of your mother, taken near the time of your birth, would certainly reflect whether or not she was with child.

PPS -- If you weren't adopted, certainly someone would have stories or members of your mother during her pregnancy, and if you weren't adopted, there must have been stories about your birth and her pregnancy with you.

I would order your long form original birth certificate. If you are adopted - you probably won't get it. (yes, Canada and even Quebec have long form original birth certificates) Kind regards, Dickons

There is no way to tell if a birth certificate has been "altered" or amended (at least not in the U.S., I don't know about Canada). The whole point of the amended BC was so that adoptive parents could pretend that they gave birth to the child and the child - if the parents chose not to tell them the truth - would never be the wiser. It is a falsified, fictitious document with false and misleading information. Looking at a BC is useless in determining if you are adopted. Sad, but true.

And to offer a suggestion on how to find out if you might be adopted - have you considered DNA testing? Although your parents are deceased, it might still be possible to obtain a DNA sample if one of them passed fairly recently (their physicians may have some lab or pathology specimens on file, for example, although I imagine it would take a court order to release them to you.) Otherwise, you could do a DNA comparison with the next closest family member to see if it is likely that you are related.

As is my birth certificate. There's absolutely no indication that it is altered. The only way I knew I was adopted is that my parents told me.

My apologies to everyone that has been replying. I had no notification whatsoever and forgot to return here.I do have a birth certificate, but it is with my current name.-Ray.

Yes, what you say appears valid. My birth certificate contains nothing but information about my adopted situation. That is why I knew nothing until last year, when someone informed me, thus breaking the family secret.-Ray.

For the record, I now know that I was indeed adopted. I was recently given a handwritten letter written by my birth mother, Réjeanne Goulet, giving custody of me to my adoptive parents.My current quest is to reunite with my birth mother. If anybody has any tricks to do this in Quebec, I would appreciate all assistance. Thank you!Recap: My adoptive parents have passed and there are no members of family remaining from that generation.-Ray.