What records exist?
Explore adoption, birth, care and court records in England and Wales.
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Open a section to read its guidance. Adoption files, care records and court files have different access routes.
What records might exist?
Agency or local authority file
Often the richest source of information about the circumstances of the adoption, family background, reports and correspondence.
Original birth registration
From the age of 18, you have a right to access your original birth record information and obtain your original birth certificate.
Court records
The court that made the adoption order may hold a separate file.
Care records
Some adoptees were also looked after by a local authority before adoption and may have separate care records.
How do I find my adoption file?
If you know which agency or local authority arranged your adoption, contact it and ask who now holds your adoption records. Give the agency’s historic name, even if it has since changed.
If you do not know where to start, contact the adoption support or adopted adults service for the local authority where you live. In Wales, this may be a regional adoption service.
An agency closing, merging or changing its name does not necessarily mean its records disappeared. They may have passed to a successor organisation or local authority.
CoramBAAF’s Locating Adoption Records database can help identify where records from former adoption agencies, societies and mother and baby homes are held. CoramBAAF is also working with the Archives and Records Association on a new resource for locating care and adoption records.
Practical checklist: Get your adoption records
There is no single adoption record. Your adoption agency file, original birth certificate, court papers and any care records are separate record sets and may be held by different organisations.
- Write down the date and place of the adoption and the name of any agency, local authority or court you know.
- Contact the adopted adults or adoption support service for your current local authority, or the agency that arranged the adoption if you know it.
- Ask for the adoption case record and for a clear explanation of the disclosure process being used.
- Ask separately about original birth information, court records and any records from care before adoption.
- If an organisation no longer exists, use the resources for locating adoption records to identify a successor holder.
Important points
- An adoption certificate is not the same document as the original birth certificate.
- A court file is separate from an adoption agency or local authority file.
- Historic files vary, and some records may have been transferred, destroyed or never created.
- Obtaining records does not commit you to tracing or contacting anyone.
Important limitation: Access is not necessarily unrestricted. Information about other people may be protected, but a record holder should consider the material properly rather than applying blanket redactions.
Guidance last reviewed: September 2026
Sources
Getting access to your records
How can I get my original birth certificate?
Your original birth certificate and your adoption certificate are different documents.
If you were adopted in England or Wales and are 18 or over, you can obtain the information needed to access your original birth record. The route depends partly on when the adoption order was made.
Your original birth registration remains a historical record. Adoption changes legal parentage; it does not mean the original birth entry disappeared.
GOV.UK: adoption recordsPractical checklist: Original birth certificate
If you were adopted in England or Wales and are aged 18 or over, you can obtain the information needed to access your original birth record. What you need to do depends partly on when the adoption order was made and whether you already know your original birth details.
- Confirm that the adoption was registered in England or Wales and that you are aged 18 or over.
- If you know your original birth name and registration details, follow the General Register Office route for ordering the certificate.
- If you do not know those details, use the process for accessing birth record information before adoption described by GOV.UK.
- For an adoption made before 12 November 1975, check whether a meeting with an approved adoption adviser is required before the information is released.
- Treat the original birth certificate as one record: request the adoption agency and court records separately if you need the fuller history.
Important points
- The original birth registration remains a historical record.
- The adoption certificate records the adoptive identity and is not a replacement copy of the original birth certificate.
- A birth certificate may identify a birth mother but will name a birth father only where his details were registered.
- Different rules apply in Scotland, Northern Ireland and overseas jurisdictions.
Important limitation: This guide concerns England and Wales. Use the appropriate process for the country where the birth or adoption was registered.
Guidance last reviewed: September 2026
Sources
Your adoption file
The agency or local authority file is often the most detailed source for understanding how the adoption happened.
For adoptions made before 30 December 2005, agencies historically had broad discretion over disclosure. Guidance has long encouraged agencies to share as much information as possible with adopted adults, while protecting information that should not be disclosed.
For adoptions made on or after 30 December 2005, there is a more structured legal framework. The adoption agency is the main gateway for information. An adopted adult has a right to certain information on request, including prescribed information that was given to the adopters. Other protected information may depend on an agency decision.
If you disagree with a qualifying decision to disclose or withhold protected information in an adoption made on or after 30 December 2005, the Independent Review Mechanism may be available.
A statement appearing in a file does not automatically prove it was correct. Historic files in particular may contain dated, insensitive or offensive language.
Could I also have care records?
Possibly. Some adoptees were looked after by a local authority before the adoption order, including some who spent only a short period under local authority responsibility.
Care records are separate from the adoption agency file. If they still exist, you can ask the organisation that holds them for access to your personal information. Historic retention periods mean that some older care records may no longer survive.
Do not assume that a missing adoption file means care records are also missing, or vice versa.
ICO guidance on providing care records →Why has information been removed from my records?
You should not assume either that you are entitled to every word in a file or that everything mentioning another person can automatically be blacked out.
Some information about other people can be withheld. But where information about somebody else also forms part of your own history, the record holder should consider the position rather than simply applying a blanket rule.
If substantial information has been removed, you can ask:
- what type of information was withheld;
- why it was withheld;
- which disclosure process was used;
- whether the decision can be reviewed;
- whether enough context can still be given for the remaining record to make sense.
Practical checklist: Redacted adoption records
You should not assume either that you are entitled to every word in a file or that everything mentioning another person can automatically be removed. Information about somebody else can sometimes also form an important part of your own history.
- Ask what category of information was withheld rather than asking the record holder to reveal protected details immediately.
- Ask why it was withheld and which legal or adoption disclosure process was used.
- Ask whether each redaction was considered individually or applied as a blanket rule.
- Ask whether enough context can be supplied for the remaining record to make sense.
- Ask whether the decision can be reviewed, and obtain written details of how to request a review and the deadline.
Important points
- Adoption records and care records may use different disclosure processes.
- A subject access request is not always the only or correct route for an adoption case record.
- For some adoption information decisions made after 30 December 2005, the Independent Review Mechanism may be relevant.
- Keep the disclosed copy and the covering decision letter together.
Important limitation: The correct way to challenge the decision depends on the type of record, adoption date, record holder and reason given for withholding information.
Guidance last reviewed: September 2026
Sources
Court records
The court that made the adoption order may hold a separate record. As an adoptee aged 18 or over, the current court rules allow you to ask for listed adoption documents. This does not create a general right to receive the whole court file, and protected information may be removed.
The date of your adoption matters when thinking about what the court file may contain. Older adoption cases were not created using the same reports and procedures as modern cases. The current disclosure route tells you what categories you can ask the court for now; it does not mean every historic file contains the same documents or that modern report names should be applied to older adoptions.
The application form itself can be requested, but the current rules expressly exclude documents attached to that application. A document is not automatically available simply because it is mentioned in a report.
Court files are often much thinner than agency files, but they can become especially important where:
- the main agency file has been destroyed;
- the agency file cannot be found;
- the adoption was privately arranged;
- you are trying to establish what material was before the court.
I’ve got my records, now what?
Getting information about your adoption, identifying relatives and contacting somebody are three separate activities. You can want one without wanting the others.
Obtaining your records does not commit you to tracing or contact.
Tracing family