Find Out - 18 Yrs.
information about my natural Parents if I'm adopted 18

• If you are under 18 you have no legal right to know the identity of your birth parents. If you are under 18 and intending to marry you may ask the Registrar General if your fiancé is within the “prohibited degrees of relationship for the purposes of marriage” i.e. that your fiancé is not related to you.

•Once you reach 18 you can apply to the Registrar General for access to the original record of your birth, If you were adopted before the 18th December 1987 you must see a counsellor before you can obtain information from your original birth record. The reason for this is because in the years before 1987 some birth parents and adopters may have been led to believe that the children being adopted would never be able to find out their original names or the names of their birth parents.

• If you were adopted after the 17th December 1987 you may choose whether or not you would like to see a counsellor before you are given the information which will lead you to your birth record.

• You may be interested to know that the Registrar General also maintains at the General Registrar Office an Adoption Contact Register, the purpose of which is to put persons adopted in N. Ireland and their relatives in touch with each other if this is their stated wish. There is a fee involved in doing this.