Official UK Adoption Certificates

UK Adoption Certificates provide proof of birth for adopted persons. An Adoption Certficate replaces the original birth certificate and is suitable for proof of identity.

The main difference between the birth and adoption documents is that the adoption certificate shows the adoptive parents, whereas a birth certificate shows the names of the birth parents. It is possible to request a copy of the original birth certificate if your original name is known (along with the details of your parents if the birth took place within the past 50 years).

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Adoption Certificates

We supply official Adoption Certificate replacements from the archived certificate issued at the time of the adoption court hearing. Any adoption recorded within England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland can be re-issued.

Adopted persons are often requested to provide their birth certificate when applying for passports, drivers licences, or job interviews. This is not required under UK law as the original birth certificate may not be available to you if you are unaware of your birth name. In all cases, you should provide your adoption certificate, which includes details of the adoptive father and mother, as this certificate replaces the original birth certificate. In fact the original birth certificate will have been written on to show that it is no longer valid and that it has been replaced by the adoption certificate.

Under UK law, adoption certificates are known as Public Records which means that any person can apply for a copy of any certificate, providing that they know the details of the adopted person that is required. This can be helpful for both government and legal services needing proof of identity. Please note however that where we believe an application to be connected with an attempt to obtain information for the purposes of identity fraud, the application may be rejected and details passed to the relevant police authority.

We are unable to assist with enquiries where an adopted person’s original name is not known, and access to the birth records is requested. Under these circumstances, you would need to contact an adoption intermediary to attempt to gain access to the original court records or locate birth parents.

Adoption certificates in England or Wales are available from 1927 to 2008, 1930 for Scottish adoptions, or 1864 for Northern Ireland. Whilst people may have been adopted before these dates, at the time there was no formal adoption process and therefore no recorded entry that can be reissued.