How does someone get an original birth certificate after they've been adopted?

Hsychia, My parents (reluctantly because they never wanted me to find out) gave me my records. Birth certificate is easy (not the original but the current). But I only had one paper (which I lost along with my "journey" diary with all the notes and results). The investigator looked up the record, did some poking around and couldn't find anything. She said she'll try a little harder and discovered my birth mom changed her last name (back to maiden) then entered the army. Once she had the army info, she could track her whereabouts. From there she started calling army people but then her ex husband was the one, in the end, who gave her up. She called posing as a long lost classmate for reunion info and he gave her up (not knowing he did so). Yes, sneaky and I never told her that's how I found her because I'm sure the investigator found all sorts of goodies along the way once I heard from my birth mom her tales of her life before and after giving me up. All I know is it taught me that sometimes, things are better left unsaid or unfounded. I advise all adoptees to prepare for a doosey of a tale and sometimes you wish you didn't get the answer. All is good though. I still keep in contact with my 1/2 brother. The birth mom relationship just didn't work out. I think in the end all I wanted to know the "who am I/where did I come from/why?", got it, and really saw nothing more after that. She didn't raise me, I didn't fully agree with her lifestyle choices that led up to a lot of things, and thought in the end, my parents who adopted me where really my parents who sacrificed, etc. I felt bad for my birth mom because I'm sure things weren't easy to do but I also have personal feelings about people's choices and one of those "did you think of looking for me? "meh, not really" answers as crappy. When I met her and saw how she treated my brother (who she gave up to foster care at 5 years old) I figured you know, things are what they are and some people weren't cut out to be the parents we expect. So he and I moved on. Good luck.

The answer to this might vary by country/province/state. Could you let us know where your relative lives?

He was born in Florida in 1958. He might have been legally adopted there. His family then moved to New Jersey for about a decade, then to Georgia, where he still lives.

IANAL. In the US, typically, you can't. You can obtain a modified (though valid) birth certificate from your state, but many states have "closed adoptions", where they deliberately mask information about birth parents. There are fairly wide differences by state, though. Finding a local adoption lawyer is the best way to get a straight answer for where you are - and get a lot of other questions resolve at the same time.

On preview: Florida's the right state for all this. There doesn't seem to be a good internet resource with any details.

Citrus - I'm glad I'm not the only one having a hard time with the internet sources.

I'm adopted and I've never seen my original. I was told that the hospital has it and it's under seal, which requires a lawyer, judge, etc. and if the birth mom signed something 'do not open' then I was SOL. So I took the alternative route. I took my current birth certificate and all adoption papers (which all I had was the adoption decree and record number), birth mom's last name, and hired a priviate investigator. It took 1 month to find her (and my stepbrother, whom I never knew I had). It was faster and more informative and really not that expensive ($600 total). But note they only give what you request. I only wanted to know my birth mom's info so that's all I got. They only gave me birth heritage and occupation of the father, nothing as far as the father's name, situation, etc. My birth mother told me that when I met her. So there are alternatives instead of dealing with the very long routes of the court and hospital.

Thanks for the story, stormpooper. Glad you were able to track down the information. It makes you wonder, though, what resources a private investigator has that those of us not in the know don't have. Did you already have the adoption papers on hand or were those something you had to track down? My relative doesn't even have those to turn to.

It makes you wonder, though, what resources a private investigator has that those of us not in the know don't have. Well...in my case, when I decided to search, the partner of the PI I hired had an...intimate...relationship with someone working in records.