LOCAL INFORMATION
8.30.55.L4
Birth details, availability
Extent: Jersey
Updated 15 January 2020
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Words you may need to know
Adopted – to live with someone who is not your birth parent but who has taken on legal responsibility for you as if they were your parent
Counselling - support, often related to emotional problems or big issues in your life
Compulsory - you don’t have to do it
Birth family – the family you were born into
Consequences – things that might happen as a result of something else happening
Superintendent Registrar – head of the Registry where all records of birth, marriage and death in Jersey are kept
Applying for birth records
A change to the Jersey Adoption Law came in on 1 January 1996. The changes in the law were as a result of the need felt by many adopted persons for information about their birth families and the situation that led to their adoption.
If you're over the age of 18, and you were born before the 1st of January 2007 and you want information from your birth records, you need to meet with a Social Worker from the adoption service for adoption counselling before you can get a copy of your original birth certificate.
If the adoption was after 1st of January 2007 the counselling meeting is not compulsory.
At the counselling meeting the Social Worker will discuss with you how much you already know about your birth family and your reasons for wanting further information. The social worker will:
· give you as much information as possible about your adoption
· help you to understand some of the feelings and emotions you or your adoptive
parents might feel.
· help you make inquiries about your birth family
· help you consider the possible effects and consequences for your birth parents if
you decide to trace them
In order to find the right records, you will need to supply the following information to the adoption service:
· your name
· your date of birth
· your maiden name (if appropriate)
· the surname and Christian names of your adoptive parents
It is important that the adoption service is given some form of identification, so they can be sure that information is given to the right person. If you were born in Jersey the Social Worker will apply on your behalf to the Superintendent Registrar for a copy of your original birth certificate. The cost is £20 and you need to make a cheque payable to ‘the Treasurer of the States’.
An adopted adult is able to put their name down on the Contact Registers held by the Superintendent Registrar in Jersey and the Greffe in Guernsey if they wish people to know that they want to make contact with their birth family.
For further information:
See: http://govje/Caring/Children/FosteringAdoption/Adoption/Pages/AccessRecords.aspx
Contact:
Fostering and Adoption Jersey
Children's Service, Liberte House, 19-23 La Motte Street, St Helier, Jersey, JE2 4SY
Tel: 01534 443970
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
