How to find your New York City original NAME

Press Conference at NYC Hall with David Weprin, 2013

For years, a data base that led to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of adoptees born in the five boroughs of New York City access their original birth record if they had a copy of their amended one has been removed from the Main Branch Public Library, under a 2008 change in the New York City Health Code. We believe this is a bogus application of the regulation to defeat the increasing numbers of adoptees who are going around the law to locate their original families.

But take heart, adoptees born in New York--this does not have to defeat us!  The data base is not only on line, but it is also available for a
nominal fee of $10 at each of the Family History Centers, which, we are informed, are available at the Mormon churches throughout the country--making this much more accessible to everyone.

Furthermore, access is available on line at various sites for nominal fees: New York City-Specific Databases:
http://vitalsearch-ca.com/gen/ny/counties/nyc/nycdlink-go.htm#VS
This link also has data bases all over the country.
and New York City Birth Index Search Service
http://nycbiss.com/

I am including both a hot link (in bold) and the specific address here. The first listed is connected to Ancestry.com and also lists several other states and cities.

The years of some data bases are only up to 1965, but this morning I did stumble across a page that had records up to 1975. The sites above charge nominal fees for their use (the first is $30 for 90 days, $70 for a year's access), but considering the cost of going to New York City, Main Branch on Fifth Avenue, that is a bargain. The other appears to be $300 and includes the search itself. Finding the matchup is tedious and that also seems like a fair price. The more places this data base is, the better. If anyone knows of other sites with the data base, email me at: forumfirstmother@gmail.com.

While it may seem that physically removing the birth books from the shelves was a way to prevent adoptees from finding their original birth certificates, which then lead to locating their first mothers, let us use this as an opportunity to defeat the sealed records not only in New York, but in any state where they are still sealed!

It works like this. An amended birth certificate has a number, and that number corresponds to the one on the original birth certificate. You match them and Voila! You've got your name. According to search angel Priscilla Stone Sharp, it looks something like this: Public John Q 11 24 5 K 49445. This means John Q. Public was born 24 November 1955 in K[ings] County [i.e., Brooklyn] and that his birth certificate number ends in 49445. This number will correspond to the one on the amended document. Unfortunately, the names of the biological parents are not listed, but the last name is a big clue in the discovery process of one's identity.

Priscilla, of State College, Pennsylvania, reports that she is solving about five cases a week--and half of them through DNA alone!  She has even found the families of two foundlings, both from the Sixties, through DNA. Reach her at: Priscilla Sharp or on Facebook.

The top of my birth certificate 

Why were the books removed? I'm hazarding an educated guess after four decades of fighting for opening the records: Our opposition is fighting a latch-ditch stand. As we are getting closer to ending sealed adoptee birth certificates, those opposed are taking greater measures to shut down the avenues we are using to get around them. Judge John Czygier of New York Suffolk County Surrogate Court--this is in fact my closest state court!--spoke at length opposing the repealing of New York's sealed-records law at the 2014 hearing when we thought we had a shot at getting the law through. It's not unlikely that he could be behind the sudden application of a 2008 loophole he found to have the volumes physically removed. Or it could be Rep. Helene Weinstein in Albany, who has been our fiercest opponent in unsealing the birth records. Or someone else in the New York City Department of Health. Who knows? It does not matter.

Today, however, let us not be defeated by this. Those who want to search, should continue. Those who have have vague thoughts about finding their records, should step up their efforts. Before any institution so entrenched in society comes to an end, there will be confusion and chaos, just as there was when slavery ended. This may seem like a setback, but it is only a manifestation of a desperate losing side. They know they are losing. Take heart, and do the work. We Will Win in the end. The arc of justice bends to the right.--lorraine
_______________________

Hole In My Heart: memoir and report from the fault lines of adoption
"I felt that I was listening in to Lorraine's experiences across the years somewhere between her heart and her skin. Dusky writes as most people think."
 --Pam Hasegawa, adoptee, founder of AdoptionNS@yahoogroups.com former board member, American Adoption Congress

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