* Adoption

[saban]

Hello,
Both my children are adopted. The Birth Certificate for both of them show my surname and the Christian Names that we gave them at the time of adoption which was only a few weeks after birth.
It is only after looking at the court order that I find their original names which are not (I believe) in the GRO Register. Only their Adopted names appear.
Is it good practice to show them as my children or to show their original names and then a note saying that they were adopted?
If anyone were tracing their original names they would not find them in the GRO Index; why is this?
Ron

[davidm_uk]

And an associated question, what are the options for recording the parents (both birth and adoptive) of the individual, and how would they appear in diagrams and reports?

I could imagine that said individual, and their descendants might have an interest in knowing about both sets of parents, and their history.

What do others do?

[tatewise]

GRO Documents
The GRO Index and associated GRO Birth Certificate both simply record what was registered at the Register Office within the allowed deadline after birth.
Since you chose to register the children in your Surname, then that is what appears in the Index and Certificate.

People researching their ancestors would have to unearth the Adoption Court Order to trace the original natural parent's names.

Parent Families
You can add both the Natural Parents, and yourself & wife as Adoptive Parents, to both the children, so they have two parent Families.
The Relationship to Parents should be set to a=adopted for yourself & wife as Adoptive Parents.

Names
Which Primary Names and which Alternate Names you choose to use for the children is largely a personal preference.
Usually, the convention is to set the Primary Names as those shown on the Birth Certificate, but that assumes the Natural Parents registered the birth in their own name.
I think, your situation is rather unusual with the Adoptive Parents registering the birth in their adoptive names.
So the choice is yours.

Reports & Diagrams
In some Reports both parents are included, but in Narrative Reports and Outline Reports only the first Parent Family is included, which would normally be the Natural Parents, but can be temporarily reversed if required.

In all Diagrams (except Everyone) you are asked to choose which Parent Family to include. The other Parent Family can be inserted as a separate tree afterwards.