How to Contact Birth Parents in New Jersey
Like most states, New Jersey carefully guards the rights and privacy of all parties to an adoption. The state recognizes that people who give children up for adoption may have had reasons that compel them to want no further reminder or contact. Similarly, New Jersey also recognizes that adoptive parents may not want birth parents seeking out the children they gave up for adoption. Despite this, adopted children often have a natural curiosity to learn about their birth families. To balance these competing human interests, the New Jersey Department of Children and Families operates an adoption registry.
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Instructions
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Ask your adopted parents to access your adoption records for you. In New Jersey, adoptive parents have rights to access records whereas adoptees -- even into adulthood -- do not. The easiest way to get identifying information on your birth parents is through your adopted parents, if they are willing.
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Register yourself with the New Jersey adoption registry. Registry staff will process your information to see if they have any non-identifying information about your birth parents they can give you. Birth parents have the option to leave information about themselves, including medical histories, available for adoptees to access at any time.
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Request that the adoption registry release identifying information. The New Jersey Department of Children and Families can do this if birth parents have given prior written consent and if the adoptee is either over the age of 18 or has the written consent of the adopted parents.
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Initiate a search for your birth parents through the adoption registry. The state will first check to make sure that nothing about your adoption precludes you from using this free state service. This will take two to three weeks. Once verified, the state will attempt to contact your birth parents using the information available from adoption and state records. The process can take months. If the state succeeds in contacting your birth parents, it will ask for their written consent to release information. If that occurs, the Department of Children and Families will release the information to you.
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Petition the court of the New Jersey county in which your adoption took place for the release of your adoption records. A judge can order your records unsealed. However, you'll need reasons that compel the judge to compromise privacy rights. If you need an organ and tissue donor or want to learn about your family lineage and birth parents after they have passed away, a judge will most likely find in your favor.
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References
- New Jersey Department of Children and Families: Adoption Registry
- Department of Health and Human Services Child Welfare: State Adoption Statutes - New Jersey
- Department of Health and Human Services Child Welfare: Searching for Birth Relatives
- Department of Health and Human Services Child Welfare: Access to Adoption Records
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