Your pre-adoptive birth certificate will usually tell you:
To get a copy of your pre-adoptive birth certificate from Births, Deaths, and Marriages, fill out their request for pre-adoptive New Zealand birth certificate formopen_in_new
There is a fee to receive a copy of the certificate, as well as postage costs.
It can help to have someone you can talk with and support you during this process. Learn where you can find support to help you before, during, and after you have received your records.
If you were adopted before 1986 and are living in New Zealand, under the Adult Adoption Information Act 1985, you will be asked to choose an adoption social worker or counsellor to receive the certificate on your behalf (the list of social workers and counsellors is on the application form).
Unfortunately, under the Adult Adoption Act 1985, they cannot send the certificate directly to you.
Births, Deaths and Marriages will send your pre-adoption birth certificate to the social worker or counsellor you chose. The social worker or counsellor will arrange to give you your certificate and can give you advice and support about finding your birth parents if you want to.
If you were adopted before 1 March 1986 but do not live in New Zealand, the certificate will be sent directly to you.
If you were adopted after 1986, you will still be offered counselling, but your birth certificate can be sent directly to you if you do not want counselling.
If one or both of your birth parents placed a veto on their information, this means their names will not appear on your pre-adoptive birth certificate. (Vetoes expire after ten years, but the birth parents are allowed to renew their veto for another ten years.)
In this situation, your birth certificate will be sent to you directly.
You can talk to an adoption social worker or counsellor about the veto and ask if they have any information about it (for example, a letter explaining why there is a veto).
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This webpage is about how to get your pre-adoptive birth certificate if you were adopted.
Being adopted means a family:
A birth certificate is an official document made by the government with information about your birth.
If you were adopted you might have a pre-adoptive birth certificate.
A pre-adoptive birth certificate has information on it like your:
Birth parents means the parents when the child is born.
A pre-adoptive birth certificate also has information on it like:
Adoptive parents are the parents who:
An Adoption Order is the official document that:
Click here to fill out a form and get a copy of your pre-adoptive birth certificate.
This form is not in Easy Read.
It costs money to:
Your pre-adoptive birth certificate will be sent to different places depending on if you were adopted:
If you were adopted before 1 March 1986
If you were adopted before 1 March 1986 your pre-adoptive birth certificate will be sent to your adoption:
This is because of the Adult Adoption Act 1985.
The Adult Adoption Act 1985 changed the way adopted people could get their adoption information.
When you fill out the form to get your pre-adoptive birth certificate you will be asked to choose an adoption:
This person will:
Your certificate will be sent directly to you if you:
If you were adopted after 1 March 1986
If you were adopted after 1 March 1986 your certificate will be sent directly to you.
Your birth parents may have put a veto on their information.
Here a veto means the names of the birth parents are not on a pre-adoptive birth certificate.
Vetos:
If you want to know information about why the veto is on your certificate you can talk to an adoption:
Asking for your adoption information can make you feel lots of things.
It can be good to have someone to talk to about it.
You can talk to your:
Kōnae has information on where to get support if you want to talk about how it feels to get your records.
Click here to find out what support and advice you can get.
This webpage is not in Easy Read.
Click here to download the information on this page as a PDF.
More Easy Read information is available.
Click here to visit our Easy Read library webpage.
Click here to learn about who made this Easy Read.