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New South Wales - Glossary Term

Original Birth Certificate

An original birth certificate is the certificate issued by the Registry of Births, Death and Marriages at the time of a baby's birth.

Under adoption legislation, a person who is adopted receives a new birth certificate that carries the names of the adoptive parent(s). This becomes the primary method of identification for the adopted person.

In past closed adoptions, adopted people were unable to see their original birth certificates. In the late 1980s, all states and territories opened their adoption registers. The adopted person's first birth certificate is preserved but is no longer a valid form of identification.

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Sources used to compile this entry: Mandryk, Miriam Kathleen, Adopted Persons' Access to and Use of their Original Birth Certificates: An Analysis of Australian Policy and Legislation, RMIT School of Global Studies Social Science & Planning, June 2011, 70 pp, http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/aja/article/viewFile/2454/2903.

Prepared by: Naomi Parry