None of this first-hand info, so what I describe is the absolute limit of my knowledge on the subject. Anyway. . .
I have a relative who claimed that her birth certificate is ‘sealed’ (the word I got from two other relatives.
Circumstances of her birth were that her parents were not married at the time. They did marry a year later. I’ve never heard that there was any question about who the bio-dad was. It was the man her mother married (but no one in her family has done a DNA test, so we can’t confirm or deny it).
I’ve never spoken to this relative personally. This is all probably third hand info. The only thing I can imagine is that maybe since her parents weren’t married at the time, her father had to do a formal adoption, in which case her original might be sealed. But that’s just speculation.
Anyway. . . given this info, any other possible scenarios? (South Carolina in the mid 1950s).
“Sealed” may or may not be exactly the right word. There’s a difference between “sealing” and making corrections, such as correcting a misspelling or adding a first name or a father’s name after paternity has been established. A sealed record still exists but can only be unsealed by court order or a later change in the law. In the case of a corrected certificate, the original, incorrect record either no longer exists or the record and any certified copies will contain both the correct and incorrect information as does the one in this article.
According to Wiki,in 1935 California became the first state to seal and make an adoptee’s original birth record unavailable except by court order.[2] This act, however, also required the sealing of the original birth record of a child who was born illegitimate but who was later legitimated by affidavit or court order.
I looked up the 1935 statute and it does in fact require that a new certificate be issued and the original one sealed if an illegitimate child was later legitimated. California may not have been the only state that did this , but I haven’t been able to find further info.
Adoptees cannot access their birth certificates like others, without spending a lot of money to un-seal. And some states require permission of the original parents, even though the adoptee is an adult (go figure). It’s a civil rights issue for sure. If I were the relative, I’d start the process for getting the certificate, pronto.