Many nations have granted adult adoptees unrestricted access to their original birth certificates.
Mike Leigh's Oscar-nominated film Secrets & Lies (1996) revolves around a British woman who accesses her original birth certificate.
While Minnesota was the first state in 1917 to seal and make court adoption records unavailable to the public,[1] 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.
Sealing birth records after an adoption or legitimation was intended to protect the child from any stigma associated with being born illegitimate.