How hard is it to get information from a sealed adoption?

The only way to get family medical history is to contact the natural family and ask them, or some states have a medical adoption registry where a first Mom can leave essential medical information for the adoptee to collect (if they know about the registry!)

some states have restored access to Adoptees' birth records, so if you edit to say where the birth and adoption took place, you will get more state-specific answers. If the adoption took place in a sealed records state, petitioning the court will be necessary and then you're at the mercy of the individual judge's bias. (I just petitioned and the judge treated me like a pondscum 'stalker' as though I wanted to 'disrupt lives' even though I am already reunited with my first family! other Judges will grant a petition because they believe all people have the right to know the truth of their origins)

for information on laws in your State http://adopteerights.net/nulliusfilius/

And one of the largest and most successful registry is http://www.isrr.net/

Also http://registry.adoption.com/ and

http://gsadoptionregistry.com/

Don't forget to check with the State Dept of Health too

I am sorry, but you have absolutely no right to the information that is in the sealed records, other than the OBC. Even if you could get them unsealed you would only find that. You would be better to find the natural mother and ask her for medical information.

Have you contacted the agency your nephew was adopted from? Do you know the mother's name? Does anyone have any information that you can get? Call the state vital records office and see what you need to do to get the OBC which will give you a starting point.

If you nephew is 20, chances are that someone involved in the adoption knows the name of the mother or has some contact information of some kind.

Register with the ISRR which is free, and find a search angel who usually will work for free or little more than expenses. There are many ways to conduct a search. Good luck.

The only person who can petition a court to unseal his records...is the adult adoptee himself...unless his illness is so severe he is incapable of speaking and writing for himself. Same thing goes for the adoption agency or adoption lawyer (if he has that info) that engineered his adoption...your adult nephew needs to seek this info himself. And even at that, more times than not, a court will refuse to open his records and he'll only receive 'non-identifying' information from the adoption agency, which is many times, next to nothing.

Does your adult nephew have the name of his natural mother, the hospital he was born in, etc? If he does and he can get the $$$$$$ together...contact Kinsolving...I have heard they have a pretty good record of finding people.

The law makes is very tough if not impossible to find and open files without a private investigator. I hope you can find what your looking for.