birth certificate showing child is adopted?

No it won't have an A on it.

De and LC are answering under American Law where the adoptee's Birth Certificate is changed entirely.

In the UK it's different. If your half brother was legally adopted there would be 1 Birth Certificate and one adoption certificate (The adoption certificate would be the one marked & would contain the adoptive father's name)

I do wish the USA would acknowledge that such transparency and truthfullness can, indeed, work rather than legally falsifying adoptees' Birth Certificates & holding the original hostage. They are after all our BIRTH certificates not 'parenting' certificates! (LC) and as such, should contain truthful facts of our Birth.

The birth certificate that you have is correct. The purpose of a birth certificate is to show where and when someone was born, not to show who the parents are. As an adoptive parent, I wouldn't mind there being some notation on the birth certificate to acknowledge the birth parents. However, sometimes the birth parents might have a problem with that.

H****** is right, in the US there is the original birth certificate and amended birth certificate which is a legalised lie. In the UK there is the birth certificate and adoption certificate.

there are two birth certificates. At least with the twins I adopted. There was one with their bio parents. There bio parents choose not to name them and so it says infant girl with a last name on both. When the adoption was final, they issued a new birth certificate with the name we pick and our names in the place of the bio parents. There is no place on it that says we adopted them, if you look at it, you would not know I was not the bio mother unless I told you. The first certificate was sealed. They do know they are adopted though.

birth certificate would be different and the legal citizenry documents would have someone else or non applicable down as his legal guardian. those are two of the ultimate ways to tell.

No - what you have is what it is.