Adoption--Help Please!!!?

Question

My wife's daughter doesn't have the biological fathers name on the birth certificate, there are no child support, or has there been any contact for 7 years. How do I start the process of adopting her daughter and changing the name to mine. We are living in California.

Answer 1

Laws vary from state to state.  I recommend consulting an attorney who specializes in adoption.  Sorry I cannot be more helpful.

Answer 2

In most States, the clerk of your county court will honor your request for changing her name by giving fair notice in your local newspaper to all interested parties of your desire to change her name for whatever reason.  This puts on notice all parties including her biological parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. that without objection, the name change shall occur.  The court can advise you to whom to see to begin the legal adoption process.  However, please consider obtaining for her the genetic information (DNA) of her biological father for her future health issues and the health issues of her children.  In the not too distant future, medical doctors will require the genetic history of biological parents in order to treat certain deadly diseases.  As you know, presently when your wife's daughter goes to the doctor, she cannot list or convey the health history of her biological father nor his family.  She'll need this information in the future, so do try to get this information for her and her children's healthy future.  

ps:  Other than the embarrassment of not naming the biological father, a name on the birth certificate can be absent or that of anyone. . . the hospital doesn't care one way or the other.

Answer 3

Here in Alabama you have to prove abandonment. You are required to give notice of the adoption, like in a newspaper, stating that the child is being adopted and that his rights are being terminated. I would start by consulting a lawyer.