New Ohio law opens access to adoptees' birth certificates

COLUMBUS (AP) - Thousands of Ohio adoptees are hoping to learn more about their history, including family medical information, thanks to a new law granting them access to their adoption files and birth certificates.

Individuals adopted between Jan. 1, 1964, and Sept. 18, 1996, began requesting the information today from the Ohio Department of Health. The law is expected to give about 400,000 people access to records that had been largely blocked without a court order.

About 400 people braved cold temperatures and rain to line up outside the state vital statistics bureau first thing today to apply in person. Results come in about a month.

"I have been waiting for so long to find out my history, who I originated from," said Dorothy Johnson, 48, a Youngstown police officer, as she shuffled along in line. She is hoping to learn the identity of her mother, who she has been told was 13 when she had Johnson in 1966.

Concerned that adoption records were open to anyone, lawmakers put them off limits in 1964, including to adult adoptees.

After lobbying from adoptees and their advocates, lawmakers made the records public again in 1996. People adopted in all other years already had access to the records.