Genealogy Chat

I'm trying to find out if a possible relative was adopted at birth. I know he was born in the workhouse but then his mother returned to his father minus their son. He shows on one of the census sheets, address given as Union Workhouse, but nobody seems to know anything about him. I don't have access to Ancestry only Genes, is there any other way to find this info? Ta very much.

There was no legal adoption procedure in England & Wales before 1927. Therefore, ''adoptees'' prior to this date were really fostered - usually by relatives. Unfortunately this means that you are unlikely to find any formal documentation of the event. The child probably assumed the surname of the family who took him in, especially if he was very young at the time, so maybe do a search on a later census for someone of the same first name, age and birthplace. If you're very lucky he may be shown as ''adopted son'' on the census but most likely not. Another tack may be to follow the relatives of the parents, to see if one of them suddenly acquired another son in the next census! Too bad if you only have him on the 1901 though... The other possibility of course is that he may have died as an infant - have you searched for a possible death? Richard