Many adults in this position can expect to jump through hoops to obtain their original birth certificates, often without success. Texas law seals a child’s original birth certificate when the child is adopted and the adoptive parents are issued a new birth certificate listing them as the child’s parents. As adults, the adoptees then must ask for access to their original birth certificate in a court in the county that granted the adoption and demonstrate to a judge that they have a need to know this information. Failing that, adult adoptees often suffer in silence or pursue expensive DNA tests and investigations when easy access to their original birth records would answer what might well be the most important question of their lives.