Margaret
Allen My husband was adopted and he didn't know anything about it until a few days before the wedding when he had to have his birth certificate. It wasn't even his mother that told him, it was her friend. He wanted to call off the wedding because it was on his birth certificates, adoptive parents which they did then. He was very upset about it and the story he got whether it's true or not, was he came from a large family and he was the youngest at the time, a sickly child. They wanted to take him to America and didn't want to take him because of the simple reason it would have cost them in doctor's bills.
My mother-in-law couldn't have any children and I believe this family were neighbours, so she decided she would take the child. That was before the adoption was official, it was just you handed them over and you looked after them. My husband was about 7 when the official adoption act came in and that's when his birth certificates are from and his adoptive parents are listed on it.
So till the day he died, his family, my children didn't know their father was adopted cause he felt there was a stigma. Maybe he was being told lies and that he was illegitimate. He was called Donald McKenzie Allan and his middle name was his proper surname.
