My mother is an adoptee, and her birth mother gave an alias in 1938 to St. Ann's Infant Asylum (a maternity home), which was then in Washington, DC. (It's now in Maryland.)
What's very frustrating -- and it would seem, illegal -- is that both St. Ann's and the Richmond Bureau of Catholic Charities passed off that assumed name the mother used as a legal name to another state office when the adoption happened.
I'm sure the birth mothers at that time were happy not to have their real names in some files...but I'm sorry, we cannot just put whatever name we choose into legal files because we don't want our real names to appear. Can you imagine what a mess state and federal records would be if that were an option?????
