[brebri]

Hello and thank you for reading my post. My 13 year old daughter's biological father passed away 7 years ago although he was never a part of our lives he did acknowledged her in her birth certificate. I've been married for 5 years and my husband and I have been talking about him adopting her. Can anybody tell me how to proceed. Do we need a lawyer? Do we just apply in the court house?
also, once she's adopted can she keep her biological dad's last name and hyphenate my husband's or does she have to completely lose her bio's last name once the adoption goes thru. We live in GA, not sure what the law requires parents to do.
thanks

[InBlindFaith]

Check with your county courts. You might be able to do the adoption without an attorney since the father has passed. I'm not sure about the last name. Here in Texas my attorney asked if I wanted DD to have my husband's last name and she also asked if we wanted to changer her middle name.

[BrandyHagz]

You can change the name to anything you'd like - my son changed his entire name around, not just his last name...

[brebri]

what is DD? I guess i'll check with the courthouse.
thanks again

[BrandyHagz]

DD = Dear Daughter.

[tgage]

When I adopted my 4 step-kids, my daughter contemplated not changing her name (but did before we filed the paperwork) and my oldest son took his middle name as his first and my first name as his middle.

So, you can pretty much do what you want - just make sure you file the petition with the names you want (or correct them before you finalize).