Shawna Hodgson, a mother of four who lives in Tomball, learned about her deep Texas roots the hard way: As an adoptee, she couldn’t just pay $22 and get a copy of her own birth certificate like other Texans. Instead, she had to spend more than 10 years and $15,000 on private searches, court and legal fees, and DNA tests. Finally, she connected with a distant cousin in 2014 after submitting a DNA sample to 23andMe, and then traced her birth mother and father, partly by texting that cousin and other complete strangers. Hodgson felt elated and proud when at age 40 she met both her birth parents—and tracked her roots back six generations.
But she knew that many other adoptees may never be able to trace their family tree. More than 50 years ago, Texas, and most other states, sealed off adoptee access to their birth records, except through special permission from a judge. Only two states never closed access to those records and over the years, eight others have reopened them. Hodgson is among those arguing that Texas should do the same.
