Hi Paulines7,
I'm afraid adoption didn't legally start until 1927. Before that children just took the new surname with no written record of it happening. Makes it quite hard. I had a relative who had two new surnames and I was just lucky that late in life to get his pension he changed his name by deed-poll and I have the original of it. otherwise I wouldn't have known and would never have found him. But I have never found his original father named on his birth certificate and wonder if he ever existed!
Sorry that wasn't the news you wanted. :(
T. x