CHAPTER 263.

OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN.

AN ACT in Reference to the Adoption of Persons upwards of Twenty-one Years of Age.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Delaware in General Assembly met:

Section 1. That any person, or any husband and wife jointly, desiring to adopt any person or persons upwards of twenty-one years of age shall make application in writing to the Orphans' Court of the County wherein the applicant or applicants or the person or persons so to be adopted, reside, stating that they desire to adopt such person or persons, giving his, her or their ages as near as may be, his, her or their sex, and that the applicant or applicants desire to adopt said person or persons; said application to be duly signed by the applicant or applicants.

Section 2. Upon compliance with the above requirements and upon said person or persons so to be adopted appearing in said Court and consenting thereto, the Orphans' Court of the County in which the application is filed shall in its discretion render a decree ordering the issuance of a certificate of adoption to the applicant or applicants, stating the sex, age as near as may be, and the name by which the person or persons adopted shall thereafter be known, and that henceforth and forever all the duties, rights, privileges and obligations recognized by law between parent and child shall exist between the applicant or applicants and the person or persons so adopted as fully and to all intents and purposes as if the said person or persons were the lawful and natural offspring or issue of the person or persons making the application for his, her or their adoption. The clerk of the Court in which such application is made shall file the application and any and all papers pertaining thereto among the records of said Court and shall record in the record book in which the record of other adoptions is kept all the proceedings in such case, together with the decree of the Court, which record or a duly certified copy thereof shall be evidence.

Section 3. The costs in such case shall be taxed by the Court on the person or persons making the application.

Approved February 20, A. D. 1913.