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I’m not sure I’m understanding your first statement... You said one of the purposes of sealing the records is to keep multiple identities. I was adopted (at 3 days old) in 1972, so I’m curious as to what you’re talking about re: SS#s and such. Perhaps I could come up with some info. if I knew what you were referring to in regards to numbers being distributed/obtained by Catholic Charities? I’m going to backtrack reading from the post I’m replying to, but thought I’d offer my help if I could provide any info. from personal experience, or research as I used to be an adoption-rights advocate/activist, but I admit it’s been a long time, and the last decade has seen many changes to the availability of records and such.

Because the adoptive parents often want to name a child and a child is often named before placement There was some confusion,...baby ABC became ACD. To alleviate the confusion the babies were issued a number, child was 123 before adoption and as the process proceeded continued to be 123 even though the name was changed.

This was particularly true when an older child who had been in foster care for a while was tracked though the system. (He wasn't sure how old a child was before this was used.)
One foster parent called the child Robert another Bob and the third Bobby or Rob...It helped keep track of the child and their funding. Dad who was attorney for welfare, when it was a county agency and before the state combined all counties under one statewide umbrella said that at one point some of the older children were given SS# to help track them....particularly if adoption was not likely or child was placed out of county. It seems that if this was done nationally or in numerous states BO would fall under this pattern. He was older and adoption wasn't likely....Madelyn was named guardian/foster parent. As such she received funds for his care from the state and that money would be tracked through the SS#. Dad has been away from it many years too. But he was remembering some of the changes that were being made WAAAAAY back then.

Are you following? can you confirm? Was it in place in other states? Are SS# used to track foster care funding today? Ir may be the reason he was assigned the number/per an out of state agency as Sven has suggested.

When looking through the web there were many people looking for their birth parents. Many mentioned being wards of both Catholic Services and Federal agencies as Sven had suggested.