I'll give a fossil trail of birds, another wall of text incoming.

Juravenator, an early theropod raptor. Just another raptor, with feathers and some slight changes in it's hip that would end up resembling those of birds. But still clearly a raptor.

Anchiornis: Lived about 15-20 million years after Juravenator, and it was still very raptor-like, with a long, bony tail, a spine attaching to the back end of the skull unlike birds' attaching to the base, and long legs in the structure of a flightless, endurance hunting raptor. However, it still had feathers, and at this point the wrists were much more flexible, and were now more bird than raptor. Still, very much a raptor.

Archeopterx: Everyone has heard of this, it's a cousin to modern birds. Still has spine attaching to the back of the skull, sickle claws, boned tails, many things you'd expect of raptors. However, it did have fully developed asymmetrical flight feathers, fused furcula from joined clavicles, and backward and elongated pubis not found in primitive theropods.

For the next few tens of millions of years, birds would take on a beak, and would become very much like modern birds, such as Confuciusornis (which independently evolved a toothless beak D:)
By the time we reach Ichthyornis, it is very similar to a modern bird, but has things such as a toothed beak. From here on out, it is just the evolution of new birds, not of raptors to birds.