Genealogy Chat

The registration of births marriages and deaths began on July 1 1837.

It was always supposedly compulsory BUT .............


marriages and death registrations were sent in by the priest from the church (or registrar's office) to the local Registry Office. Every 3 or 6 months or so, the local registry office sent their records down to the General Registry Office in London. Sometimes these records could be lost .... just to be helpful for us!!

The registration of births was upto the Registrar ....... he had to find out about and visit the mother.

Of course, this was very clumsy and almost unworkable ......... and many children were not registered

The law was changed in 1875, and it became the mother's responsibility to register her baby. She had to get to the Registrar or Registrar's Office ...... and she had 6 weeks in which to do it.

Failure to register was punishable by a fine


She did not have to provide proof of marriage ........... although if she was unmarried, the father's name could only be put on the certificate if he was present and signed an affadavit. The reason for this was because the Parish could force the father to provide for mother and child if necessary .......... not many fathers of illegitimate children were willing to be so identified!!




sylvia

Although by that time most births were registered, there were some which were not. They would all have been baptised however and if the parents were not married, it would have been more difficult to pull the wool over the eyes of the parish priest. Have you tried searching the parish records in the area?

I read somewhere that it was not compulsary to register the birth of a child before 1875.Sometimes I find dates are very important as it depends in what quarter the child was born.So when I am looking through for my relatives I check all quarters of the year.When looking at the census I thought it was all alphabetical,but each quarter has all names,so I just start at the first quarter and work my way down.I have found filling in as many of your relatives on your family tree gives you more chance of finding other people who are doing the same as you,so you get hot matches.I have found several relatives just by doing my tree.Its mainly names that peoples pick up on.Just drop them a line and if they are related you will soon find out just by asking a few questions,i e siblings names or addresses.hope this helps you. brenda.

No. you don't have to show your marriage certificate. You could of course just lie!!! My husband and his brother are registered as if their parents were married, but in fact the parents never married as the father had been married before in the 1920's and the marriage broke up and divorce wasn't an option as it was so expensive in those days.

Kath. x

Have the rules changed in the last 99 years?

well I didn't when I registered my son's birth in 1967

Would the mother need to show her marriage certificate in order to register her child i.e mother Burn formally Smith father Burn,child Burn? I cannot find a record of their marriage,the child being registered was born in 1868.