Genealogy Chat

Hi there,

My grandfather was adopted as a baby, and I know that his birth surname was Moores, and his adopted surname was Bailey. His first name was Frank, but I'm not sure if this was a given name at birth, or a given name by his adoptive parents.

My grandfather ran away from his adoptive family at the age of 16 and joined the army underage, so our family never had any contact with his adoptive parents.

I wasn't sure of exact birthday, and no one in my family does either, but I remembered that it was near my mothers birthday in October. I guessed that he would have been born at more or less the same year as my nan, which was 1918.

So after so searching through birth records, I found one entry in the fourth quarter of 1917, for a birth of a male baby, no name recorded, just (male) with the mothers maiden name also being named as Moores, indicating that she was unmarried.

Is this likely to be my grandfather? Were children born out of wedlock given christian names on the records, or were they, as I suspect just named as male or female?

If anyone could advise, or point me in the right direction, that would be great!

Jo

Sometimes babies born to unmarried mothers were unnamed - quite often they were named, but maybe your grandfather's mother didn't want to/couldn't bring herself to name him when she registered the birth?

He possibly was informally adopted by another family - official adoptions didn't come in till about 1927, I think.

Very often when a baby died in its first days or weeks, the birth is simply registered as 'Male Surname' or 'Female Surname'.

I've seen the birth certs of hundreds of illegitimate children and I've never seen one where the child is not given a first name.

If your grandfather was adopted prior to 1927 his adoption was not recorded and no records were kept.

It's not uncommon for births to be registered with no first name recorded. The only way to find if he is your grandfather is to apply for the birth certificate.

Good Luck with your search.

Cheers Gerry

if you apply for his marriage cert it will give you a better idea of his birth date although not always accurate his age on their should be helpful to finding a birth for him.


It will say his fathers name if he was registered under his surname or his adopted fathers name.