Genealogy Chat

Help please!
I'm researching for a friend and have discovered she has 2 birth certificates 7 years apart! exact name, reg district, date, mother but different fathers.
1. Is this legal (means she can apply for 2 passports)
2. How could this happen?
Original cert is long and second short.
Anyone help please.

A short certificate doesn't show parents names usually .

When you reg a birth years ago ,don't know if this is still the same, you could pay for the full cert or get a short cert free,

My hubby only had a short cert for years because his parents couldn't afford the long cert
A short cert too is issued for a child that has been adopted when it's applied for using just the GRO ref this means parent/parents names aren't revealed

Taken from this document:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/118596/birth-certificates-policy.pdf

"
Re-registration of births
In some circumstances a child’s name can be changed by re-registering the birth. No other evidence of change of name is needed in such cases.
The General Register Office (GRO) has confirmed that there are no time limits for re-registration of births and upon re-registration the name can be changed. Re-registration can usually take place under one of the following criteria:
• To include natural father’s details
• Where the natural parents subsequently marry each other
"

I am looking now at a 'short' birth cert.

It lists.........

The child's full name (including surname)
It's sex
The DOB and the Registration district.

Nothing else............................................

It may be that Colin is referring to the size rather than what we understand as long and short.

The certificates that GRO issue now are A4 size but my original birth certificate is too long to copy in one pass on an A4 scanner.

If the mother was married then it was assumed her husband was the father and a certificate would be issued showing his name on it, unless proof was provided to the contrary.

If, in reality, another man was the father and he and the mother came forward at a later date, the birth could be re-registered, and a new certificate with his name would be issued. The original entry in the register would then be given an X'ref to the replacement entry.

The way in which this could be done has varied over the years.

We have a very similar situation where the mother was married but separated and living with another man with whom she had several children. The children were all re-registered several years later after he and the mother married.

In answer to the OP, yes it is legal but no she couldn't legally apply for two UK passports.

I only ever had the short one and when I was born parents were so skint they could not afford to buy the full one.

Oddly enough, my own full one was not on the top of my list when I started this family history malarkey. Was about 2 years before I thought about getting mine.

Thanks one and all and sorry for the duplication, I was indeed ignorant as to how to retrieve replies.
The years in question are 1963 (long) and 1970 (short). I've since been informed that my colleagues wife was the result of her mother having a fling with a married man with his own family in the next village. Her birth name was kept from her, using her mothers maiden name, and she was simply given a new name and birth cert 7 years later when put up for adoption.
Colin

Thank you Colin for clearing that up.