Genealogy Chat

I have an elderly friend who has always suspected he and his brother had different fathers. He has asked me if I can get a copy of the brothers birth cert, to see what it says (brother died years ago!) I have found the reference for him, he was registered with the family name, his mother is correct. Is there any way if the mother had been honest and named another man as the father, would the child have been given the family name. This was in 1920's Suex

I would think that if the child has the family name and mother's maiden name in the index then she wouldn't have named someone else as the father. If she was married then it would be assumed that husband was the father.

I take it you are saying the brother (the dec'd one) was born to a mother who was married at the time......just that the child may have had a father who was not the husband? If the mother decided she could not lie and so said father ''Not Known'' ......this is most common for an illegitimate birth (for the father to be named, he would have to have attended the reg office)..... you would not be able to tell from the index. The wife is still Mrs Bloggs, maiden name Smith, or whatever. If the father attended the registration with the mum then his name could be on the cert too......The birth reg would then be indexed twice. Once with her married surname and also under his surname, but unless you know the man's surname, you would not be able to find the entry! Does that make sense?? Merry

I have a cert exactly as you are suggesting.....mother was actually separated from her hubby......child's cert has a line through the father's box.....indexed under her married name only. Merry

Thanks for that, The Mum was still with her husband, and he brought both the boys up, there was always a thought that a man who used to call could have been the natural father of the brother, but no idea of a name! I rather thought as he was registered with the family name, there wasn;t much chance of another name being on the cert. I'll pass your thoughts on! The Mum had come from an odd family though, she had 2 sisters, all lived together as 1 family, all had different surnames! Suex

Well, you won't know without the cert, but I'd say there's a 90%++ chance that she will have given her husband as the father, even if it was known and accepted by him (the hubby) that the child wasn't his......... Does the brother want to find that his brother wasn't a full sibling, or is he desparately wanting to know it was all a rumour? If it's the latter, then you have a good chance of setting his mind at ease, even if it's not true................... Merry