Genealogy Chat

Hi All..... If twins were illigitimate but the father was named in the Baptism records would he be recorded on the marriage cert (1877) or the mother, or left blank. It would appear that the father had his cake and ran!! I need to put a checking point on these ones........ Anybody know how long the delivery is with GRO at the moment. Thank you Mary

Hi Mary....I ordered some certificates from the GRO office two months ago and they took two weeks to arrive. Hope that helps. PAM

Hi Pam Thanks for that ...I'll get the plastic out !!! Mary

Mary Perhaps this will help: (from the Claranet website) "Column 4 - Father's Name I am sorry if anyone gets upset at this section, but there is still a fundamental difference between the way children born inside and outside of marriage are registered because there are still differences in law between the two. For example inheritance was affected by legitimacy in the past and nationality of a child still is. Whether father is entered in the register depends on two factors - were the couple married (always entered) and what date the registration was made (maybe - maybe not). The early registrations between 1837 and approximately 1850 are a little mixed. The Act of Parliament of 1836 reads "And it be enacted that the father or mother of every child born in England................shall within 42 days next after the day of every such birth give information upon being requested so to do to the Registrar, according to the best of his or her knowledge and belief of the several particulars hereby required to be known and registered touching the birth of such child provided always that it shall not be necessary to register the name of any father of a bastard child." Now some registrars interpreted that quite freely and put father in even where the couple were not married and only mother or someone else was signing the register and some did not allow fathers details to be entered in the register. By about 1850 the situation had been clarified and the instructions read quite clearly "No putative father is to be allowed to sign an entry in the character of "Father" ". From that time, therefore there are 2 kinds of entries in the register (1) Where the parents were married to one another, fathers details must be entered in the register and only one parent will sign the register (or some other informant) (2) Where the parents were not married to one another there will be blanks in Column 4 (fathers name) and Column 6 (his occupation). This situation lasted until the Registration Act of 1875 where the instruction read "The putative father of an illegitimate child cannot be required as father to give information respecting the birth. The name, surname and occupation of the putative father of an illegitimate child must not be entered except at the joint request of the father and mother; in which case both the father and mother must sign the entry as informants". There are therefore 3 kinds of entry after this Act: (1) Described above (2) Described above (3) Where the parents are not married to one another but both attended the register office together, fathers details are entered in Column 4 and Column 6 and both parents sign. Looked at a different way - if both parents have signed in Column 7 regardless of what names they are using then the parents were not married to one another at the time of the birth of the child. This situation lasted until 1953 when the same 3 entries could still be made but there were other ways in which father when not married to mother could be included in the entry without being present to sign but I don't think this later period will be of interest to most family historians so I haven't included it. If a mother was widowed before the birth of her legitimate baby the entry will show (deceased) after fathers name. The child will take its surname from that of father in Column 4 where the parents were married and from mother in Column 5 if they were not married and fathers name is not entered. The child could take either surname if it was a joint entry and both mother and fathers surnames are shown but are different. The name given for father is the name he was known by at the time of the birth of the baby. These days if the father has changed his name between his own birth and that of his child he could be entered in the register as John SMITH formerly known as John GRAY but that was not the case until fairly recently. If a man adopted his stepfather's name or that of the family who brought him up or used his fathers name even though only mothers was shown on his birth certificate, you are going to have a problem going back any more generations. You have to remember that until the recent advances in fertility treatment - the maternity of the child has never been in doubt but the paternity is known only to the mother! Seriously - it is the reason why the mother has always been the prime informant for the birth of a child even since 1837." nell

nell thankyou for that:) i am waiting for my dads sisters birth cert to arrive. she was born 4 months before nan and gramp got married..but she wasnt gramps baby! she went through life, until her death at the age of 21,with my nans maiden name. dad knew that she wasnt gramps daughter but he was hoping that the cert would name the person responsible lol looks like we are gonna be out of luck oh well we will have to keep wondering then lol susie

Hi Nell....Thank you for taking the trouble to post the info..... Regards...Mary

Nell - I could have done with that last week when I got my GGGrandfathers birth cert, with no father on it lol Thanks for the info :)

Just out of interest my GUncle born 1879 was born 5 months before his mother married my GGrandad (who was not his Father) the space for Father was left blank on his birth certificate. On my GUncles wedding certificate under Father low and behold another name appears which I assume is his actual Father although of course I have no way of being sure. Michele

Hi Michelle, I have a brother and sister born with no father on their birth certs but...lo and behold...a fathers name (David Leighton) appeared on their wedding certs!! On the census at the time of their birth it showed David Leighton was the lodger with the family at that time!! Sue xx

Just to muddy the waters a little, I have a ggrandmother who never married but just told the registrar that she was therefore enabling her to enter the fathers' names on the certificates. (7 children, two fathers though haven't identified the father of her twins born 10 1/2 months after the "father's" death. Anyone want to confess?) ;-)