Genealogy Chat

thank you gwyneth & 'nell' trying to post this reply again....ive just had aGREAT THOUGHT after reading your kind helpful messages....regarding more than one clue dear 'ol gran may have left me..... COULD IT BE THAT THE 2ND. OF THE 3 NAMES SHE GAVE TO DAD...IS THE FIRST NAME OF BIOLOGICAL GRAND PA.... example only : PAUL PETER BLOGGS is really telling us that PETER BLOGGS was her forbidden love and father of her beloved son. !!! ??????? .....roll on crack of dawn... this has 'lit another touch paper' THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOO much again..... xxxxxx

You might find this of interest: " 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." from http://home*.clara*.net/dixons/Certificates/indexbd*.htm remove * to use - this is an excellent website about information on birth, marriage and death certs. nell

Your grandmother would not be able to have the baby's biological father's name on the certificate unless he was present at the registration, or they were married. By including his surname with the first names, she could hint at the truth. People weren't nearly so open about adoption then so as the child had a 'father' because of his mother's marriage there would be no need to question the situation so it could have been hidden for many years.

why do you think that on my fathers birth cirtificate dated 1914. that they would include his biological fathers sirname last( with he's first names) and leave the 'fathers name' blank and crossed through? ? His adoption papers replace that 'sirname' with the new family name of the person that my grand mother married.... If she wasnt going to register the biological fathers christian name , or put a family name in the 'father's detail" why didnt she just register her son under her own family name ?????? We think it is possible that her new husband married her very soon after or before the babies birth. would this have had an influence on the record's ? The story goes that my father didnt find out that he was adopted.. until he tried to join the merchant navy at the age of 19yrs ! my sister who holds the adoption papers thinks that he would not have been adopted until this point, just so he could be accepted into the merchant navy. ??? during that time was it possible for children in general to 'never get to know' that they had been adopted unless as in my fathers case.. he wanted to join the services ??