Genealogy Chat

This follows on from a question I asked last week about a fathers name not being on a Birth Certificate.

My grandmother was born the year BEFORE her 'parents' got married. No father was named on the birth certificate so at first I wondered if the man I had assumed was my grandmother's father may not have been ..... and had simply turned up after my grandmother was born and basically made an honest woman of her mother by marrying her.

From the replies I received (i.e. for unmarried couples, the father had to actually be present at registration of the birth in order to have his name shown on the certificate) it seemed more likely that my grandmothers father simply didn't bother going along to register the birth......especially as nobody in the family has ever mentioned anything to suggest that the man we assume to be her father was not.

But now I'm beginning to wonder again as I've just received my grandmothers marriage certificate. She was 21 when she got married and as I say, her 'parents' had married the year after she was born so they had been married for 20 years by the time my grandmother got married herself. However, in the space for the fathers details on the marriage certificate it actually shows my grandmothers Mothers details (under her maiden name).

Does anyone know if this would have been normal?.......If this man had actually been my grandmothers real father I'd have thought they would have been more keen to show him as such as the certificate would then have given no indication of her original illegitimate birth.

I also note that my grandmothers own surname at the time of the marriage is still shown as the same as her mothers maiden name ..... so even though her 'parents' married twenty years before, she appears to have never taken the surname of the man who married her mother.

Any ideas?

I would say that your grandmother was almost certainly illegitimate and that her mother's husband wasn't her father.

Sam x

sounds to me like her mother's husband was not her father, thats the only explanation I can think of...
L x

Tony,

From your information it appears that the man known as your Gt,Grandfather was not the bilogical one,,or that would have been stated on the marriage certificate,,
it often happened where man took on the role of father to his wifes child/ children as what happens now,,,

There are clauses within the registration rules ,that if a child born is registered in the name of the mother only ,,and the couple marry within a year that childs surname can be altered ,,,,,,,,

I'd say that she was illegitimate.

Kath. x

Thanks for your replies so far.

Kay, you mention that the registration rules allow a change of name if parents marry within a year ..... well they actually married 15 months after my grandmothers birth so perhaps that's why her maiden name never changed and is still shown as the same as her mothers - even though the mother married.
As they married more than 12 months after her birth, do you know if they would have had to do a legal change of name in order for her to take her mothers husbands surname? If so this might also explain why it wasn't done as they were not a wealthy family and probably couldn't justify incurring legal costs to change the name.

But it still doesn't explain why her mothers name is shown in the space for the fathers details.

All seems rather odd as the man who I believed was my grandmothers father was from an Irish family and my grandmother always told my father that he had Irish blood in him via her 'fathers' side of the family.

So it would appear that my gran spent the early part of her life happy for anyone to know she was illegitimate, but in later life hid the fact from her children by telling them they were decended from the man who married her mother ........ unless of course her mother had a lover who was Irish too - so the story of the Irish blood in the family was technically correct !! ..... Can't keep up with all this debauchery.

Tony

It has always been possible for a person to change their name informally, the exception being during the Second World War, providing it is not for fraudulent purposes.

There is another way that a child can have a father added to a birth certificate. The Legitimacty Act 1926 that came into effect in 1927 allows for a father to be added if an unmarried couple marry after the birth of the child.

This explains the Act in greater detail.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~framland/acts/1926legitAct.htm

Chris

Hi Tony I have a marriage certificate like that where the mothers name appears in the fathers details this was for my gg/grandfather don't beleive his mother ever got married
Margaret

Tony,

I belive you will have to take it that your gt grandfather wasnt your maturnal one in blood,but dont let it distract you,as in all other sense of it he was and played the roll,,and certainly needs in my opinion included as such,,,,

Mothers names were often used in cases of the person marrying as illigt,,,

Thanks for all your replies on this.

I think that unless I can find living descendants who can clarify the situation I'm just going to have to accept that the most likely scenario is that my grandmothers father was not the man who married her mother the year after her birth ..... which is a bit of a shame as I'll have no chance of finding out who her father really was so that part of my family tree will come to abrupt end.

But thanks again anyway for your help.

Tony, just thinking aloud, have you traced your grandmother's siblings or any of their descendants?

My ancestor had an older illegitimate sister in 1882. Luckily the family were quite open about it so the research was fairly easy.

Sometimes I have had to go sideways to go backwards.

Hope that makes sense.

Selena

Thanks Selina,

That's exactly what I've started to do now. I already have a contact who's father was my grandmothers 'brother' so I'm going to see if she recalls her father saying anything about his 'sister' having a different father.

There were also three other siblings so that's another three possible sources.

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

Have you looked for a baptism in the years between birth and the mother's marriage.

Some vicars / priests were keen to name supposed fathers.

Gwyn

Thanks Gwyn for that tip.

I hadn't thought to do that as I assumed the information would be pretty much the same as the information on the birth certificate ...... but will certainly look into it now.

Cheers