Genealogy Chat

Can anyone tell me if in the 1890's it was possible to register the birth of a child with the father's name, and for the mother to lie and say she was married to the father? Would the mother have had to show her marriage cert when registering or was this not necessary back then?

I found a rellie who did just this and wondered how she got away with it not once but 3 times!!

If anyone can tell me, i would be grateful
Thanks
Florence
in the hebrides. :-)

It happened often Florence . You didnt have to produce a marriage cert of even say you were married All that was inferred was the parents were married .

I have gone round in circle too looking for non existant marriage certs

I don't remember showing my marriage cert when we registered the children....maybe I did??

My 3x gt grandmother had 8 childrens births registered as though she was married.....they did eventully marry 26 years after 1st child was born

jax you have me beat, my gggrandparents only waited 22 years after their first child to marry :-D

no wait I forgot, the twins weren't the first! Well I'm still only up to 24 yrs ... but I'm counting 9 kids before the marriage ... and what compelled them to get married a year after the last was born, I don't know

It was a family tradition, two of the daughters carried it on that I've paid attention to (although my immediate ancestor did get married after only one, and I think that one wasn't by choice).

I'm not sure whether I've sorted out an online cousin about those people yet.

she believed she was the grandchild of my ggrandmother's oldest brother, one of the twins (so she would be a generation older than me)

well no ... she missed a generation ... she is the grandchild of the twin sister's first son, who was named for the twin brother ... and of course had the same surname :-)

when they're all called William and Mary and half the county has the same surname, it's an easy mistake to make

So is everybody going to join me and HeyJude4Beatles?

Her gggrandmother was a Trollop, and mine was a Hoar

... and of course, so were their fathers :-D

:-D :-D

My elder son was born in a London hospital where the registrar came round each week to register the new babies.

My OH was in the Navy, serving in HMS Belfast somewhere off the coast of Australia at the time. I certainly didn't have my marriage certificate with me and I don't remember any problem with having OH put on the birth certificate as the father.

I didn't have to show my marriage certificate when I registered my two boys in the 1970's.

My husband's parents registered him and his brother as if they were married - but they were not!!

Until recently registrars would simply accept what someone told them as being true.

Kath. x

I don't think it has EVER been necessary to show a marriage cert when registering a birth.................

The person registering the birth would provide the info requested.................whether or not it was true is always open to conjecture.

Thankyou everyone for all your replies and info, very interesting.

When i registered my 2 children in the 90's, i had to take our marriage cert as it was from there, the registrar copied our occupations. maybe that is the way they do it here in the highlands and islands, I'm not sure if it's the same everywhere. having said that, I can't actually remember who told me to take it or whether I just did and that made it easier for the clerk to copy the details.

Strange though why our rellies had so many kids and then got married? It certainly doesnt make life easy trying to put together our fam trees though!!

Thanks again
Florence
in the hebrides :-)

One reason why some people had their children before marrying was that one of them was already married to someone else at the time and because it was almost impossible for normal working people to get a divorce back then they just waited until the spouse died before they could marry.

Kath. x

Florence, I would think the law would be the same throughout Scotland and I have one woman in the early 1900s who didn't have her marriage cert with her when she registered a birth here in Kirkcudbrightshire as she gave the wrong date and place of the marriage!

Just to add to what Potty has said. In Scotland a birth certificate shows the date and place of the parents marriage. I have found a few where the father registered the birth and gave the wrong date for his marriage though he was indeed married to the mother of the child. So I guess there was no requirement to show the marriage certificate.

Did your relative give the same date and place for her marriage on each of the birth certificates? If so have you checked for a marriage using forename and surname variants please? Sorry if I am stating the obvious.

If the parents of a child at that time were unmarried, it was usual for the father to be present at the birth registration to have his name on the certificate which was usually signed by both parents.

I spent a long time searching for the birth of an ancestor who had registered his mother's death. His surname was his mother's maiden surname and I had assumed he was born prior to her marriage. It turned out he had been born after his mother had been widowed and her husband couldn't possibly have been the father. We'll never know if it was her choice to register him with her maiden surname or if the registrar had refused to register him in her husband's name as coming from a small parish the registrar had probably remembered registering her husband's death.

When our daughter was born in 1958 in hospital Hubby was a shift worker . I was so anxious for her birth to be reg so as to have it in my hand , NO reason why i just wanted it !!'

In those days you had your baby in hospital and stayed in for 10 days after the birth . Hubbies shifts meant it would be awkward for me to register the birth after I came out of hospital as the register office was two bus rides away .

Anyway he went to register her birth when she was 4 days old but was told he couldnt as the hospital hadnt sent the papers for the birth yet . They apparently did this on a weekly basis.

He went back 6 days later and they had the information so they registered her birth BUT they never questioned if we were married on not . Guess maybe the hospital record recorded the birth in my married name BUT I could have lied to the hospital and said I was married .He wasnt asked to produce our marriage cert

In the 1950,s was still a BIG NO NO to have an illegitimate baby

I've seen quite a few birth registrations with the surname of the husband ................. only he'd been dead for a long time.

The longest difference between death and baby that I've found was 10 years!


In England and Wales, it seems that a baby was presumed to have the husband's name if the woman stated she was married ............... whether or not her husband was, or could have been, the father.

It was the law Sylvia :-) - the 'presumption of legitimacy' - if a child is born to a married woman it is 'legally' her husband's child, this was to protect the children since illegitimacy could have big consequences, and of course women and their children would have been vulnerable to false accusations of adultery by vindictive husbands otherwise. There was no DNA testing back then!

So as long as you said you were married and called yourself by the surname of your 'husband' when you registered the child, no questions asked ... unless the registrar happened to know better I guess!

That could even have happened in the case of a widow ... if her name was still Mrs Smith née Brown, maybe all the registrar did was ask for her husband's name and her previous name ...?

Thanks again for all you pieces of info, very interesting to read. This rellie of mine married some 10 years after the children were born, fair enough. but on the census she had given them her oh's name and indeed said she was married to him. Not knowing whether the man was actually their father, i did order a birth and death cert for one of the children who died aged 12 and yes he was named on both certs.
I guess it teaches us sometimes not to believe everything that was written down as some rellies i have discovered really told some tall stories!

I had one that was born in 1907. She had 8 children by the same man but never married. She gave them all his surname. She eventually left the man and several years later married someone else. on her marriage cert she gave her maiden name as the surname of her children leading you to believe she was married to him, but she never was!

I think we are more honest today than people were say 100-200 years ago or are we?

Thanks again for your help
Florence
in the hebrides :-)

This could be an interesting program 2 parts starts next Tuesday

http://digiguide.tv/pick-of-the-day/4+February+2014/documentary-births-deaths-and-marriages/

I don't think Scottish records required a marrige cert either.

I was at the GRO recently and looked at a 20th century birth record .
The place and date of the parents marriage had been added as I expected.

I already held that cert , the mother certainly did marry on that date.....but not to the man named on this birth cert??

It seems that even today, it is not compulsory to show a marriage cert, although it can be used as a means of id if you so choose. You do, however need to supply the Date of Marriage, if claiming to be wed, so presumably this could easily be checked by the Registrar.

This is from the GOV.UK site

"Information you need when registering a birth

When registering the birth, you should know:

place and date of the birth
name, surname and sex of the baby
parents’ names, surnames and address
places and dates of parents’ birth
date of parents’ marriage or civil partnership
parents’ jobs
mother’s maiden surname

You might not need to give all of this information, depending on who is registering the birth.

You should bring at least 1 of the following types of identification when you go to the register office:

passport
birth certificate
deed poll
driving licence
proof of address (eg utility bill)
Council Tax bill
marriage or civil partnership certificate"

Rules re recoding unmarried father's details were updated by legislation in 1850, 1875 and 1953

Before 1850, variable as the rules were unclear, 1850-1875 not allowed at all, post 1875 only if the father agreed and signed the register. The 1953 act provided additional means for the father to agree without actually signing the register in person.

My granddaughter was born in 1986 my daughter was not married to the father and as he did not attend Registrar with her she was not allowed to only use his surname but had to call her daughter both her and his surname. Had he been there she would have been permitted to use his surname only