Family Historian User Group

I'd only ever seen the normal copy of the full Birth register entry before, until I came across this, a Certificate of Registry of Birth for an uncle born in 1912. I'd thought Short Form Birth Certificates only started in 1953 but this appears to be a fore-runner of short form certificates.
Searching online I could find hardly any reference to them, other than the occasional comment that they might have been issued if the person had been adopted, or that they were used because they were cheaper than the full birth certificate. Did our 19th/early20th century forebears usually pay for a full certificate or were these much commoner but just not seen so much now because we so often research using GRO copies rather than the original documents our ancestors had?

I'm particularly interested because (according to family lore) this uncle was adopted. I've been unable to find any trace of him in the Birth index and GRO said they couldn't find any register entry for him. I'm confident that the DoB on the Certificate is accurate as I can find him in the 1939 Register on FMP and it has the same DoB. I have applied to Islington to see if they have anything although they say their pre-1945 registers were mostly destroyed during WW2 so I'm not expecting much back.

I know that pre-1927 adoptions are usually impossible to trace back to natural birth parents, and I have no other information about the circumstances of his adoption.

Might the Certificate of Registry of Birth have been used if someone was adopted? What might have been the reason - would the original birth entry be amended and the the Certificate issued in the adopted name? That seems unlikely here though as the Certificate was issued 11 days after the date of birth.

Any suggestions of when/how these Certificates were used would be appreciated.

I can confirm that they were NOT just issued to adopted children.

See the attached which is a copy of the very poorly preserved short form certificate for my grandfather who was born 1895, certificate issued in 1896 and I know he was not adopted.

I have got very similar one for my grandmother for 1887, although it gives her parents there is no 'official' place for them and I have seen some of these short certs with and without the parents.

Regarding adoptions, for many years that was a gray area, as they were often very unofficial, I'm sure you will find lots on the internet re that.

There are three different types of document associated with registered births, each with different characteristics and details.
1) Certificate of Registry of Birth landscape format (7 x 3¾ ins) giving only Name and DofB.
2) Short Certificate of Birth square format (6½ x 6½ ins) and adds the Sex.
3) Full Certified Copy of an Entry of Birth fullscap format with full details.
See Rootsweb [GLA] Certificate of Registry of Birth.

Just to add a little to Mike's identification of the three forms of Certificate, the "Certificate of Registry of Birth" was not a valid Birth Certificate, but precisely what it states, i.e. an acknowledgement by the Superintendent Registrar that a Birth had been registered in accordance with the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1874 (in England & Wales). My understanding is that these were issued where the person registering the Birth did not want, need, or perhaps couldn't afford to pay for a certified copy of the Birth Certificate details (either Long or Short Form). It simply gave the name of the child, birth and registration dates and a reference to where the original Certificate could be found in the Superintendent Registrar's records. This was the simplest way to confirm compliance with the 1874 Act, which introduced, for the first time, a legal requirement for births to be registered by someone present at the birth within 42 days of the date of that birth. Prior to the 1874 Act, Birth Registration was entirely the responsibility of the 'local' Superintendent Registrars and there was no legal requirement for parents to report/register births.

Mervyn

See http://www.oswild.org/hobnob/family/joh ... -birth.jpg

For difference between Certificate of Registry of Birth, and a Short Birth Certificate.

Hopefully everyone knows what the Long or Full Birth Certificate looks like.