Birth Registered Twice??

Karen · Post by **Karen** » 01 Dec 2004 09:21

Does anyone have any experience of a birth being listed twice in the BMD registers or of both father and mother being in the 'informant' box on a birth certificate? I've been researching someone born out of wedlock in the May of a particular year, the birth registered in the July of the same year and then the mother married the man shown as the father on the certificate in the August. I'm trying to work out why the delay in registering the birth and why both are on the certificate as informant. Also, when I searched the registers for the child under the father's surname I found a listing and then for some reason I searched under the mother's (maiden) name and found the child listed against that surname as well but with exactly the same volume and page reference. When I sent off for the two certificates the PRO told me they were exactly the same. The reason for ordering the certificate in the first place was to try and establish if the man married in august was the father of the child. Unfortunately the copy I have is a transcribed copy and not a photocopy so I can't see how his name, written above the mother's as informant, is aligned and whether it looks like he was added in later (would that have been legal?). The address given for informant is the mother's. Would the child have been listed twice simply because the parents' surnames were different? All ideas gratefully received>

ID:677

vliet · Post by **vliet** » 01 Dec 2004 12:16

Perhaps the parents were desperately trying to give the child legitimacy as it was born a month prematurely? After all, had they married before the birth, tongues would certainly have been wagging. I'd be interested to know the sort of year you are talking about, by the way.
Nigel

Karen · Post by **Karen** » 01 Dec 2004 12:27

1938. The theory is that either he was the father and it took 2 months for him to acknowledge that and register the birth, or that he wasn't the father (she was a servant in a big house, victorian type melodrama and all that) and that he was persuaded (paid?) to say he was and give the child legitimacy and it took someone 2 months to find a man willing to do that. All total speculation of course.

Karen · Post by **Karen** » 01 Dec 2004 16:48

What I meant to add was, all speculation aside, I'm still interested to try and find out how the child got listed twice in the register, once for each surname, and whether anyone else has seen or heard of this before? Thanks

pwe · Post by **pwe** » 01 Dec 2004 21:00

Karen,
I have experience of the same birth being listed twice in the GRO index.
The child is George and on the certificate I have his father as Thomas Simmons and his mother Charlotte Taylor. The birth is indexed under both Simmons and Taylor with the same reference for both. The date of birth is 1857.
It is interesting to note that from the birth certificate you cannot know by which surname the child was known. In this case I believe he was called Taylor as I have his marriage certificate with his mother Charlotte as a witness. He did however list his father as Thomas Taylor on the marriage certificate, no doubt to save embarassment.

Peter E

vliet · Post by **vliet** » 02 Dec 2004 16:33

The father could well have been the house-holder himself, or possibly, his son. The latter is my favourite of this (unlikely!) scenario!!!!!
Nigel[wink]

Karen · Post by **Karen** » 03 Dec 2004 11:22

Thanks all. In this case I think the child, a girl, was given the father's surname but, as mentioned, can't really be sure.

Graham2004 · Post by **Graham2004** » 19 Jan 2005 12:48

Karen

I have a 'David' who was registered in the Birth records for the Years 1988 (the year he was born) and then in 1989. However, on the 1988 entry it tells you that he was re-registered.

Does your relative contain such a note?

Tombaston · Post by **Tombaston** » 20 Jan 2005 18:06

If you have the certificate from the GRO why not ask the local register office who will have the original. If you explain why you want it they may well send you a photocopy of the original.

Post by **Guest** » 18 Aug 2005 09:48

Where parents married after the birth of a child it was possible to reregister the birth, and later this had the effect of legitimizing the child. I suspect this happened here. Usually I think there would be one certificate, but in this case both registrations took place in the same quarter - i.e. before the returns were forwarded to the General Register Office - so my hunch is that the local registrar changed the earlier entry by adding the father and making a second entry in the index.

ireneblackburn · Post by **ireneblackburn** » 19 Aug 2005 19:12

A child born out of wedlock could have the father's name shown on the certificate provided the man appeared in person before the registrar

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