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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Nick29 on Friday 12 December 08 09:20 GMT (UK)
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My older sister was born to my mother and father when my mother was still awaiting a divorce from her previous husband. Her birth was registered in the 1940's, and she took my father's name. A while later her divorce came through, and my mother and father got married. My (late) mother was always acutely embarassed about her first child being born out of wedlock, and she did her best to cover it up.
Then, in the 1960's, my sister was about to get married, and she needed to produce her birth certificate, and my mum panicked, presumably because the original certificate showed her married name to her first husband. So, she re-registered my sister's birth in 1964, and got a certificate based on that information, and that is the certificate that the GRO supplied when my sister recently asked them for a birth certificate.
Now, my sister wants a copy of the original certificate from the 1940's, and I have found the original GRO reference. If she applies for a certificate based on the reference I have found, will she get the 1940's version, or the 1960's version ?
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If you have the reference for the 1940s then that should be the one you get - although depending on what exactly happened when she was reregistered, there could be an extra comment on the certificate.
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I have found the original GRO reference
usually in these cases, that entry will have a note against it, something like 'See QYY' - eg 'See D64', which refers the seeker to that quarter (March, June, Sept or December) of a later year.
I believe that you will get the referrred later Cert, unless you can dialogue with the GRO to obtain the original.
Others on here are very au fait with the internal workings of the GRO, so may be able to comment in more detail
HtH :)
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I suggest that you deal with the appropriate local registry office rather than the GRO and explain exactly what you want.
David
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My experience of the same situation is that when I applied to the GRO in the usual way, using the earlier reference, I was sent a certificate with the details from the later reference.
I have a feeling I've read somewhere that, on re-registration, the earlier entry is considered "Closed", and that version is not generally released to enquirers. I'm sure someone will be able either to confirm this or put me right.
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I think thats right :)
so presumably, theres 'good' liaison twixt the GRO and the local ROs - some scope for things to go astray tho .....
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A re-registration will replace the original entry, because it usually occurs when a child was born to unmarried parents who subsequently married, and the object was for the child to have a certificate that showed the parents as married. If the orginal certificate was prodeced, then that would be exactly what he/she/they didn't want. It works in England and Wales because the birth certificates don't give date and place of the parents' marriage, as Scottish ones do.
A re-registration might also allowed where the information on the original was proven to be wrong - I saw one case where a couple 'adopted' a child and registered it as their own, then the birth mother went to the registrar and spilled the beans. Only the second one will be issued, because the original is known to be untrue, and therefore cannot be issued as a certified copy. There have also been cases where a husband has insisted on having his name removed from the birth entry of his wife's child, on the grounds that he had been away at sea for 2 years and the child was only 6months old, or thereabouts! Again, it is understandable why the original should not be produced.
Yes, I know there are all kinds of untruths on certificates that are issued, but if the GRO has officially been informed that the orginal is wrong, and evidence produced to back this up, they have to be consistent. So it sort of makes sense...
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Yes, thats what I have seen in a few instances too .... great to have it all spelled out tho - ta for that.
any comments on how the GRO and LROs work together on these re-registrations ?
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Hmmm...... I suspected that might be the case - thanks everyone. I'll tell my sister to save her money, because she already has the 1960's certificate :)
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So would the father's name that is registered later have to be on the earlier certificate also, where he would be registered as the father. Or wouldn't it matter if he was there or not?
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As with all other certificates, the registrar will put on the certificate the "facts" that are given to him or her at the time of registration. As I said in my opening post, my sister took my father's name, so he would have had to have given his consent and his details for them to be recorded. However, even a "certified entry" cannot be considered as the complete truth on any certificate, because there wasn't much to stop people if they set out to deceive (and there still isn't). I've heard it said that the father's name on the birth certificates of up to half the children in this country is not their true father - nobody knows the exact figure, but it is quite high, and the named fathers don't know in the majority of cases.
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You're absolutely right, Nick. It all lends weight tot he view that we should really be tracing our female lines if we want to be certain about the accuracy of the results.
As the saying goes 'Maternity is a matter of fact, paternity is a matter of opinion'
Mean_genie
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Hi MG, ta for the earlier info
any comments on how the GRO and LROs work together on these re-registrations ?
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..... It all lends weight tot he view that we should really be tracing our female lines if we want to be certain about the accuracy of the results........
Mean_genie
Oh I'm not so sure about that....... my mother (who was always a bit "odd", bless her) did her best to confuse ...... I know where she was living when my sister was born (it's the same house I was born in), yet on her marriage certificate (which was issued 2 years after my sister was born) she put the address where she was living when she was previously married for both herself and my father. I know that my father was living with her at the address where we were both born, because it's on his employment records as "next of kin" ::) She was obviously totally paranoid about her "deadly sins" being found out ;)
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Hi
A lot of illegitimacies are explained due to delayed wedding arrangements such as lack of finances, one of the parents was still married, either to a dying spouse or was filing for divorce while seeing their next spouse.
Ben
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But Nick, you did find out, so it didn't work, did it? ;D
Newf: about the ROs and GRO - I'm not quite sure how well it works in practice, but any re-registrations or corrections would be done at the local office, and the Registrar should then pass on the information to the GRO so that their copy of the original entry (from the Quarterly Returns) and the central index can be updated. This can sometimes be the reason for a handwritten or printed cert instead of a photocopy, because there is infromation on the original entry that can no longer be produced.
I'm sure this worked reasonably well while everything was in paper fromat, but once certificates started to be produced from films of the Quarterly return volumes, I don't know exactly how they manage to flag up the original entries that are incorrect and should not be produced. I will try to find out, but don't hold your breath waiting for an answer!
Mean_genie
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Much appreciated MG !
but once certificates started to be produced from films of the Quarterly return volumes, I don't know exactly how they manage to flag up the original entries that are incorrect and should not be produced. I will try to find out, but don't hold your breath waiting for an answer!
I've seen the note 'See QYY' a few times now, but never later than the 1940s I think, handwritten on the Index pages .... not sure when filmng started tho ... interesting ....
:)
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I think you're right in that the second certificate would be issued, and the first is totally discarded. My husband had a slightly different situation in that he was born (in wedlock) but the parents subsequently divorced. When his mother remarried, my husband was adopted by his new stepfather and his mother in order to change his original surname to the new one (such things were quite common in the 1950s when it was deemed unacceptable to have different surnames within a family). When his natural father died, my husband was contacted by some official or other as there was an inheritance, however, on submitting his details, he was told that he was not eligible for the inheritance as he was deemed to no longer be the son of his natural father. He was rather upset about it all, but that was the law! The inheritance subsequently passed to his father's sister as next of kin.
BumbleB
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I'm not sure that records are ever discarded or destroyed - I would imagine that a note was put in the original entry referring to the later one. The worst case scenario might have been a line diagonally across the entry, but I don't think records are ever deliberately destroyed once they are entered. I suspect that if my sister were to consult the registrar at the original registration office, she may be able to get a copy of the original if she could supply good reason, but since the 1940's certificate would not contain anything that we don't already know, it's really not worth persuing :)
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The original record would not be discarded or destroyed. In the case of a GRO register it would be on a page that contained up to 9 other entries with 10 more on the back, so it could not be physically separated anyway. It would just not be produced as a certified copy.
In the case that I mentioned where a child was registered by the 'adopting' couple (well before 1927), and then the birth mother gave the correct information, the GRO would not produce the original entry, but I have a vague recollection that they said it was because the records was less than 100 years old at the time. I haven't tested this out, but it may be that an older superseded original could be produced, and it is always worth asking the local Register Office. The worst they can do is refuse, so you are no worse off. Again, something I will try to find out!
Mean_genie
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Yes, always worth asking the local RO.
Also, what would you lose by writing to or telephoning the GRO in Southport with your original question, filling in some of the details?
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Hi Aulus,
Reading this post about your Great Uncle.
Any photographs or info about Sgt. William Edward Collis.
I'm researching a 50x50 mi area around my hometown Vollenhove
Hellendoorn is also in my "square" with 15 Commonwealth War Graves
My site: http://www.geocities.com/t_schuurman/jack-edward-gibbs.htm
Regards Teunis Schuurman - aka - PATS - Vollenhove
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