RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: oldhippyone on Saturday 28 February 15 13:53 GMT (UK)
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i havejust recieved 2 birth certificates and where it ask,s for fathers name it has a line going through also on fathers occupation does this meen they were born with father unknown ? i thought it would of said born illagitamate what do the large / mean ? both born to same mother one in 1840 other in 1848 , both died a few years later
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Yes, I think it would be correct to asume that they were illegitimate. :)
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thank you .... but do you have a idea why it didnt say illegitamate ... could it be she didnt want any one to know the father ? maybe a affair ? or maybe she had to be a working girl to survive ?
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i have to add she had 7 children in all .... with no fathers names
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The father of an illegitimate child could be listed on the birth certificate- but the father would have had to appear with the mother to register the child.
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ok thank you ...
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The father of an illegitimate child could be listed on the birth certificate- but the father would have had to appear with the mother to register the child.
Not in 1840 or in 1848 which is what the question was about.
Prior to circa 1850 the putative father could be named on a birth certificate without attending to register the birth.
The safest assumption is no father's name was given to the registrar. That could be because the infant was a bastard or it could simply be the person registering the birth did not know the father's name.
There may be more clues if you look who registered the birth.
Cheers
Guy
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Is the mothers name on the birth certificate not the person who regisitered the birth ss it has same name in as mother in who registered collum
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The father of an illegitimate child could be listed on the birth certificate- but the father would have had to appear with the mother to register the child.
Not in 1840 or in 1848 which is what the question was about.
Prior to circa 1850 the putative father could be named on a birth certificate without attending to register the birth.
The safest assumption is no father's name was given to the registrar. That could be because the infant was a bastard or it could simply be the person registering the birth did not know the father's name.
There may be more clues if you look who registered the birth.
Cheers
Guy
Guy, wasn't that 1874 Births and Deaths Registration Act?
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The father of an illegitimate child could be listed on the birth certificate- but the father would have had to appear with the mother to register the child.
Not in 1840 or in 1848 which is what the question was about.
Prior to circa 1850 the putative father could be named on a birth certificate without attending to register the birth.
The safest assumption is no father's name was given to the registrar. That could be because the infant was a bastard or it could simply be the person registering the birth did not know the father's name.
Guy,
I'm reading the question to be why the birth was not registered as "illegitimate" ??? which has nothing to do with "putative" father.
Regardless who the father was if born out of wedlock still constituted the "illegitimate" tag.
Was it possibly to do with how the Registrar felt.............whether to include the word "illegitimate" ??? ..........interesting :-\
Annie.
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Yes interesting particularly when the mother had 7 children in total with no named father and only 2 survived and mother married in 1851
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Yes interesting particularly when the mother had 7 children in total with no named father and only 2 survived and mother married in 1851
Maybe the registrar was the father ??? :o
Sorry..............couldn't resist ;D
Annie
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I don't think I have ever seen a Birth Certificate with the word "illegitimate" on it? :-\
Parish Register entries, Yes!
But never on a certificate?! ;D
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Refers to England & Wales The word illegitimate would never be entered on a birth certificate, only the details required by the registration acts.
The instructions for Registration Act of 1874 state:
"The putative father of an illegitimate child cannot be required as father to give information respecting the birth. The name, surname and occupation of the putative father of an illegitimate child must not be entered except at the joint request of the father and mother; in which case both the father and mother must sign the entry as informants" The Act came into force on 1st January 1875. Between 1837 and 1874 if the mother informed a registrar of an illegitimate child's birth and also stated a father's name, the registrar could record him as the father, although he may not have actually been the father.
on the http://home.clara.net/dixons/Index.htm site it says "By about 1850 the situation had been clarified and the instructions read quite clearly "No putative father is to be allowed to sign an entry in the character of "Father" ". I can find no other source for this statement, or where the instructions came from.
Stan
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I don't think I have ever seen a Birth Certificate with the word "illegitimate" on it? :-\
Parish Register entries, Yes!
But never on a certificate?! ;D
So,
What have I purchased (signed by the Registrar) which states "Statutory Births" ???
Annie
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Perhaps KGarrad and I have only looked at England and Wales birth certificates - where the term "illegitimate" is not used on birth certificates. Having no associations with Scotland, I (and possibly we) would have no knowledge of their entries. ;D ;D
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I have illegitimate being documented on records for my Scottish ancestors, but it does not appear on any of the English certificates I have. It does appear on some baptismal records and in some cases as a comment on the mother's morals.
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I have illegitimate being documented on records for my Scottish ancestors, but it does not appear on any of the English certificates I have. It does appear on some baptismal records and in some cases as a comment on the mother's morals.
Yes., I'd agree on that as far as English certificates are concerned.
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Perhaps KGarrad and I have only looked at England and Wales birth certificates - where the term "illegitimate" is not used on birth certificates. Having no associations with Scotland, I (and possibly we) would have no knowledge of their entries. ;D ;D
"Perhaps" some people should not mock others with :-\ ;D when they themselves are unsure ? :-\
We use the site for help when we have queries.............not to be mocked :(
If it was put over that the term "illegitimate" is not normally on English/Irish/Welsh certs. then fine but the smileys actually made the original poster look stupid >:(
If ANYONE has a query no matter what................they should not be laughed at as we all have different amounts of experience & knowledge which is gained through practice & none of us were born with that knowledge ::)
Annie
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I wasn't mocking anyone?! :(
Simply stating facts and my own point of view.
You can rant as much as you like, but (until your attachment) I had NEVER seen the word "illegitimate" on any Birth Certificate.
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I, too, had never seen 'illegitimate' on a birth cert. But I too am not familiar with Scottish certs, where generally more info is given.
I cant see what the problem is. The person enquired why the birth cert of someone presumed to be illegitimate did not specifically say the word illegitimate.
The answer was simply that, in our experience, birth certs of illegitimate babies do not specifically have that word entered on them. (Our experience being generally of English certs).
Hopefully that answered the query. It didn't mock, or laugh at the question. Just answered it! (to the best of experience, therefore open for others to input something different, as indeed was the case as it transpires that Scottish certs do enter the word illegitimate).
So we have all learnt something.
A very positive thread then, imho! :)
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I've seen 'illegitimate' on Irish birth certificates (registration started in 1864).
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Rant ??? ???
Nooooo......
Read from my statement what you will ::)
Aghadowey,
I was merely stating that had the info. been referred to whether English/Irish/Welsh etc. would have been good as opposed to being dismissed............an example ;D
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My apologies to you, ammack - I did not mean to offend you. I will refrain, in future, from including "smileys".
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Refers to England & Wales The word illegitimate would never be entered on a birth certificate, only the details required by the registration acts.
The instructions for Registration Act of 1874 state:
"The putative father of an illegitimate child cannot be required as father to give information respecting the birth. The name, surname and occupation of the putative father of an illegitimate child must not be entered except at the joint request of the father and mother; in which case both the father and mother must sign the entry as informants" The Act came into force on 1st January 1875. Between 1837 and 1874 if the mother informed a registrar of an illegitimate child's birth and also stated a father's name, the registrar could record him as the father, although he may not have actually been the father.
on the http://home.clara.net/dixons/Index.htm site it says "By about 1850 the situation had been clarified and the instructions read quite clearly "No putative father is to be allowed to sign an entry in the character of "Father" ". I can find no other source for this statement, or where the instructions came from.
Stan
Stan as you are probably aware the Registrar General sends out guidance to registrars and Superintendent Registrars as to "office policy". This guidance is supposed to clear up any misunderstanding of legislation.
A more modern example was in 1974 when due to guidance from the Registrar General Superintendent Registrars withdrew access by the public to registers held by Superintendent Registrars without there being any change in the law.
Annie you have a copy of the bottom of one page of a Scottish register book and the top section of a second page of a Scottish register book. Some of the entries seem to have been scored out with a red pen/pencil (red does not show up on many black and white scans).
The reason Scottish entries contain the word illegitimate is due to the complexities of the Scottish marriage system with the multiple forms of marriage and irregular marriage.
Until the Marriage (Scotland) Act 1939 a civil marriage in Scotland could be by mutual agreement, by a public promise followed by consummation, or by cohabitation and repute. It was not until 2006 that marriage by cohabitation and repute was finally abolished by the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006.
Due to these forms of marriage there had to be a way of differentiating between a birth following a church wedding and a "common-law" wedding.
Note the word illegitimate in such cases does not mean the child was a bastard (the official legal term at the time for a child born out of holy matrimony) under law.
Cheers
Guy
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Just to add my pennyworth, for what it is worth
My great grandmother gave birth to her first son in Moray, six months after her marriage to my gt grandfather (In England). On baby James birth in the Scottish Register book it say's -see attachment- certainly if he had been born in England he would have GHA as his father, and we would be none the wiser.
I have several English birth certificates of children with no father named, none of them have Illegitimate on them.
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Oh dear, a lot of this could have been avoided if we'd simply been told that these births were registered in County Durham - see this parallel thread:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=696048.
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my fault i should of said county durham ,
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No worries :)
It seems to me that the registrar's job was simply to record such information as was required by law. The England/Wales birth certificate didn't have a question about 'legitimacy' or the mother's marital status, so the registrar couldn't record anything even if he would have liked to.
(He was, of course, at liberty to have an opinion as a private individual - and we can imagine him grumbling and muttering over his supper ...............)
Carol
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i would of loved to have found the father of her 7 children befor she married , but its like wishing to win the lottery , .... something which will never happen !
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If a Miss Smith turned up to register a birth calling herself Mrs Smith and saying the father, not present, was Mr Smith would she get away with it? This is assuming that Miss Smith was not known to the Registry Office staff.
I have examples of "made up" father's names being entered on marriage certificates so seems not an problem there.
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from what iv read hear the father would have to be present at the registration !!!! but if she said she was smith then registrar would have to accept that unless when you registerd a birth you had to have proof of identity !!!!
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The civil registration system is "informant driven" that is the registrar can only record the information given to him by the informant, although there is the liability, in the registration acts, to a charge of perjury if any of the required details are willfully incorrect, although that would have to be proved.
You can see a number of convictions for giving false information to the Registrar respecting a birth at http://www.rootschat.com/links/01eui/
Stan
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thats interesting i dint know that thanks
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stanmapstone - thanks.
I find this a fascinating topic and I do wonder how many illegitimate births were in fact registered as legitimate and further, given the alleged stigma attached, why so many were registered as illegitimate. I don't believe that people were more law abiding in the past (read the newspapers and Church Courts/Poor Law records etc) and would, if they thought they could get away with it, break the law to save face.
Maybe the widespread belief about fallen daughters being shown the door or bringing shame upon the family is wrong? Certainly the girls who had illegitimate children in my family were not and went on to marry and have families. They lived in small villages/towns so their past would not have been a secret.
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yes i agree emma was living in chester le street a small place then but i wounder if they were so destitute that she had to become a working girl to live , like i said i will never find out but ti,es were hard then and i know you had to do anything to survive
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stanmapstone - thanks.
Maybe the widespread belief about fallen daughters being shown the door or bringing shame upon the family is wrong? Certainly the girls who had illegitimate children in my family were not and went on to marry and have families. They lived in small villages/towns so their past would not have been a secret.
I would agree, my family is the same as yours and even when the mother didn't/couldn't look after them the rest of the family seemed to share the responsibility of looking after the children and they stayed in the extended family.