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Beginners => Family History Beginners Board => Topic started by: Noteventhebirdsareupyet on Tuesday 30 April 24 22:00 BST (UK)
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I'm wondering if anyone knows whether birth certificates were fraudulently copied in the 1920s? I've discovered my grandfather's original birth certificate at the GRO but his birth parents are not the people he knew to be his parents. Now he had no idea of this original certificate and for his whole life used a birth certificate with his adoptive parents' details. I've searched the adoption microfiche myself and also paid the GRO to do a thorough search but my grandfather appears to have no adoption record. Now he was born in 1919, so given that adoption wasn't legally a practice until 1926, it's not surprising to me that he isn't on the adoption register but I simply cannot get my head around the fact that he had and used a birth certificate to obtain a passport and numerous other things throughout his life but this certificate appears to never have existed! I'm baffled now and starting to wonder if it could have been a fake. The only thing that tells me it wasn't, is because he said it had an A in the top corner and after his birth certificate was lost in the post, he was informed by someone trying to help him get a copy, that an A meant he was adopted. How can he have never been adopted and yet have been issued with a usable birth certificate/adoption certificate? Someone help me, I'm going mad trying to trace this!
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It’s quite possible that although he was brought up by the people he thought were his parents, the adoption may not have take place until he was older. I may be wrong but I think 21 was the cut off point for adoption. You would need the see the date of issue on the certificate he used.
My in-laws brought up a baby from six weeks, but the opportunity to adopt didn’t arise until the child was ten years old..
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Yes that date is eluding me and causing headaches! No idea when he could have been adopted. I am guessing post 1928 because there is a court file in 1928 pertaining to his mother's first marriage which cites his birth name, hence how I discovered his original birth identity.
I've searched the adoption indexes for 30 year span and found nothing.
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I thought that adoption certificates were not available except by application of the person or a child if person has died?
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..... he said it had an A in the top corner and after his birth certificate was lost in the post, he was informed by someone trying to help him get a copy, that an A meant he was adopted.
That person gave him bad advice. If a child was adopted the original birth certificate would have the full word 'adopted' noted on it. A new short form birth certificate would be issued and specifically had no mention of an adoption, just the name, date of birth and sex. No parents were named.
Is anyone still alive who actually saw this certificate? He wouldn't have needed a birth certificate to do most things, lots of people did not have one and a stat. dec. would suffice.
Debra :)
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What information on this document -
* I've discovered my grandfather's original birth certificate at the GRO but his birth parents are not the people he knew to be his parents.
- enables you to see it as the birth record of your grandfather. What information about your grandfather did you use to locate the birth certificate on the GRO
* was your grandfather brought up with siblings?
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Just adding a link to the previous post.
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=881050.0
Debra :)
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It is possible that he had a short certificate from his original birth registration which would name him as Harold Arthur Forrest KOSELJ and he would simply tell whoever he presented it to that he was only known by the first three names. He would be quite entitled to do that as a personal preference as long as he wasn't doing it to commit fraud. This short certificate would not have parents' names on it though.
In another scenario, if they attempted to have a search done for an original birth registration but were unable to locate it, you would expect to see a late registration in the indexes in order for a birth certificate to be issued. There doesn't seem to be one.
Are you sure it was a birth certificate and not a certificate of baptism?
Debra :)
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Along the same thought as Dundee's statement above, are you sure it was a full cert?
The few of the original issued birth certs that I have from mine and hubbys relatives possessions ,such as hubby's grandparents are short ones. None of mine and hubby's families had their long certs that I know of.
I would take a good guess that most people back in the first half of the 1900s only ever had their short ones issued to them.
The short ones were very low cost , or free I believe, where you had to pay for the longer ones.
One of our old( hubby's grandfather) original short cert issued at his birth ( in1909) , the writing on the back says to not to exceed 3 pence. The short ones were not entirely free , but would have cost far less than a full one )
My own original issued one at my birth is a short one too, and I was born way, way into the latter half of the 1900s ;D ( I guess my parent's were too tight to pay for the long one too, or really didnt see any need for a long one that would have cost them money) .
I have never needed my long one for anything , driving licences, emigration , passport applications both , Aus and British ones, and green cards in Asia. I used my Short one on everything that needed a birth cert.
The only one exception that I ever needed a long cert was around 15 years ago , when I decided to send off for my 1st Irish passport ( as my Irish citizenship is through my Irish born mother, I needed my long cert to show my mum's name on it unlike my British passport and my Aus passports that didnt need my parents names on the cert).
Are you sure he had a long one showing his parents names ? As I find it really unusual that someone back in the 1920s would have had a long one, as if my family are anything to go by I would guess most people only ever had short ones way back then because of the cost and long ones weren't really needed for anything.
It's only in very recent years that some organisations may ask for the full ones. Don't know which ones though, as my hubby hasn't ever needed his long one for anything.
Unlike me, my hubby still hasn't got his long cert.
Kind regards :)
Ps I think a DNA test will be of some great help to you . ( you said you'll get your mum to test on the other thread). If you can't get her to test, your own will be the next best thing to your mum's.
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I thought that adoption certificates were not available except by application of the person or a child if person has died?
My Grandfather is dead. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
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FreeBMD;
Births Sep 1919 (>99%)
Koselj Harold A F Forrest Lambeth 1d 552
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I've mentioned here before that my GF had a birth certificate which he believed to be his, and which as far as I have been able to tell, he obtained from Somerset House in 1946. However it was for a different person born the same year and having the same name. He died still believing it to be correct, and it set me on a merry goose chase when I first started my research, because I took it at face value and it was many months and a lot of research later when I discovered information that brought it into question.
He was orphaned at 3 years of age in 1901, taken into the care of the local poor law union, later placed on a training ship and went on to join the navy, so knew nothing of his actual parents or his family. But believing he was born in London (he wasn't, but his parents moved back there when he was only a few months old) having applied to Somerset House and given them his name, year and place of birth as London, the certificate he obtained was the only one they could have realistically come up with.
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I am not sure I am keeping up here - so is he Harold Arthur Forrest, b 1919, Lambeth living in Hampstead in 1921 with Harold and Eleanor Forrest?
Marriage 1922, Hampstead
Harold Forrest and Irene Hardings
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Just adding a link to the previous post.
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=881050.0
Debra :)
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I am not sure I am keeping up here - so is he Harold Arthur Forrest, b 1919, Lambeth living in Hampstead in 1921 with Harold and Eleanor Forrest?
Marriage 1922, Hampstead
Harold Forrest and Irene Hardings
This family are together though in 1939, but does fit with the previous information.
Maybe he was ‘adopted’ by Harold.
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Just adding a link to the previous post.
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=881050.0
Debra :)
You are very patient, Debra.
I think I understand now - Irene/Eleanor is not named as mother - is that it? Is the mother, Elsie?
Aren’t there some birth certificates which are Occasional copy A? Might that be the ‘A’.
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I have never needed my long one for anything , driving licences, emigration , passport applications both , Aus and British ones, and green cards in Asia. I used my Short one on everything that needed a birth cert.
The only one exception that I ever needed a long cert was around 15 years ago , when I decided to send off for my 1st Irish passport ( as my Irish citizenship is through my Irish born mother, I needed my long cert to show my mum's name on it unlike my British passport and my Aus passports that didnt need my parents names on the cert).
need a full BC for most things now
https://www.gov.uk/apply-first-adult-passport/what-documents-you-need-to-apply
You were born or adopted in the UK
What documents you need depend on when you were born.
Before 1 January 1983
You’ll need your full birth certificate or adoption certificate.
"On or after 1 January 1983
You’ll need your full birth certificate or adoption certificate and either:
your mother’s or father’s full UK birth certificate, or the Home Office certificate of registration or naturalisation, or a British passport belonging to one of your parents that was valid when you were born, or a British passport number for either parent
evidence of one of your parents’ immigration status in the UK at the time of your birth, for example a foreign passport belonging to one of your parents that was valid when you were born
If you send documents relating to your father, you must also send your parents’ marriage certificate."
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Reply #35 - the previous thread:
“ Wow! You were all right weeks ago! My Grandfather was Harold Arthur Forrest Koselj. I had no way of identifying him as such a few weeks ago but I finally received the divorce file yesterday where Eleanor's first husband Frederick caught up with her. It mentions that she gave birth to two sons in her second marriage and there is a handwritten note stating their names. So far, this is the only information I have, I don't believe that Elsie the mother was ever a Forrest. The Father on the certificate is Ivan Koselj. Could the mother have simply lied about having previously been a Forrest, in order to make passing him over to the Forrests a bit easier? Irene/Eleanor has form for making up maiden names, the name Hardinge that she was using appears never to have been hers to use and was borrowed to enable a second marriage to Harold Forrest Senior without a divorce from Parsons.”
Just posting this more for myself probably, so it seems that Irene/Eleanor was the mother and I K was named as the father but somehow Harold is in the picture too because of the name Forrest.
Not sure now what the problem is. If there is no copy of the birth certificate used by Harold jnr then it can’t be solved, surely.
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No, another woman was the birth mother. Elsie Koselj, born Louise Koselj. It may well be a dead end now but I am just looking for some link between the Koselj's and the Forrests. Why did my great grandparents (as we knew them) take in Harold Forrest Koselj? Were they paid.
I had thought that Ivan was off in America but he marries Elsie in England in 1918 and I paid for Audrey's birth certificate today ( Harold Jr's birth sister recently discovered by amazing folk on this thread) and it shows Ivan re-registering Audrey's birth with his details after the were formally married. I haven't got a copy of the 1917 certificate to see what exactly has been amended but the wording on the 1919 certificate indicates that they are NOW married so I am inferring that he wasn't on the original.
So Ivan registered Audrey's birth again in Feb 1919, 4 months before Harold Jr was born. It seems unlikely that he had no idea of the birth if my grandfather.
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As you can see from Audrey’s certificate there is an ‘A’ for Occasional Copy A certificates.
Audrey was registered with both names in 1917, Koselj and Weigand and similarly in 1919, Weigand with mmn Weigand.
I have read over the two threads but have you posted the full details from Harold’s birth certificate?
Added
I see DNA has been mentioned and that seems a good idea.
I know you say that Audrey is a sister your grandfather did not know about but that may not be the case.
It does seem quite a tangle.
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As I look at this certificate now. I'm suddenly wondering whether the short version ever had koselj on it at all? They are down as the parents and the index has him as Harold Arthur Forrest Koselj but that doesn't seem to be the name he's been given in that column. Could it be that the short form of this very certificate is the one he had all along and it never read Koselj on his copy, hence him never questioning his roots. Still odd that someone suggested he was adopted after the certificate was lost but maybe that was a pure coincidence.
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A child takes his surname from his parents.
Column 2 only ever shows forenames. ;)
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As you can see from Audrey’s certificate there is an ‘A’ for Occasional Copy A certificates.
Audrey was registered with both names in 1917, Koselj and Weigand and similarly in 1919, Weigand with mmn Weigand.
To clarify things slightly :
The 1917 entry for Audrey is indexed only under Wiegand. The entry is in the printed index ( with mother's maiden shown as Weigand), but not on FreeBMD. GRO has the entry ( St Marylebone vol1a p647) and has no maiden name shown for the mother which suggests that there is no father named on the entry.
The 1917 entry also has been noted as Occasional Copy A indicating a copy was submitted to GRO outside of the usual quarterly returns process. That may be connected to the 1919 entry, but may not. The "A" shouldn't appear on any certificate - it is purely an indexing note.
The 1919 entry is a re-registration to add an unmarried father to an entry - although they have married since the birth they weren't at the time, so they have both signed the entry as "joint informants", and you get the "now the wife of" wording. This predates the Legitimacy Act of 1926 so isn't the same as the more common re-registrations done after that. GRO have indexed the 1919 entry under Koslej and shown a mother's maiden name of Weigand( which technically they shouldn't).
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Thanks for the explanation, AntonyMMM. I was going off the Free BMD indexes.
Looking at the dates and names, perhaps it was an informal arrangement that the child would be handed over after birth and be given the name of the new foster parent as part of his name.
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As I look at this certificate now. I'm suddenly wondering whether the short version ever had koselj on it at all? They are down as the parents and the index has him as Harold Arthur Forrest Koselj but that doesn't seem to be the name he's been given in that column. Could it be that the short form of this very certificate is the one he had all along and it never read Koselj on his copy,
There is never a surname shown for the child on a birth register entry (in E/W) before 1969, so Harold Arthur Forrest are his given/forenames.
Any short form certificate should usually take the surname from the parent(s) and would usually at that time be the father's surname (if named on the entry). So if he did obtain, or was given, a short certificate at some time it should have had the surname Koselj on it.
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OK thanks for clarifying that. I suppose there's a chance that it was a baptism certificate or done other form of document that he had, but my Mother swears she saw it at one point and it was most definitely a birth certificate. My Father said that my Grandfather used his army records to obtain a passport, so he may never have really needed it for official purposes until the whole insurance issue came up and the certificate ended up lost. I'm running out of places to look now. If DNA doesn't show me anything, I might have to accept that I've discovered all I can.
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..... he said it had an A in the top corner and after his birth certificate was lost in the post, he was informed by someone trying to help him get a copy, that an A meant he was adopted.
That person gave him bad advice. If a child was adopted the original birth certificate would have the full word 'adopted' noted on it. A new short form birth certificate would be issued and specifically had no mention of an adoption, just the name, date of birth and sex. No parents were named.
Is anyone still alive who actually saw this certificate? He wouldn't have needed a birth certificate to do most things, lots of people did not have one and a stat. dec. would suffice.
Debra :)
Thanks for all your help again Debra. My mother remembers seeing the certificate and my grandfather was a very intelligent man, so when I suggested that it might not have been a birth certificate at all and was perhaps something else, both my Mother and my father said he would have known the difference. He was absolutely certain that it was his birth certificate but I don't know for sure if it was short or long. I imagine now that it was the short gorm after reading all the comments on this thread.
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It is possible that he had a short certificate from his original birth registration which would name him as Harold Arthur Forrest KOSELJ and he would simply tell whoever he presented it to that he was only known by the first three names. He would be quite entitled to do that as a personal preference as long as he wasn't doing it to commit fraud. This short certificate would not have parents' names on it though.
In another scenario, if they attempted to have a search done for an original birth registration but were unable to locate it, you would expect to see a late registration in the indexes in order for a birth certificate to be issued. There doesn't seem to be one.
Are you sure it was a birth certificate and not a certificate of baptism?
Debra :)
And no, he definitely never heard of the name koselj. He was shaken to the core to be told he was probably adopted by someone over the phone while he was searching for a replacement birth certificate. He spent years searching for his true identity and never found out who he was. The only document that names him as Koselj is the divorce court file from Eleanor's first marriage which someone on the other thread discovered. So he definitely didn't casually drop the Koselj part.
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This is an example of the short certificate.