What is an original certificate?

[seahall]

Hi All

Newfy I had one of my children's birth certiftcate with the in-correct information on it .

I wrote to the General Registar and asked his permission to have the correct information noted and he agreed.

I then took the in-correct certificate to our local registry office and had a new one issued with the correct surname.

Sandy

[Stumped!]

Newfy
Thanks for the link.
I wonder how we manage to find out anything at all with all of the apparent pitfalls put in our way.
What are the odds of this new reworking of the registers being full of errors?
Peter

[behindthefrogs]

Any certificate whether issued at the time of the registration or provided years later is only a copy.  There is a better chance of one prepared in the local office not containing errors introduced during copying because there is only one transcription involved.  An original certificate if it means anything is thus the first one made.  In the case of my father's death I had four copies made for various reasons when I registered the death.  Which one was the original in that case?   

Today when the registry office entry is made straight into the computer this is not likely to occur although there is a still a potential problem with marriages not conducted at the registry office.  The certificates are of course now prited straight from the computer record.  Our descendants will thus have better records if we bother to get married.

[coffeecup]

That's really interesting.

So it seems that the church entered the details into their own register (I have had copies of originals pre 1837 so no transcribing required), then a copy is made for the register office and one for the married couple. Local reigster offices and the general records office will each have a seperate copy. Is that the general idea?

It explains the handwriting difference.

No wonder there is so much room for error. The name of the father on the certificate I have is William Rowlands, but I've sent for several birth certificates for the bride Alice Rowlands around 1847 in Warrington and none have her father as 'William'. Nor can she be found on the census records and after some lengthy searching and many posts on this topic on the Cheshire and Lancs boards, the general thought was that the marriage certificate is wrong. It's been a huge brick wall.

So it would be a sensible idea to approach Liverpool Records Office again and ask them to check the CHURCH entry?

Thank you very much indeed everyone for your thoughts, links, examples and suggestions.

[coffeecup]

Another thing, it explains why when somebody did actually sign their own name and not with an X, that the handwriting is identical to the rest of the certificate. It's not your ancestors handwriting at all then? That's a shame.

[behindthefrogs]

Don't forget that prior to 1837 and I think for sometime afterwards a transcript of the parish register was made for the bishop.  Many of the printed marriage registers of the late 19th century were made from these bishops transcripts and so again two copies into which errors could be introduced.

Also the IGI entries often were copied from these printed books, three copies to introduce errors.

David

[thurston]

This is probably one of the reasons why you find mistakes on the I.G.I index or you cannot find someone.  Sometimes people may have been missed.

This could also be the case when you check digital indexes.  There could be an amount of human error although I think these are double checked most of the time.

I have an example of this:

if I look at the 1851 census on the computer it states that my great great grandfather was born in Luth on the transcribed statement.  However, if you look at the original census carefully you can see it says Leigh, Lancs.

Just always be aware of the pitfalls!!

[pjbuk007]

LRO certificates from Guisborough are copied by someone on the day you request them.  I ordered two and they are the same writing.  I checked and that is the case.

So perhaps LROs vary in what they do.

[behindthefrogs]

.

No wonder there is so much room for error. The name of the father on the certificate I have is William Rowlands, but I've sent for several birth certificates for the bride Alice Rowlands around 1847 in Warrington and none have her father as 'William'. Nor can she be found on the census records and after some lengthy searching and many posts on this topic on the Cheshire and Lancs boards, the general thought was that the marriage certificate is wrong. It's been a huge brick wall.

Don't assume that such problems are always transcription errors.  I have two examples which are similar but are what the bride told the vicar.

In one case she said that the name of her father was John when in fact his name was Charles.  The reason was that her father had died when she was very young and she had been brought up by his brother John who married his mother.  (This took five years to sort out)

The second case occurs frequently where a child is born out of wedlock and when the mother eventually marries, adopts the name of her stepfather (or father inlaw as it would then have been called)

David