What is an original certificate?

[coffeecup]

Hi yes that's quite right about questioning the reliability of what the registrar was told. It could well be that my missing Alice Rowlands is on the census under another name. The trouble is if her birth was registered at all 'William' wasn't named as her father. I've been through them all for Warrington that I can find. I really wanted to double check because I'm not sure what else can be done to trace her prior to her marriage.

I have had one which I think is a downright lie, a girl Jane Mee who gave her father as John Mee on her marriage certificate when I know for certain that her mother Alice Mee never married and that Mee was her mother's maiden name. That threw me quite a bit, started looking for cousins and so forth as possible fathers. She got married quite far from home so I guess no one she knew there to question what she told them.

It would just be useful to know if that the 'original' copy is held by the church whether the father's name differs or not, it's so frustrating not being able to find her birth record, certainly not one that matches anyhow.

[thurston]

I have one cert were the woman has put her child as illegitimate but then she marries someone about two months after the birth.  He maybe the father but I'll never know for sure.

[coffeecup]

Thurston I had exactly that problem. A boy who's mother married six weeks after he was born, but never put the father on the birth certificate, and when he married nothing of his father on his marriage certifcate either. Finally, after years being clueless, I found this boy's christening entry in the church records, and it turned out that his father was the man his mother had married after all.

Find his baptism if you can, there's a good chance they wouldn't lie to the church.