Boys will be girls!

[Annie65115]

My 2x gt grandmother died in 1910; I have a copy of her death certificate and several corrections were made on authority of the registrar, 5 months after her death and the inquest.

I've just got a copy of her birth certificate and it turns out that she was registered as male at birth, and this wasn't corrected until 5 months after her death at age 59 either!

Since she had 16 children I think I can be fairly sure that she was indeed female

Anyone else's ancestors had a rather belated sex change?

[Aniseed]

That's amazing! I guess her parents couldn't read, and so didn't know what the registrar had written down? Did she have a girl's name?

By chance this came up at the start of this month here:-

Ever Seen This Before?

Not quite the same thing, but a similar theme...

[aghadowey]

A relative of mine (with parents well able to read and write) discovered that she was 'male' when getting a birth certificate for passport application and had a bit of bother getting it all sorted out.

[Aniseed]

Was it just due to a very absent minded registrar who wrote something like "Susan Smith, male" on the birth certificate? What a shock for her! I've never heard of this before, and am having a bit of trouble working out such a mistake could happen? I've heard of drunk vicars giving children the wrong names, but this is such a basic thing.

[aghadowey]

No, worse than that her Christian name was changed to a similar, but not identical, male name.

[Aniseed]

That's terrible! So the registrar wasn't listening to whoever said "Her name is..." then?! He sounds like a bit of a twit (I'm assuming the registrar was a he...) How could someone just assume that the sex was one thing or another?

Mind you, I'd always thought Evelyn was a girl's name, just because I'd only ever heard it associated with women, until I heard of Evelyn Waugh. Hillary, simlarly, so I guess this person was biased the other way round.

Even so, it should still be a matter of protocol to actually *ask* what the sex was, though.

[aghadowey]

Forgot to mention that Aunt was named after her mother (whose name was correct on the certificate) 

[dawnyb]

hi guys
a friend of mine has reacently obtained a birth certificate for a passport then found he was a girl on the certificate. so i wonder who was responsible for that little error.