False Registration of Birth???

[SHEPHIL]

On the 1861 census it shows my Gt Gt Gt Grandparents as having a son Alfred born 1847. It also shows another Alfred as grandson born 1854. I have obtained Alfred b1854 birth
certificate but it shows my GGG Grandparents names. The Mother is Jane. They also had a daughter Jane who's name
incidentally is at the bottom on the census next to young Alfreds. As she and her mother had the same name, would
it have been possible for her to give her Mums name which was the same as hers (Jane Hatton) and because she was probably unmarried, her father as the dad to make it look like they were in fact his parents. How easy (or not) would it have been then to do that? Jane is only 21 on the census though.

[stanmapstone]

The information on  certificates is only as good as that supplied by the people involved. The civil registration system in England and Wales is  'informant driven' that is the registrar can only put what he is told. However there is a penalty of perjury if the information is wilfully false.
The operative word is "willfully",
From the 1836 Act.
XLI. And be it enacted, That every Person who shall wilfully make or cause to be made, for the Purpose of being inserted in any Register of Birth, Death, or Marriage, any false Statement touching any of the Particulars herein required to be known and registered, shall be subject to the same Pains and Penalties as if he were guilty of Perjury.

See http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,297897.msg1804738.html#msg1804738

Stan

[patrish]

My great grandmother was illegitimate on her marriage certificate in 1868 she falsified her fathers name, the one she gave was in fact  her grandfathers and her brothers name so it was  easily done.

I have never been able to find her baptism 

[Redroger]

Many of my ancestors come from rural Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. Searching for them in the various censuses I have noted that both inside and outside my family there seems to be a disproportionate number of children allegedly born to parents in  their late 40s in households where there is an unmarried daughter in her teens or 20s. From this I strongly suspect that the practise of false registration was quite common.