Registration errors

[Gadget]

My mother in law's original  of 1913 was  a short one.

I was the first one in the family to buy the full one - bit mean were the in laws 

I had to buy it cos Mr G told me that his grandparents were called Gran and Granddad 

And when we had to register her death, a few years back, I was the only one who knew her full name and date of birth. Mistakes would have been made at this stage otherwise.

A lesson in what happens at such registrations.


Gadget

[les_looking]

the short birth certificate was only introduced in the mid' 1940's i think

Hi Les

Unless you are talking about something different, I think you are a few years out!  I have a Certificate of Registry of Birth for December 1903.  At the top it says Births and Deaths Registration Act 1874

It's a wonder so many of these survive as they are very flimsy.

Linda

yes sorry Linda i didnt mean the introduction of certificates but the short one that didn't contain parents etc

a few years ago when i was doing some digging
for my cousin was told by various officials/registrars when we were after one
(can't even remember why now lol)

had to do a bit of digging for the info,

http://www.rootschat.com/links/0769/

http://cumbria.gov.uk/registration/otherservices/helphistorians.asp

from above link

In the case of an illegitimate child, only the mother's name is normally given; before 1875,
the mother was allowed to name any man as the father -
he was not required to acknowledge paternity. An illegitimate child can now be issued
with a birth certificate which gives him or her the surname of either the father or the mother.
In order to reduce embarrassment for illegitimate children the so-called 'short' birth certificate was introduced in 1947.
It is cheaper to buy than a 'full' certificate,
but is of no genealogical value, and has restricted use these days.

[Valda]

Hi

I have a 'Certificate of Birth' (often called short birth certificate) of a child born 31st October 1910 duly registered as entry number 78 in the register book number 34 on 10th December 1910 in West Ham district, sub district North Leyton, for the fee of not exceeding three pence under section 30 of the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1874.

'30. A registrar shall, upon demand made at the time of regis­tering any birth by the person giving the information concerning the birth, and upon payment of a fee not exceeding threepence, give to such person a certificate under his hand, in the prescribed form, of having registered that birth.'

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~framland/acts/1874Act.htm


The certificate has only the name of the child and its date of birth and no further information. I have a similar 'Certificate of Birth' for a child registered 19th February 1890 in Mayfair and one for a child registered 24th April 1882 in St Mary Newington. These latter two are the only ones I have for the C19th since survival rates are poor for these documents. I am sure lots of other people will tell you they also possess 'Certificate of Births' though usually only from the C20th and usually only as early as around the time of the 1910 birth certificate I cited. The more fuller certificate is entitled 'Certificate of Registry of Birth' (a copy produced by the GRO of this is called 'A Certified Copy of an entry of Birth').


Concerning the naming of illegitimate fathers on birth certificates

'Whether father is entered in the register depends on two factors - were the couple married (always entered) and what date the registration was made (maybe - maybe not).

The early registrations between 1837 and approximately 1850 are a little mixed. The Act of Parliament of 1836 reads "And it be enacted that the father or mother of every child born in England................shall within 42 days next after the day of every such birth give information upon being requested so to do to the Registrar, according to the best of his or her knowledge and belief of the several particulars hereby required to be known and registered touching the birth of such child provided always that it shall not be necessary to register the name of any father of a bastard child."

Now some registrars interpreted that quite freely and put father in even where the couple were not married and only mother or someone else was signing the register and some did not allow fathers details to be entered in the register. By about 1850 the situation had been clarified and the instructions read quite clearly "No putative father is to be allowed to sign an entry in the character of "Father" ". From that time, therefore there are 2 kinds of entries in the register

(1) Where the parents were married to one another, fathers details must be entered in the register and only one parent will sign the register (or some other informant)

(2) Where the parents were not married to one another there will be blanks in Column 4 (fathers name) and Column 6 (his occupation).

This situation lasted until the Registration Act of 1875 where the instruction read "The putative father of an illegitimate child cannot be required as father to give information respecting the birth. The name, surname and occupation of the putative father of an illegitimate child must not be entered except at the joint request of the father and mother; in which case both the father and mother must sign the entry as informants".'

http://home.clara.net/dixons/Certificates/births.htm

and

Clara Dixon aka John on the differences between the 'Certificate of Birth' and the 'Certificate of Registry of Birth'

http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/th/read/GLAMORGAN/2005-08/1124892314



Regards

Valda

[les_looking]

not sure if some are getting confused with what was introduced
also see here

http://www.rootschat.com/links/076d/

http://homepages.newnet.co.uk/dance/webpjd/offstats/regevents.htm

the short birth cerificate on my understanding was brought out so that when you had to produce a certificate for some legal purposes it would not have the box where father was left blank
a modern short certifcate only gives
name, dob, where born and date registered, if when you register your babies birth today you get this free (not sure if still free today but WAS) and pay for the "proper" one

[Valda]

Hi

This I take to be a short birth certificate (taken from the Royal Marines official website)

http://fakeutilitys.com/db5/00437/fakeutilitys.com/_uimages/Birth-Certificate.jpg

and this is an example from Leicestershire of the 'short' birth certificate I described - this one dated 1904

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pcaddict/Carpentier-Leask/Carpentier/Carpentier-Documents/Bill_Hames_Birth_Certificate.jpg


Interesting though it is to actually work out what the official title of these two certificates is, well certainly the earlier one at least, and between what dates the first one existed and whether it was phased out by the introduction of the latter in 1947, it is irrelevant to the original question that was asked in this topic, which was why didn't the parents notice the mistake on the 1910 birth certificate - because they may very well have possessed this earlier 'short certificate' which just gives the name and date of birth of the child and the date of registration and no further information - as in the image above.

My father's 'short' birth certificate is similar to the Leicestershire example, though his was a later birth. In legal terms it got him a school admission, enlistment in the services, married, and after 1947 a state pension and was also sufficient proof for me to register his death. His birth was a legitimate one and this was the only birth certificate he ever had. Since these certificates existed and were accepted as legal documents well into the second half of the C20th the introduction of the short certificate in 1947 cannot be because of the need to 'hide' whether a person was born illegitimately or not. However they do look a lot more official and therefore a more 'certified' legal document than the original version which I presume they replaced though I haven't seen copies of this type of birth certificate from the 1920s and 1930s so I can't be sure of that.


Regards

Valda

[les_looking]

Yes sorry have seen the certificate of registration of birth before, and my understanding is that it then enabled the holder/parents to then go and buy a full certificate, i am pretty sure they were issued with the record numbers to only then allow one copy of it to be produced, (don't take that as gospel though lol) whereas you can go to a registry office and obtain the short version pretty easily, also anyone who has a certificate of registration of birth best to take care of it as i doubt many survived

Bit misleading even in todays forms to fill in when applying for a certificate it will ask for mother/father etc
and those questions are required even if you don't know, so all round the houses to obtain one

[Valda]

Hi

My understanding is that because it is a Certificate of Registration of the Birth it certifies the birth as having taken place and been registered and contains nearly all the information a short birth certificate does. It therefore was and for all I know still is, a legally accepted document in its own right (if registering a death of someone now in their late 90s?), just as the short birth certificate is - well the Royal Marines seem to accept it is. It might have only have allowed for one birth certificate to be issued from the local registry office, though that wouldn't make a lot of sense in London since you could go to Somerset House and get one from there.
I actually have seen more orginal Certificates of Registration for the late C19th early C20th than I have seen original full certificates, perhaps because there wasn't much incentive to go and buy an expensive full certificate if the Certificate of Registration was a legally accepted document. After about 1910 I don't remember seeing any so they were perhaps phased out, which if so, would account for why my father had one but not my mother.


Regards

Valda

[siptree]

I too have, among some inherited Certificates etc., some 'short certificates that date to well before 1947. They are all in a box somewhere, which is why my initial reaction to the suggestion of a short certificate was that I had forgotten about those.

I don't suppose I will ever know for sure what the answer to my mystery is, but thanks for the answers and an interesting discussion.