COMPLETED Birth Reg - amendment or bizarre coincidence? COMPLETED

[vazzycat]

I am researching a friends family and have come across something I've not seen before    and wonder if anyone can shed some light... I have used fictitious names as owing to the recent nature of events.

Miss Jane Smith was born 1913. In 1934 (Dec qtr) she married Mr Jack Jones. Mr Jones died 1947 (Mar qtr). In 1954 (Mar qtr) Jane Jones married Tom Thomas. A number of children were born to Jane Smith/Jones/Thomas both in and out of wedlock.

In Mar qtr 1948 a child is registered as Ed Jones mother Smith. In the same qtr a child is registered as Ed Thomas mother Smith. The registration district, volume and page number are all identical. This child is the friend I am researching for and family knowledge gave me all the correct surnames involved prior to me finding anything. There is an identical double registration scenario for his sister Mary registered Mar qtr 1950 - same surnames, same volume, same page number.

Both children were brought up using the surname Thomas.

Clearly husband Jones died before either child was conceived and Jane had them out of wedlock as she hadn't married Tom Thomas yet.

If I order the certificates, what info am I likely to find? How was the whole amendment thing handled back then? Or have I likely come across a bizarre coincidence?

Thanks In antic...  Vaz 

[suzard]

IIt is not unusual -there is one reg ref -so one registration.
It just gives the mother's name now and her former name . As the father has agreed to put his name on cert as father the child has his surname / mother's name is noted and mother's maiden name .

If the father had requested to have his name added at a later date -then a new registration would be made at that time -but original reg would stay.

Sometimes on a marriage cert when there has been a previous marriage - the registration will read "Tom Thomas " spouse "Jane Jones or Smith

Suz

[vazzycat]

Thanks for that Suz - so I can safely proceed in the knowledge that Ed Jones and Ed Thomas are the same person, and that Mama gave a little white lie when first registering Ed's birth saying that his dad was her late hubby (it clearly wasn't). Seems she was a bit of a minx!
 

[andycand]

Hi vazzycat

You will probably find that the child was born before Jane & Ed were married. When a childs birth was registered the Childs Name column only shows first and middle names (no surname) When the GRO create their index the surname is taken from the parents surname, if the couple are married then it was the fathers surname, if the couple were not married then the child was indexed under both the fathers and mothers surname, in this case the mothers name would have been Jane Jones (nee Smith).

Andy

[vgerard01]

Hello! My husband has the same thing. What happened in his case is that his mother had him out of wedlock. She later married another man who chose to "adopt" my husband. The second certificate lists the man his mother married as his father where the original lists the name of the birthfather my husband never got to meet.  We are still not exactly sure how all of the records got manipulated the way they were as there was never a legal adoption done.  In our case as everyone that could explain how it worked is dead we had to figure it out on our own.  Good luck! Val

[vazzycat]

Thanks to you all for the input - have a very merry Christmas!!