No Father on birth cert

[Billyblue]

Do you know where the father was, during the pregnancy?

Years ago, we obtained a BC for one of my grandmother's siblings.
It showed no father.  We queried this with the RG who said none was named.

subsequently found out that the 'father' we thought it should be, had been in gaol for 2 years until a month prior to the birth!  Obviously the local Clerk of the Court knew he wasn't the father and refused to say that he was (smallish country town in NSW)      

at least it cleared up our confusion re the omission on the BC    

Dawn M

[bykerlads]

Just wondering if I could add my question to this thread:
It concerns a birth registered in 1932 in London. The person whose birth it is , is still alive so I shall not use the real names.
The cert. has the mother's name with her former name, implying she was married but the space for father's name is blank.
eg:  mother's name: jane smith, formerly jones.( not real names)
       child's name is smith.( not real name)
Do we assume that Mr Smith was the father, though un-named?
Do we assume Mr Smith was dead?
Do we assume jane was still married but living with another man?
Would a live legitimate father and husband ever be omitted from a birth cert?
All comments welcome.

[Billyblue]

Bykerlads, I was once told "Assume nothing, check everything"

         

Dawn M

[cynmac]

Further to my original post, we do not know where the Mother's husband was during the pregnancy .  The family had been living in Wales but the birth took place in Somerset.
which could mean either that the husband was tied to work in Wales or the Mother was 'sent away' to give birth .  Because we had assumed he was working in Wales caused me to think that if he could not be at the registration he may not be named on the cert.  The actual informant of the birth was the Workhouse master who may not have known the Father's name.  The only explanation we could come up with was that because he was not present he was not named, but if this was not the case it has become a brick wall.

[oldphil]

I have a marriage cert. relating to one of my forebears which has in father's name column "nullius filius" meaning I believe in latin; Father unknown..Everyone in the village at the time knew who the father was. So why not name him?

[melsimba66]

I had a similar illegitimate  born child  ,  you would have better luck looking in a Church confessional or  Kirk sessions from the local church  ?  that is where I found mine , and he did keep the fathers name until his mother remarried .  Don't know if it will help , but its worth a try ?       

[tobyma123]

Hello all,i feel i must comment on this, as i obtained my own fathers birth cert from Belfast reg office.no father named also gran's maiden name is not on there,she married in 1901 but according to relatives he left about 1910 never came back.Gran is a widow on Irish census in 1911.Dad was born in 1917.I would welcome comments as to this mystery it leaves me a brick wall i would dearly like to clear up.regards tobyma123.

[Hercule Poirot]

I have a few births like this in my research and I quote one example.

My great grandfather's sister was married in 1890 and then had a daughter registered to her and her husband later that year (father / mother both on birth certificate).

Two years later, that mother then has a child registered to her by her stepmother (my great great grandfather's 2nd wife but not the bio mother of the mother in question), and although she was still married, there is no father listed on the birth certificate. All her subsequent children 2 years later and after had a father and mother listed, strange.

My ancestors made false declarations at births of illegitimate children and from my own research I have discovered that the child registered without a father was not born to the married mother as listed on the birth certificate but to her younger 17 year old sister (she was not named), that younger sister had another illigitimate child a few years later that had to be registered to her as there were no more female "volunteers" to have the birth registered to them as pregnancies overlapped. I even doubt if my great grandfather's sister knew that the birth had been attributed to her.

Now jump forward to the 1940's and my late mother kept from me the fact she had a child before marriage to my father, but you won't find that birth registered to my mother, that child was given away to married relations and then registered as their own child away from the district where the birth occurred. Then my mum had another child after me (although still married to dad but he was not the father as they had temporarily split) and that child was also given away to other married relations and the birth registered in the same way, before my dad came back on the scene

In my view a birth certificate is not worth the paper it is written on, and I have many cases in my research all backed up with certificates and information from people who knew what had happened, but there also are a few people still alive who will not say a word.

And to cap it all, illegitimate children of one family were married off to illegitimate children of other non related families.

[tobyma123]

Hercule Poirot,thank you so much for your reply.That's the trouble all the people who could tell me have died.Because gran did needlework for (the big houses)so relatives tell me,they feel she was taken advantage of?,by the other servants or the owner.However she did have two younger sisters close in age,so you might well be right.The trouble as well is that baptism's also tell you nothing.I have relatives with a child out of wedlock and the baptism just states the mothers name.Thanks again for your interest and maybe something will come to light sometime,it is particulaly hard if it is your father or mother.regards tobyma123.