Refers to England & Wales The word illegitimate would never be entered on a birth certificate, only the details required by the registration acts.
The instructions for Registration Act of 1874 state:
"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" The Act came into force on 1st January 1875. Between 1837 and 1874 if the mother informed a registrar of an illegitimate child's birth and also stated a father's name, the registrar could record him as the father, although he may not have actually been the father.
on the http://home.clara.net/dixons/Index.htm site it says "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" ". I can find no other source for this statement, or where the instructions came from.
Stan
Stan as you are probably aware the Registrar General sends out guidance to registrars and Superintendent Registrars as to "office policy". This guidance is supposed to clear up any misunderstanding of legislation.
A more modern example was in 1974 when due to guidance from the Registrar General Superintendent Registrars withdrew access by the public to registers held by Superintendent Registrars without there being any change in the law.
Annie you have a copy of the bottom of one page of a Scottish register book and the top section of a second page of a Scottish register book. Some of the entries seem to have been scored out with a red pen/pencil (red does not show up on many black and white scans).
The reason Scottish entries contain the word illegitimate is due to the complexities of the Scottish marriage system with the multiple forms of marriage and irregular marriage.
Until the Marriage (Scotland) Act 1939 a civil marriage in Scotland could be by mutual agreement, by a public promise followed by consummation, or by cohabitation and repute. It was not until 2006 that marriage by cohabitation and repute was finally abolished by the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006.
Due to these forms of marriage there had to be a way of differentiating between a birth following a church wedding and a "common-law" wedding.
Note the word illegitimate in such cases does not mean the child was a bastard (the official legal term at the time for a child born out of holy matrimony) under law.
Cheers
Guy
