Birth Record

[marilou]

am looking for the birth certificate of one Mary Elizabeth Hughes, DOB 14 July 1881 in Llangollen to Jane,  father unknown.  'Polly' was my grandmother, shows up in 1891 Wales Census as ADOPTED by William Berry and wife, Sarah Ann Slawson Berry.  She emigrated to US, Chicago, IL in 1897.  Still had contact w/Barry's in my lifetime;but, of course, I was too young and stupid to ask questions then.  She died in 1967.

I seem to constantly hit a brick wall.  Her eldest daughter destroyed all of her records after her death, because it showed that her father was unknown.

So where do I look for the birth record??  The adoption??  And I'm not sure if she was adopted legally or not. She emigrated using the name Hughes, but by the 1900 census, she was using the name Barry and still w/her mother.  Until your help, I did not know of the Hughes name.  It shows her on the 1881 WalesCensus in Sarah Ann's parents (George & Catherine Jones Slawson) home.

Please help!!  ALL assisstance is greatly appreciated.

[peckham]

This may help . . .

Given that you have the exact day/month/year of the birth and birth place you can go to www.1837online.com . . . it is a pay-per-view site . . . but you can get to look at all entries for a given surname/first name in a birth, marriage or death category by the Quarter and Year . . . July is in the September Quarter.

E.g., you search would be Hughes . . . Mary . . . Birth . . . 1881 . . . September

If your person is listed you will see their name and the District where the event was recorded and the Volume Number and Page Number of the registration.

Llangollen was in the District of Corwen so you (hopefully) should see:
Hughes, Mary Elizabeth . . . Corwen . . . Volume Number . . . Page Number

Do not restrict yourself to finding both first names - often only one name was recorded . . . the District will be the determining factor, i.e., there will perhaps be other Hughes, Mary Elizabeth listed


With that information you could then go to
http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/
and order the certificate.


District of Corwen
Created 1st July 1837. Mainly in Merionethshire, but included part of Denbighshire.
Sub-districts : Corwen; Gwyddelwern; Llangollen.
GRO volumes : XXVII (1837-51); 11b (1852-1930).
Bettws-Gwerfil-Goch, Bottegirbach, Cefnpost, Corwen, Gwyddeiwern, Llandrillio, Llangar, Llansaintfraidd-Glyn-Dyfrdwy.
Registers now divided between Denbighshire South and Wrexham districts.

[peckham]

I noticed that in the 1881 Wales census Mary Elizabeth’s birth year was given as “About 1880”. You have given it as definitely being 1881. Are you positive it was 1881 because I found the following birth registration in 1880 that meets all of the previous criteria of name, place, District and September Quarter:

Hughes, Mary Elizabeth . . . Births . . . Quarter September . . . 1880 . . . Corwen . . .    Denbighshire Merionethshire . . . Volume 11b . . . Page 391

There are no other details available re this birth registration, and I did not find it at the 1837online site I suggested, it was one of a random selection at Ancestry.com.

You could take a chance on this being the birth you are looking for and send off for the birth certificate based on this information . . . I believe it will cost you about £7.50. Or you could purchase a minimum number of search units at 1837online.com (which may cost less) and see if there are other Hughes in Corwen entries in both 1880 and 1881.

[peckham]

I have never had to consider obtaining adoption information and/or certificate and I suspect that there may be restrictions on who can get information.

However the following may be worth a try:

This is the GRO website.
http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/contactus/

at that website are selections of “Contact Us” addresses the following is for the Adoption related portion. If nothing else it has an email address you can send your details and enquiry to. I am sure you will get a response advising you of what can or cannot be achieved, and if the former how to pursue it.

http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/contactus/Adoptions_section.asp

It also gives you all the details of ordering and charges related to this.

[marilou]

THANK YOU Peckham.  have just sent them an email, so am hoping for some further information. 

the thing that seems to be holding me up IE her birth record is not being able to view it on-line, therefore, I have no way to know if I have the correct one.  and I can't afford to keep buying a certificate that isn't right.

a friend who was visiting here went back 21 Jan, and sent me the one that I thought was correct.  had asked that he check for Llangollen, mother's name and father unknown - but because of his eyesite, he probably couldn't read the small print.  it's not the correct Mary Elizabeth Hughes.

appreciate your help.  thank you.

[peckham]

Hello:

I know what you mean about buying the wrong certificate . . . I have about six and I suspect it goes with the territory when searching for ancestors.

You may not be able to eliminate the entire cost of purchasing the wrong certificate but you can reduce it by attaching a condition(s) to the purchase - assuming you have specific information that is relevant.

For example, at the http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/ website if you are providing all or part of the information on a BMD -  year, name of person, district, volume, page etc., you can also stipulate that other details appear on the certificate.

An easy example is a marriage. If you know that John Smith married an Ann Jones but you are not sure you have the right John Smith certificate you can make it conditional on both their names appearing. Likewise if you know that a couple by that name did marry but are not sure of the year but think it may be their certificate you can make it conditional on John's father's name being on the certificate. In other words if you know of other related information that is beyond doubt you can narrow the field of error.

But as I stated, you will still get charged for the search but at least you will have saved the cost of the certificate and mailing costs.

Hope this makes sense should you get to that point.

Bryan

[D ap D]

If its any help, I always order my certificates from the local registrar, rather than the GRO - it saves me having to wait for the BMD indexes to be transcribed (I don't live in the UK, so can't access them otherwise).

I write a nice letter to the registrar, giving all the relevant information, and - touch wood - I've not received an incorrect certificate yet.

[marilou]

Thank you everyone.  still no info on adoption, but see my reply to gram's birth cert on: Jane Kendricks Hughes, my great 'Nain' .....

[AlexNoodle]

Hi

Re the adoption, it might well be that you wont find any records to do with it. The first proper registration of adoption was in 1927, so before then it was more likely that children were adopted by other family members or close friends who you knew would look after the child. Sometimes they were called nurse child on censuses, especially if they had been sent into the country to be looked after. With regards to illegitimacy its always going to be a brickwall when you have the certificate with no father's name on. You can sometimes get lucky if you find the mother being a servant at a house and the head of the house has the same name as a son for example - like in my partners family I was trying to find a John Oakley illegitimate son of Sarah Oakley so I thought well I'll look for him in the early censuses and see where his mother is, hoping I would find her at home with her parents etc, but she was a servant to a Stephen Buxton, she had about 4 children, one of which was called Stephen, so I looked for a marriage in case he did 'the decent thing' and low and behold in 1852 they married. But my John Oakley was the only one who kept the Oakley name, the others all became Buxtons!

Perhaps you could search for Jane Kendrick Hughes' birth certificate, if you cant find Mary Elizabeth's father, just try going further down her mother's line.

It's hard I know to leave a stone unturned like that. My grandmother had always been told that her father died in the first world war the year she was born, but for some reason his family wanted nothing to do with her. So I searched for his death in 1918 and couldn't find anything, so on a hunch I looked back in the registers in case he died at home and not abroad and there he was in 1916! So he couldn't have possibly been her father! On getting her birth certificate there was no father's name given, so it remains a mystery.

Alex