Availability of mother’s name on birth records

[nellie d]

When researching English, births, for dates AFTER September 1911, I often use freebmd.org.uk, as it gives the mother’s maiden name.
I have looked on the Scotland’s People website and, unfortunately it does not have that information available.
I checked on the sctbmd.org website and the surname I am looking up isn’t on there at all.
Is there anywhere that I can access, births since 1911, which will give details of the mother’s maiden name for Scottish birth or is that not available…yet?

[CaroleW]

Freebmd marriages & deaths does not give any details of a mothers maiden name.  Mothers names do not appear on either a marriage or death cert in England & Wales

Freebmd births prior to Sept qtr 1911 does not give mmn - you have to use GRO online

You don’t give details of any timescale but Statutory registration of Scottish BMD’s was introduced in 1855.  Prior to that date you use the OPR’s (Old Parish Registers)

[nellie d]

Thank you CaroleW… I should have specified births, as that was what I was looking for. I have edited my post accordingly.

[Neale1961]

It depends what date you are looking at, and whether a birth or a death.
"After 1911" is rather vague, and covers over 100 years.

Information here should answer your question.
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/statutory-registers/indexes

[nellie d]

Thank you Neale1961.
I added September 1911 as that is the date when mother’s maiden names started to be added to the birth records. Following the link you sent, I see that it is 1929 in Scotland. This should help me with what I am looking for. Thank you

[Forfarian]

When researching English, births, for dates AFTER September 1911, I often use freebmd.org.uk, as it gives the mother’s maiden name.
I have looked on the Scotland’s People website and, unfortunately it does not have that information available.
Is there anywhere that I can access, births since 1911, which will give details of the mother’s maiden name for Scottish birth or is that not available…yet?

This information is specifically withheld for reasons of personal privacy from the Scotland's People's web site.

You can view births with mother's maiden name from 1929 onwards, if you are in-house in a Scotland's People Centre, but you can't do so online.

I checked on the sctbmd.org website and the surname I am looking up isn’t on there at all.

sctbmd.org is a voluntary web site where individuals can post details of certificates they have obtained from Scotland's People. At this moment it says that it has 83,266 records.

This is a minuscule proportion of the 61,637,216 original records currently on Scotland's People - less than one sixth of one per cent of the total.

[CraigM63]

I think you'll find that the appearance of the mother's maiden name in an online birth index in either Scotland or England is related to the 100-year rule if you are looking at the indexes on either ScotlandsPeople or the GRO. The only exception within the period covered by the 100-year rule that I have noted is that if you know the mother's actual maiden name and enter it as part of the search criteria, it will show the mother's maiden name in the search results if the birth is a post-1923 birth. This is certainly the case for my own children who were born in England in the late 1990's/early 2000's. I can find their birth registrations using my own surname, but without mother's maiden name mentioned in the search results, but if I specify their mother's maiden name as part of the search criteria, it does show their mother's maiden name in the search results.

ScotlandsPeople has over the last few years slowly been adding mother's maiden name to all their indexed births from 1855 onward, up to 1923. They are also adding them to the indexed deaths as well, although there is still a gap from the late 1920's up to 1974 when they started being routinely indexed.

[Tickettyboo]

I think you'll find that the appearance of the mother's maiden name in an online birth index in either Scotland or England is related to the 100-year rule if you are looking at the indexes on either ScotlandsPeople or the GRO.

I suspect that, for the GRO in England and Wales at least, its nothing to do with 'privacy'  as the information from the GRO is freely available elsewhere.
You can't put that genie back in the bottle.
The old printed index from which FreeBMD is compiled shows MMN post 1911. Coverage on FreeBMD for births currently is more or less complete as far as 1992 all of which will show a MMN and the project is still ongoing.
https://www.freebmd.org.uk/progressB.shtml

So the advice for a birth prior to 1992 would be to check both FreeBMD and the GRO site to be as sure as you can be of getting the right record.

Boo

[Forfarian]

So the advice for a birth prior to 1992 would be to check both FreeBMD and the GRO site to be as sure as you can be of getting the right record.

.... a birth before 1992 in England and Wales ....

I'm sure most of us on the Scotland forum know that births in Scotland (or Ireland) are not included in FreeBMD or in the GRO indexes, but there might be some newbies who don't know that.