Father's name on birth certificate question.

[SteveR]

Hello,

I’ve tried many different resources, but cannot quite find the definitive answer to this question.

Can anyone out there please tell me if a father's name can be included on a birth certificate at the mother's request if the father died after conception, but before the birth of the child in cases where the parents were not married.

Example...
During WWII a couple meet and plan to marry after the war. In the meantime the woman falls pregnant and the man is subsequently posted overseas. He is killed in action. When the child is born there is no father alive to attend registration or to sign a declaration, and no marriage took place. The woman knows who the father was and wants the information recorded.

Would this have been possible under British law in 1945?

Many thanks.
Steve.

[Toronto]

In the case of my mother Ruth Lorraine Parsonage during the first world war. Her fathers name Arthur Jacob was recorded as a soldier on her baptismal/christening record in Oswestry Shropshire in 1917. I dont know what happened to my grandfather, maybe he had a fast bike out of town................. :)) My grandmother was named Ruth Parsonage
Mike Morris
Toronto Canada

[SteveR]

Thanks... Do you know if they were married, and whether or not the father was around at the time for a signature?

My query specifically concerns a father that could not be present at the birth registration and was not married to the mother of the child.

I should also correct above that I'm interested in ruling under English law (kent).

[suedent]

Not exactly the same but similar circumstances occurred in my husband's family in the late 1890s. His great-uncle fathered a child, but died of Pneumonia several months before the child was born.

His name does not appear on the child's birth certificate but he was referred to on the baptismal record. Other illegitimate children in the register have no father given but his name was given with the note that he was deceased. Obviously the vicar gave him the benefit of doubt as far as his intentions went.

It may well be worth checking out the Parish Registers, they may hold information that the certificate doesn't.

Sue

[Copper]

I am not sure that this helps but my great grandmother was born June 1862 but sadly her father had died in April 1862. Her parents were married and his name is on her birth certificate.

Another ancestor registered the birth of her first illegitimate child but told the registrar that she was married. I have the name of the father on the birth certificate. This was in 1853 in a small village in Gloucestershire. Perhaps she was rumbled as her other two illegitimate children were registered in her name. I have been told that they all had the same father.

[Peter Goodey]

As I understand it, the Registration Act of 1875 laid down that "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" and that this situation continued until 1953.

However if the mother claimed that she was Jane Smith formerly Brown and that the father was John Smith, deceased, there's a pretty good chance that that's the way it would be registered.

There are all sorts of ways the plot might unravel - probate springs to mind. But most people, if they kept their heads down, would get away with it.

[SteveR]

Excellent responses - thank you.

I hadn't thought about baptism records as a work around where the father's name was not recorded on the birth certificate. So it seems that recording the father's name at the child's baptism in an unmarried parents situation was largely down to the cleric. In which case, I guess anything is possible. If the cleric was told the story of how the father died before they could be married, I'm sure there would have been little objection.

From your entry above, Peter, Is it true then that a mother could take the deceased father's name and state that they were married at the time of registering the birth of their child and not be challenged re the marriage - like showing a marriage certificate? Was this information not cross checked and confirmed in 1945?

[suedent]

In 1945 the population was moving around a great deal and people were losing all their belongings in the Blitz. I'm sure that a few women claimed that they were married and that they had lost their marriage certificate should they have been asked for it.

I'm not sure about 1945 but in the 80s and 90s I was never asked for proof of my marriage when registering my children.

Sue

[A Lee]

Is it true then that a mother could take the deceased father's name and state that they were married at the time of registering the birth of their child and not be challenged re the marriage - like showing a marriage certificate? Was this information not cross checked and confirmed in 1945?Forgive me, I am not Peter! It states in Ancestral Trails by Mark Herber: "I am not aware that registrars ever required proof of the parents' marriage when a birth was registered."

Alison

[A Lee]

In 1945 the population was moving around a great deal and people were losing all their belongings in the Blitz. I'm sure that a few women claimed that they were married and that they had lost their marriage certificate should they have been asked for it.

Sue
It's amazing how many 'documents' and photographs of my ancestors were lost in 'the war' or a house fire!

Telling you someone died is another great way of ending a conversation!

All great excuses but topics nobody really wants to question!

[Peter Goodey]

It states in Ancestral Trails by Mark Herber: "I am not aware that registrars ever required proof of the parents' marriage when a birth was registered."
That's right. It was the procedure they had to work by.

I'm looking at an example at the moment from the 1920s. It looks just like a birth certificate where the parents were married but I know for a fact that the parents were never married. I know this because the subject of the certificate told me!

[Diane Grant-Salmon]

I am not sure that this helps but my great grandmother was born June 1862 but sadly her father had died in April 1862. Her parents were married and his name is on her birth certificate.


My Gt. Grandmother was born two months after her father died too. Her parents were married, her father's name and occupation are on her birth certificate, but not on her baptism entry.

That just gives the name, date, abode, name of her mother, (with no reference to her being a widow) but an occupation of Miner ..... which was the father's occupation, not the mother's!
:D

[Cornish Maid]

The child of a married woman is by law, always the child of her husband, and his name will appear on the certificate of any of her children - unless she, or her husband, tells the Registrar any different!

It is in fact, quite difficult for a wronged husband to get his name removed from a child's birth cert - the Registrar will take some convincing, such as absence overseas for ten months or more!

The child of an unmarried woman - that is, a woman who ADMITS to being unmarried - will have no father's name on the cert, unless he attends registration with her, or swears an affidavit.

Cornish Maid