Unmarried parents, both registering birth.

[Alan Welsford]

A basic question, but one I've failed to find a definitive answer to....

Unmarried John SMITH and Mary JONES produce a son Thomas.

It's after 1875, but the father is happy to go along and consent to being named as the father, but the parents make no pretence of being married.

How is this birth registered...

1) as Thomas SMITH
2) as Thomas JONES
3) as either Thomas SMITH or Thomas JONES, depending upon what the parents prefer.

Also I assume mother would just be named just as Mary JONES, (with no "formerly" bit). Correct ?

Alan

[Geoffers]

Unmarried John SMITH and Mary JONES produce a son Thomas. It's after 1875, but the father is happy to go along and consent to being named as the father, but the parents make no pretence of being married.
How is this birth registered...


Thomas JONES, the mother is recorded as Mary JONES.

John SMITH may, or may not appear on the certificate, depending on the registrar and what the registrar is told.

Thomas could have called himself what he liked in later life, he could have been brought up as a SMITH or a JONES.

[Alan Welsford]

Thanks Geoffers,

So in the great DANIEL / ALBON debate, for a child to be registered as DANIEL, they must have presented themselves to the registrar as Mr & Mrs DANIEL, (even if they were not) ?

Well I suppose there is one other possibility. Robert DANIEL is not mentioned as the father, but the mother simply presented herself as Priscilla DANIEL.

Have I got that all correct, please ?

Alan.

[Geoffers]

1. They could have gone to the registrar and told a porky and said they were married

2. She could have gone to the registrar and told a porky and said her name was DANIEL

3. She could have gone to the registrar and said her name was ALBON

4. He could have had children by his wife if she was still alive

5. He could have had children by another woman, in which case 1 and 2 above apply.

6. The births may not have been registered, in which case a search for a baptism may be needed, and keep fingers crossed that they were baptised.

Just your average, easy search then

[Peter Goodey]

I beg to differ but, unless you're talking about a birth after 1969, there was no registration of a child's surname.

So regarding the question...


How is this birth registered...
1) as Thomas SMITH
2) as Thomas JONES
3) as either Thomas SMITH or Thomas JONES, depending upon what the parents prefer.


...the answer is none of those.

The registration would be:

Col 2: Thomas
Col 4: John SMITH
Col 5: Mary JONES

Whether the child becomes known as Thomas SMITH or Thomas JONES is a matter of convention, parents' living arrangements etc.

I don't think that I'm just being pedantic here.

[G.V.Ford]

But how would the entry have been listed on the GRO index? Presumably under the mother's name??

[Alan Welsford]

...the answer is none of those.

The registration would be:

Col 2: Thomas
Col 4: John SMITH
Col 5: Mary JONES

Whether the child becomes known as Thomas SMITH or Thomas JONES is a matter of convention, parents' living arrangements etc.

I don't think that I'm just being pedantic here.
Peter,

I'm perfectly happy with pedantic :) - I wish to be precise on the answer.

I wasn't sufficiently accurate with the question, as I now realise what I was actually asking is how does it appear in the GRO indexes, rather than what goes in the register.

I understand there is no box in the register for a child's surname. However a surname is obviously what you use to look them up in the GRO indexes.

I'm assuming the GRO index will show Thomas JONES, even if the certificate names John SMITH as father. Correct ?

Taking it one step further to the post 1911 stituation, we would get Thomas JONES, mother's name JONES, I can only assume.

So as far as what's in the index goes, it makes no odds whether a father is named or not ?

Have I got there yet ? :o

Alan

[Jan1954]

Peter, I don't think you're being pedantic at all.

I've just had a look at some of mine and you are perfectly correct. The child's christian name(s) is/are in column 3, the father's name in column 5 and the mother's name (including formerly) is in column 6. Where the child is illegitimate, the father's name column (and the occupation column) are both either blank or are struck through.

[Jan1954]

But how would the entry have been listed on the GRO index? Presumably under the mother's name??

In the case of my illegitimate ones, they are listed under the mother's surname as there is no other on the registration.

[Peter Goodey]

...what I was actually asking is how does it appear in the GRO indexes

I think that there would be two entries in the index. Certainly, this sometimes happens

For example:

Births Mar 1916

Butchers Iris D Butchers Woolwich 1d 2127
Hanrahan Iris D Butchers Woolwich 1d 2127
Hughes Kathleen M A Perry Woolwich 1d 2127
Murphy Dorothy G Irwin Woolwich 1d 2127
Purl Harold V Snare Woolwich 1d 2127
Richards Lily E Marshall Woolwich 1d 2127

I chose a quarter after 1911 so that it would be fairly easy to check for unmarried mothers. What I'm not sure about is whether indexing procedures were the same in this respect throughout civil registration.

On second thoughts, that could conceivably be a case not of "father's name=HANRAHAN" but of "mother's name=BUTCHERS otherwise HANRAHAN"

[suedent]

I think that there would be two entries in the index. Certainly, this sometimes happens

For example:

Births Mar 1916

Butchers Iris D Butchers Woolwich 1d 2127
Hanrahan Iris D Butchers Woolwich 1d 2127
Hughes Kathleen M A Perry Woolwich 1d 2127
Murphy Dorothy G Irwin Woolwich 1d 2127
Purl Harold V Snare Woolwich 1d 2127
Richards Lily E Marshall Woolwich 1d 2127

I chose a quarter after 1911 so that it would be fairly easy to check for unmarried mothers. What I'm not sure about is whether indexing procedures were the same in this respect throughout civil registration.

On second thoughts, that could conceivably be a case not of "father's name=HANRAHAN" but of "mother's name=BUTCHERS otherwise HANRAHAN"

It does sometimes happen but it wasn't the rule. My husband's ggg-grandfather Henry Quaintrell had 4 children by Frances Mitchell Essex.

ESSEX Francis Elizabeth Quaintrell 1857 Dec Bethnal Green 1c 230
ESSEX Henry Quaintrell 1860 Sep Bethnal Green 1c 227
ESSEX Lavinia Quaintrell 1862 Sep Bethnal Gn 1c [2_]66
QUANTRELL, Augusta Quaintrell 1864 June Bethnal Green 1c 276
ESSEX Augusta Quaintrell 1864 June Bethnal Gn 1c 276

Incidentally of these 4 children only Henry married as a Quaintrell.

[Alan Welsford]

Sue

Do you have the certificates to know for certain that all of these actually name Henry QUINTRELL as the father, please ?

It's strange if the register entries follow a common format, that the GRO indexes don't.

Unless they changed their practices between 1862 & 1864, of course - wasn't about then that ages started getting recorded on deaths for example ?

By coincidence the births you have posted are contemporary with the births we can't find in the DANIEL / ALBON thread, (which are what prompted me to ask the question in the first place.)

Alan

[suedent]

Hi Alan,
I don't have the certificates but I do know that Henry & Frances were living as Mr & Mrs Quaintrell in 1861, the children of his legal marriage & those of Frances are all listed as Quaintrell. Even after Henry's death in 1868 the children are using the name Quaintrell in the 1871 census (despite the fact that Frances is by now living with Alfred Gocher). When Frances died in 1879 she reverted to her "maiden" name.

EDIT: I forgot to add that when Frances reported Henry's death she signed herself "Frances Mitchell Essex"

[Alan Welsford]

Hi Alan,
I don't have the certificates but I do know that Henry & Frances were living as Mr & Mrs Quaintrell in 1861

OK, but I guess it's possible that Francis, Henry & Lavinia were all registered without naming the father, but they did that just with Augusta.

That could explain why the GRO indexes handle Augusta differently with the double entry.

I thought I was asking a daft question when I started this, but with all the collective brains, I'm still not sure we have a totally definitive answer, do we ?

Like Jan, the certificates I have for illegitimacy don't name the father, (true for maybe 95% or more of cases, I'm guessing).

Alan

[jem2008]

I have a birth who was registered under her mothers surname:

Name: Rosebella Haywood
Year of Registration: 1865
Quarter of Registration: Jul-Aug-Sep
District: Wortley (1837-1974)
County: Yorkshire - West Riding
Volume: 9c
Page: 197

However on census forms; 1871, 1881, 1891 & 1901 she is put down as Rosebella ROSE, Daughter of Heber Rose (head). Her mother Rosella HAYWOOD married Heber Rose in 1896. There was no Birth Index with her father’s surname. Whether Heber Rose was her true father or adopted one I do not know. Both parents appear in 1861 census in the same area where Rosebella was born.

I hope this is useful.

Thanks

James

[ChristineR]

I have six illegitimate births registered to a widow - she did not marry the father until just before his death. In two of these cases (where I have purchased the birth certificates) the birth has been registered by the father as a 'friend'.

These are indexed under both the mother's maiden name, and her married surname at the time. This is an index from Victoria, Australia. I would imagine the same indexing principles apply.

Our birth registrations are the same for column one, the actual surname is not registered, but often the mother placed the surname of the father as the second forename of the child. In this case, the father was also illegitimate, and his own middle name was his 'real' surname, and this is the name that most of these children bore as a middle name. :D

ChristineR