Amended Birth Certificates

[Pam Downes]

the marriage certificate of one of my great-grandfathers was amended 15 years after the event, firstly to correct the spelling of his surname and secondly to remove his fictitious father's name. The incorrect bits are underlined and the details of the amendment written to the right hand side, dated and signed in the presence of the parties.

Snap. So are mine.

I hadn't put two and two together before. Amazing what you can learn from an initial question.

Pam

[Megan Roberts]

What is particularly interesting here is that legally a husband is deemed to the father of his wife's children end of story.

So unlike an unmarried mother who would need the father to accompany her and participate in the registration process if they wanted his name to appear on the certificate it is not necessary in the case of a married couple.

So it would be interesting to know what the statutory declaration said��

[Pam Downes]

Hi



I read it as being the opposite way around. The births were registered with the father's name and occupation in the required columns but then for some reason the father? wanted his name removed from the certificates. But if that was so why would the children's surname remain the same as his? What is the significance of the the No 70 and No 438? If i have the correct birth registrations on FreeBMD they were registered in Bourne reg district as was the marriage and the numbers 70 and 438 do not relate to the volume and page numbers. I wonder if they are a number which denotes the reasons for the amendment, although they are different numbers which would indicate 2 different reasons for the removal of the father's name and occupation.
Someone will have the answer I am sure.

I have just found this thread on the same subject, see post 3 by Anthony MM
https://www.british-genealogy.com/fo...th-certificate
Christina

Just realised that this question of Chris' never got answered,
The surname of the children would remain the same as that of the supposed father because that was their mother's surname at the time of their birth. i.e. she was legally married so her name was Sarah Gibbons.

Pam

[teecee90]

What is particularly interesting here is that legally a husband is deemed to the father of his wife's children end of story.

Very interesting. I wasn't aware of that and will be very important for determining beneficiaries of the estate.

To be more specific ...... this case relates to my wife's cousin who died intestate. Said cousin's mother is sibling 2 (deceasded) in the OP. There are no other qualifying beneficiaries before uncles and aunts (or their descendants if deceased). First blood uncles and aunts inheret in preference to half blood. There is a first blood uncle on the paternal side (my wife's father) meaning maternal aunts or uncles (or their descendants) will only inherit if they are also full blood. The problem being that without certainty about the blood father of the siblings then there is no proof of a valid claim. Hope that makes sense.

By the way, this is a very small estate - we are not talking significant sums of money, but my wife is acting as personal representative for the estate and is relying on my family tree research.

[Megan Roberts]

As I also said key to this would be what the statutory declaration said because it may well be that the husband was disowning the children - effectively stating that they were not his.

Perhaps you ought to try contacting the local registrars office where the births were registered.

[teecee90]

As I also said key to this would be what the statutory declaration said because it may well be that the husband was disowning the children - effectively stating that they were not his.

Perhaps you ought to try contacting the local registrars office where the births were registered.

Thanks. I've emailed the registrars to see if there is any chance of getting a copy of the declaration.

On reflection, Im not sure that the "legal" father is of relevance to the inheritance issue as the intestate rules refer specifcally to "whole blood" and "half blood" relatives. So it is "biological" parents that count rather than "legal" parents. In the 1920s I guess the only practical proof of "blood" parentage would be a birth certificate based primarily on the mother's assertion. Which leads me to beleive that the fact that both parties made a statutory declaration to remove Ernest as the father leaves the "blood" father unknown or not proven.

[AntonyMMM]

As a former registrar, I can explain what you are looking at.

These are corrections made to the entries some years after the initial registration.

So, when registered in 1921 and 1923, the husband was named as the father - and although not stated, I would guess the mother (alone) was the informant ?

In 1925 - an application was made to remove the "father's" details which was supported by a statutory declaration made by both parties. A Statutory Declaration is simply a written statement stating the facts and signed and then witnessed probably by a solicitor or commissioner for oaths.

So all this is telling you that Ernest Robert Gibbons wasn't the father of either child born in 1921 or 1923, and that this was confirmed in writing by both Sarah and Ernest, so presumably the 1919 marriage was a very short lived one.

The numbers 438 and 70 are just the entry numbers in that particular birth register, and have no relation to the references that GRO use when indexing their copies.

The registrars won't have a copy of the declaration - it would probably have been sent to the Registrar General for the necessary authority to be given to make the correction and then returned. If it survived at all it would be in the local Supt Registrars correspondence, which might have been sent to the local archive years ago (but probably not), or in the Registrar General correspondence files (series RG 48) at The National Archives.

What is particularly interesting here is that legally a husband is deemed to the father of his wife's children end of story.

In some circumstances yes, but not quite correct in registration terms - a married woman registering a birth is allowed to name her husband as the father of her child without him needing to be present to confirm it, but if she does so knowing that to be false she commits an offence of perjury.