Illegitimate births 1911 onwards

[wimsey]

sorry the thread title should be 1918 onwards not 1911 onwards, I realise I can look up births up to 1917 on the GRO website.

The conclusion that Bernard Radford was not illegitimate because a mother's maiden name is shown in FreeBMD I think implies that genuine illegitimate births do not appear in the FreeBMD website - which I think was the point of my original question.


crossposted with Guy Etchells - disproving what I have just said

[Megan Roberts]

I have to disagree. Illegitimate births do appear on Freebmd:

Search Sept 1918 using the surname GAMBOLD and you will find 3 births, 2 of which are illegitimate twins. I know that for a fact as I have their birth certificates.

[Peter Goodey]

Births Dec 1918
Radford Bernard Radford Wandsworth 1d 655

All you can tell from this is that the mother's maiden name was Radford. The index only ever includes the mother's maiden name and not other surnames shown under "otherwise" or "late". These should be on the birth certificate if the system was working as intended.

The only proper use of the GRO index is to order a certificate.

[wimsey]

thanks for everyone's replies and forbearance.

[helachau]

From the moment the mother's maiden name began to be recorded on the GRO INDEX (1912), the "Mother's Maiden Name" column is always populated. Whether the mother is married or not a name will always appear. This index is the index you checked when popping along to the local archives - bundles of microfiche.

The FreeBMD INDEX is a transcription of this original GRO INDEX - hence a "Mother's Maiden Name" is always transcribed. You can check the original entry by clicking on the "spectacles" to the right of the entry.

The GRO INDEX online only goes up to 1917. This online GRO index appears to be able to identify that a marriage "exists"** and is able to present a mother's maiden name whether it is different to, or the same as, her spouse. If it doesn't appear to identify a marriage** it returns a blank entry.

From what I can see, post 1917 when using the original GRO index (fiche) or the Free BMD transcription, you cannot identify "illegitimacy" - the "Mother's maiden name" will always be populated.

** not sure how it would behave in the presence of a father's name on the birth certificate but no marriage indicated.

[AntonyMMM]

The answer is that the written/printed index used for FreeBMD, and the "new" index now available on the GRO site were compiled using different sets of rules.

When the decision was taken to include mother's maiden names on the index from 1912, they had a problem with illegitimate births because there is no maiden name shown for the mother on the register entry - so it seems a decision was taken to just repeat the mother's surname to populate the maiden name field on the index.

When the new GRO index was compiled much more recently - they decided to reflect the correct situation, and so on births which have no maiden name for the mother the field is populated with a "dash". So if you compare entries between 1912 and 1917, you will find the index results will be different.

There are other differences between the two indexes, mainly around how they treat entries that have a mother and father both named, but who are not married (which the informant column tells you). In the FreeBMD index the entry will appear under both surnames, in the GRO index only under the surname of the father ( there being no actual surname for the child on a birth entry before 1969).

[wimsey]

The GRO INDEX online only goes up to 1917. This online GRO index appears to be able to identify that a marriage "exists"** and is able to present a mother's maiden name whether it is different to, or the same as, her spouse. If it doesn't appear to identify a marriage** it returns a blank entry.

From what I can see, post 1917 when using the original GRO index (fiche) or the Free BMD transcription, you cannot identify "illegitimacy" - the "Mother's maiden name" will always be populated.

yes thank you very much, that is what I was very clumsily trying to get at, but you have expressed much more succinctly

[AntonyMMM]

The change to the indexing was of course from the third quarter of 1911, not 1912 as I put earlier.

Your 1918 entry should appear in the new GRO index in a few months time.

[helachau]

The answer is that the written/printed index used for FreeBMD, and the "new" index now available on the GRO site were compiled using different sets of rules.

That the rules were different goes without saying.
I was intrigued as to how the GRO tackled the new index eg. how much data already existed on databases. Spotted -
https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/c..._reporting.asp

Note - the URL was supposed to return a GRO screen entitled "Index Data Quality & Error Reporting" - not happening. Response possibly depends on whether you are registered with the GRO or not?

[helachau]

Response possibly depends on whether you are registered with the GRO or not?

Re.previous post, please ignore this comment - gobbledeygook!!