Birth registered three times?

[obdavies]

I have an odd birth that I’m trying to sort out and would appreciate some information that may help. I’m researching a woman named Maria Ming and she appears to have three birth registrations within the General Registry Office records. Her parents were Earl K Ming, from the US Air Force, and Joan Manders. They married in September Quarter of 1951 but subsequently divorced when it was found that he already had an existing marriage.

Births Jun 1951
MANDERS Maria MANDERS Middlesbro' 1b 1137

Births Jun 1951
MING Maria MANDERS Middlesbro' 1b J52

Births Jun 1952
MING Maria MANDERS Middlesbro' 1b 998

There is no recorded death between the 1951 and 1952 dates so I assume all three are the same child. I guess the child was initially recorded to the unmarried mother Joan Manders, then immediately registered under the Father’s surname, then re-registered a year later, after the ‘marriage’ (bigamous).

My question is, are all three the same child or can anyone find a death to account for the year difference between two of the registrations? Does the 'J' in the second registration mean anything?

[arthurk]

I was about to write a fuller reply to this, but as it's possible the person is still alive I'm cutting it short.

FreeBMD has a note about the 1952 entry at
https://www.
freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?r=204930819:2266&d=bmd_1542669976

and if you look at the images of the index pages there you'll see that the 1951 Ming entry is a handwritten addition. "J52" is a cross-reference to the June qtr 1952 entry.

The entries do all appear to relate to the same person.

[obdavies]

The person is not still alive, she died during a kidney transplant in 1991 at Belfast Hospital, Northern Ireland and left no direct family. So if you have more information, I would be grateful.

[AntonyMMM]

It isn't three separate registrations, just two. Both refer to the same child.

The first will be a registration with an unmarried mother, and no father named ( Jun 51 1b 1127), the second is the same birth being re-registered after the marriage of the parents ( Jun 52 1b 998).

The other handwritten entry you have found is just an addition to the index page for 1951, made later as a reference to the 1952 entry.

Unfortunately the FreeBMD notes on this type of record do confuse things a little by talking about it being a late entry, their help pages don't seem to fully understand the systems in place for re-registrations (which are quite common)

[arthurk]

I don't have any specific further information - the only other thing was an observation about the bigamy/divorce issue, which I didn't want to be writing about someone still alive. I'm sure AnthonyMMM will know more about this than I do, though, so I'm happy for him to add to or contradict the following.

First, I believe that a bigamous marriage would be ended by annulment rather than divorce, because divorce presupposes that the marriage had actually existed and been valid. Or would there be some other way of striking it out?

Second, if the marriage was found to be bigamous, I don't know what effect that would have on the status of the child. Would she then be reckoned illegitimate? And would there be any amendment to the birth registration and index? In this case, I suspect the original 1951 one would become the correct one, but would there be anything to indicate that the 1952 one was invalid?

[AntonyMMM]

As I understand things, a bigamous marriage would be void and so no annulment would be required, and it could simply be deemed not to have existed.

You don't need a divorce to end a marriage that never existed, so if a divorce did take place ( and you would need to check that - not just rely on family stories) then my guess would be the parties decided to keep the bigamous angle secret and quietly divorce on other grounds.

A birth registration reflects the information given at the time of the registration, nothing more, so although the later registration supersedes the first, it isn't a case of either entry being invalid. A change could be made to the 1952 registration but only if there was an application made for a correction to the Registrar General - however, if the marriage was ended by divorce, then the marriage was being treated as valid and so the 1952 entry would stand as "correct".

[Ladkyis]

Feeling a little smug now as my thoughts about the marriage were exactly the same as AnthonyMMM. I do like it when that happens.

I suggest that all family stories, no matter how certain the teller is, should be investigated throroughly. Some of the stories I heard as a child seemed like total fantasy but the basic kernel of them has proved to be true even if they are further back in the tree than was supposed. Always seek out that paper trail LOL