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  • Certificate corrected

    My late mother's Birth cert was corrected . She was born in August 1923, and the birth register in the October.

    In the right hand margin is written

    " Clerical Error in Column 2 corrected on the 5th June 1924 by me, xxxx xxxxx, Interim Registrar in the presence of xxxx xxxx, Deputy Superintendent Registrar " (xs just in case they are still alive)

    The error was that in column 2 had been written 3 names - My mother's forename, middle name and surname - and the correction is that the surname has been crossed out.

    This has always intrigued me, and I wondered whether any legal formalities had to be gone through to have a certificate corrected, and which parties would be able to have such a request dealt with.
    __________________
    Joan died in July 2020.

  • #2
    Muggins

    Clerical errors on the part of the Registrar do not have to go through any legal formailities, but he does have to enter such a correction in his book of mistakes, lol,. so the INDEXED entry of this cert will have a nnumber by it (or should have).

    However, things which are not the Registrar's mistake - such as "We meant Mary Ann, not Sophia" can be changed within one year of registration. Again, a note has to go into the corrections book.

    It is only when a NEW certificate is to be issued, to cancel the original certificate, that legal formalities come into play.

    The two commonest reasons for a NEW certificate to be issued, are for:

    1.adoption - the court deals with this and issues an instruction to the local Registrar to amend the birth entry to read "adopted"

    2.Legitimisation - where a child is born illegitimate but the parents subsequently marry each other. The Registrar then wishes to see a copy of their marriage cert and the parents sign a declaration to say that the new husband is the biological father of the illegitimate child. A new birth cert for the child is then issued showing the father's name instead of that humiliating and embarrassing line.

    There are other legal reasons for re-registration, maybe where a married man realises he is NOT the father of his wife's child. He will have to produce cast iron evidence that he can NOT be the father, before this will be accepted as a reason for re-registration, as a married man is, in law, always the father of his wife's children!

    OC

    Comment


    • #3
      Thanks OC - that's very interesting.

      Incidentally there is no number by the indexed entry - guess they forgot!
      Joan died in July 2020.

      Comment


      • #4
        I think these "clerical error corrected by me" corrections are different in some way from the ones with numbers. It could be that the ones with numbers are ones that the registrar realised at the time were errors and corrected straight away but the "clerical error corrected by me" ones are ones that were corrected at a later date?

        My great-grandfather's birth certificate has a "clerical error corrected by me" note where his birthplace was corrected from Elmore End to Elmers End. The copy of the cert I got from the GRO when I started out researching my tree was a typed out copy and gave the date of correction as 4th March 1918, after my great-grandfather had died and his will had been proved, so this baffled me for a long time until I got another copy of it which said 4th March 1912!
        KiteRunner

        Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good... laugh"
        (Indigo Girls, "Watershed")

        Comment


        • #5
          Having re -read your post, lol, I think the clue here is that he says the clerical error was corrected "in the presence of XXXX Deputy Superintendant Registrar".

          In other words, it was a straightforward clerical error and the adjustment of that error was made in front of a witness and was not thought important enough to enter in the book of corrections.

          Perhaps, in fact, he made the error whilst actually writing out the cert, said "Oh damn!" and got the other Registrar to come in and witness the crossing-out, rather than go through the rigmarole of writing out a new cert and accounting for the one he mucked up.

          I have a copy cert from the GRO, written out in handwriting by the clerk who dealt with my order. She has made a spelling mistake in the name and crossed it out. It irks me that she has not written something like "my clerical error, 1999" or something!!

          Thinking about it some more, an error made AT THE TIME of writing out the cert can be corrected without resorting to correction books, etc, but once the ink is dry on the cert, it cannot be altered in any way without a correction number being added - an explanation of the alteration in other words.

          OC

          Comment


          • #6
            I don't think the corrections with numbers look any more important than the "clerical error corrected by me" ones, but will have to google around and see what I can find out, or perhaps Guy knows?
            KiteRunner

            Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good... laugh"
            (Indigo Girls, "Watershed")

            Comment


            • #7
              Found something similar, but in the 1987 Act...
              The Registration of Births and Deaths Regulations 1987

              That one does suggest that the difference is between errors made "before completion" of the certificate and errors made "after completion".
              KiteRunner

              Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good... laugh"
              (Indigo Girls, "Watershed")

              Comment


              • #8
                Kate

                I have a feeling it has something to do with the legality of a certificate. A cert with an alteration is a suspect one, so there should be an official record of any alteration.

                You can see why, of course. If the Registrar was allowed to make corrections willy nilly at anyone's request, all sorts of "irregularities" could arise.

                I always think registration is akin to book-keeping, lol. You can correct your mistakes before you total them up, but mistakes discovered after that point have to go through the book-keeping system, so that there is a record of the error and why the correction was made.

                Oh yes of course - an entry once made in the REGISTER cannot be altered or deleted, and the original certificate is a "certified a true copy of an entry in the register". So original cert and the entry in the Register MUST match up and a clerical error can only be corrected at the time of making that entry, without any palaver.

                Intrestin, innit?!

                OC

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Olde Crone Holden View Post
                  Having re -read your post, lol, I think the clue here is that he says the clerical error was corrected "in the presence of XXXX Deputy Superintendant Registrar".

                  In other words, it was a straightforward clerical error and the adjustment of that error was made in front of a witness and was not thought important enough to enter in the book of corrections.

                  Perhaps, in fact, he made the error whilst actually writing out the cert, said "Oh damn!" and got the other Registrar to come in and witness the crossing-out, rather than go through the rigmarole of writing out a new cert and accounting for the one he mucked up.

                  I have a copy cert from the GRO, written out in handwriting by the clerk who dealt with my order. She has made a spelling mistake in the name and crossed it out. It irks me that she has not written something like "my clerical error, 1999" or something!!

                  Thinking about it some more, an error made AT THE TIME of writing out the cert can be corrected without resorting to correction books, etc, but once the ink is dry on the cert, it cannot be altered in any way without a correction number being added - an explanation of the alteration in other words.

                  OC
                  Hi again

                  It just seems a little odd that the correction was made 8 months after the original cert was issued

                  BTW, neither of the registrars named in making the correction was the registrar who registered the birth originaly
                  Joan died in July 2020.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Hmmmmm....perhaps the registrars were using their own initiative here!

                    Perhaps they decided that no, no one in their right minds would call a child Mabel Mary Smith Smith, and a check against the register showed that the entry in there was for Mabel Mary Smith, not Mabel Mary Smith Smith!

                    Slightly against the rules as I understand it though.

                    Defintely only one entry in the index???

                    OC

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Olde Crone Holden View Post

                      Perhaps they decided that no, no one in their right minds would call a child Mabel Mary Smith Smith, and a check against the register showed that the entry in there was for Mabel Mary Smith, not Mabel Mary Smith Smith!

                      OC
                      There is a precedent for that sort of name... that little boy who took great care of his mother, though he was only three?

                      Christine
                      Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        James James Morrison Morrison Wetherby George Dupree
                        Uncle John - Passed away March 2020

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          I see you read the same sort of poetry as I do, Uncle John!

                          Christine
                          Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Jonahan Jo has a mouth like an "O" and a wheelbarrow full of surprises.

                            My mother was a primary school teacher and our house was full of books.
                            Uncle John - Passed away March 2020

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Some of those people who you come across in the births index with their surname also appearing as their middle name are illegitimate and the father went along with the mother to register the birth, so the entry is indexed under both surnames but the parents' intention was to use one surname as the middle name and the other as the surname. For instance, George Simon Sloper Linton who I was researching the other week - his mother was Linton and his father Sloper, and they weren't married. His name appears twice in the birth index - once as George Simon Sloper Linton and once as George Simon Sloper Sloper. The second entry looks like a mistake but isn't really.

                              Anyway, be that as it may (I assume that illegitimacy is not the case here), it seems unlikely to me that the registrars went through old certificates looking for errors (though I did wonder before I found out the right date for the correction of my great-grandfather's cert!) I would think it more likely that one of the parents noticed the mistake or had it pointed out to them and went back to the register office to have it corrected.
                              KiteRunner

                              Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good... laugh"
                              (Indigo Girls, "Watershed")

                              Comment


                              • #16
                                Muggins, I have a marriage cert where the date was altered from 21st March to 21st May.

                                It says: 'The error on the date was converted in the presence of ----- ----- the partner married and in the presence of ----- ------ the bride's father, who were sure that the marriage took place on 21st May not 21st March - William Bent, Supt. Registrar'.

                                Very convenient if the dates had been altered the other way round and the bride was pregnant..... lol

                                jean
                                Jean....the mist is starting to clear

                                Comment


                                • #17
                                  Jean

                                  Yes, that's an odd one!

                                  I can only assume that they were worried that having the wrong date on their cert somehow invalidated their marriage, otherwise why would you bother!

                                  OC

                                  Comment


                                  • #18
                                    Well, if it was in the days of the married couple's tax allowance then I suppose the two dates would be in different tax years?
                                    KiteRunner

                                    Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good... laugh"
                                    (Indigo Girls, "Watershed")

                                    Comment


                                    • #19
                                      Kate

                                      Yes, which makes it even odder, because they are pushing the date forward rather than backwards.

                                      OC

                                      Comment


                                      • #20
                                        What happens to the entry when a descendant applies to have a correction done (ie incorrect birth information entered on the death certificate and the desendant can prove it). How would the correction appear in the registers?
                                        CAROLE : "A CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK"

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