Not a Twin After All!

[chrissiebee]

Hi Folks,

I got the birth certificate for my maternal G-grandfather a couple of years back, all present and correct. However, I noticed only a couple of weeks ago whilst trawling through Ancestry BMD for any stray members of my Hitchcock family that I spotted what I thought was probably a twin of my G-grandfather (loads on that side of the family). Oh, really excited as this new found birth details were exactly the same - year, quarter, district, volume and page number. I then found that this mite died the following year in 1861 and as this side all had very strange Christian names, I knew it was the right one.

What a nuisance as this birth cert arrived today, and he is NOT a twin after all! To make matters worse is that this mite doesn't even have a Daddy on paper, and that the mother didn't even register his birth until almost 5 months later! Could parents leave it that long before registering a baby? The birth cert clearly states the baby was born on 30 August 1859, but wasn't registered until 13 January 1860.

I'm now off to try and track the mother down on the 1861 - fortunately the family all lived in a small village, but there were hundreds of 'em! Poo.....:(

Any thoughts as to why perhaps the mother would leave it so long, and was it legal?

Chris

[Little Nell]

I think you had to register the baby within 6 weeks - but clearly she didn't. Maybe she was hoping to be able to provide a father to put on the cert.

[chrissiebee]

Nell - it does seem very strange to me as well. Anyone of the male residents of this village could have been the father, and as there appear to be zillions of Hitchcocks the chances are it was a bit of interbreeding anyway LOL!!

When I receive the death cert (hopefully tomorrow, as they were sent off for at the same time) it might give me a clue as to this baby's parentage. As he could have still only been no more than a baby, as he died the following year, it's going to be sad reading anyway.

Chris

[Anne in Carlisle]

Gosh - what a tale! It just shows that no matter how 'certain' it appears in the index we must get the certificate to prove it.

I wonder if the 'six-week' rule was not so strictly observed in the years before 1875 when registration became compulsory?

anne

[chrissiebee]

Well, Anne, it seems they were a little bit airey-fairy about such legalities back in those days.

Just had a look on the 1861, and this baby is still alive at that point, living with his single mother and his widowed grandfather. Then went back to the 1851, and sure enough Emma (the mother of the baby) is living with both parents in the same road with zillions of siblings - and yes, Emma's father is brother to a direct ancestor of mine. So it's not all bad news, eh?

Thank Gawd they didn't move around very far in those days...........!

Chris

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Quote from: Birth Certificate Tutorials

In the early days the parents had 3 weeks to register in and could not register at all after 3 months. After a while this was changed to 6 weeks to register in, a late registration could be made up to a year after the birth if the superintendent took the information and signed the register too, and registration could not take place after 1 year without reference to GRO. Once the delay was this long then proof of the event had to be provided by other parties who knew of this event eg midwife or doctor or siblings alive at the time and able to recall the event. Even now, if it is not possible to provide the proof and/or the people who can attest to the truth of the event it is not possible to register and there are people walking around today with no birth certificate.

It means, therefore, that a birth registered very late could be in the indexes a whole year later or more than expected. It is also relevant in that there were penalties for late registrations that were quite severe in the beginning and rather than get into trouble parents would "adjust" the date of birth to fall within the specified time for registration. If you have a discrepancy between a date of birth on a certificate and one given on a baptismal certificate, have a look at the date of registration. If it is very close to the six weeks, it is quite likely that the parents didn't tell the truth at registration but did at baptism where there were no penalties. There were no checks on the dates of birth until well into this century.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~

The bit I've made bold; I think that relates to the beginning of fines, which I think was 1875, rather than 1837.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Not arguing with Merry, but I have always understood that in the early years there was NO penalty for not registering, but there was a penalty for LATE registration.

The authorities realised eventually that this was self-defeating, so now there are penalties for both - not registering at all AND registering late.

But - pre 1875(?) it was the responsibility of the Registrar to seek out and register births, so I suppose the mother could successfully argue that she waited for the Registrar to call and he didn't, so it was HIS fault.

OC

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

That sounds more than possible! I was just trying to make what I read fit with what I thought happened, rather than what I know!

[Boudicca]

It's just thought, but maybe dad was away (army perhaps?) and she waited in the hope of having the baby registered properly.

[searcher]

I've found several ancestors that were registered up to 7 months after they were born the parents just changed the date of the birth when they eventually got round to registering,but they always had them baptised within a week of being born and the correct dates are in the church records .

[chrissiebee]

Thanks for that info, Merry and OC.

Boudicca - I have traced this Emma right the way through to the 1901, and she was always a spinster.

On the 1871 Emma was still living with her widowed dad, Thomas, who was head of the house, along with two grandchildren, presumably two more illegitimate children of Emma's. On the 1881 Emma is still single, living at same address with her father and her 18 year old daughter. Ditto for the 1891. On the 1901, Emma is a housekeeper, in the same village, but living with a 70 year old widower (living on his own means).

Bit of a gal, eh!?

Annoyed this morning as there was no sign of the death cert of Emma's son Owen. Funnily enough, when I went back to the 1851 Emma was a teenager then, living with her parents and a 5 year old brother called Owen.

Chris

[Kim]

I have one relative in my tree who had 9 illegitmate chldren and the only male around seemed to be her widowed father... They lived in a "miniature" 2 bed cottage . Makes you wonder not very nice thoughts. No father on any of the child's birth certs

[Olde Crone Holden]

Kim

A nicer interpretation could be that the father was married and set her and her old dad up in a cottage!

OC

[Little Nell]

OC, you old romantic, you!

Chrissie
Have you looked for a baptism? It might just mention the father - and he might not have been someone living in the village, he could have been passing through or from a neighbouring village/town.

[chrissiebee]

OC, you old romantic, you!

Chrissie
Have you looked for a baptism? It might just mention the father - and he might not have been someone living in the village, he could have been passing through or from a neighbouring village/town.

He was a right old tinker if he was just passing through the village!... Tsk, tsk! No, I haven't got as far as searching for her baptism as yet, but will have a little gander on the IGI (you never know).

Chris

[Olde Crone Holden]

As she had nine illegitimate children, I'm sure the Vicar would have been irritated enough to make some sort of comment in the margin by the time she got to number nine!

I have seen one which says "her SIXTH bastard", heavily underlined.

OC

[Little Nell]

Shame the father(s) got off so lightly! But then, they were just "sowing their wild oats" whereas the mothers were ****s!

[Olde Crone Holden]

The fathers didn't ALWAYS get off lightly, certainly not in the early days. I saw one somewhere recently, sentenced to one year's hard labour for "again refusing to support his bastard child". Late 1700s.

One of the things so maddening about this game...probably everybody in the village knew who the fathers of these children were, he might even have popped round each night to read them a story, lol. Just nobody wrote it down for us to find.

I am waiting, without much excitement, for a marriage cert which may or may not have a father's name on it, which may or may not be the truth.

OC

[chrissiebee]

Just had a little scoot through the IGI (which I know is not infallible!) but did find the baptism of Emma, with the correct parents, in 1835. I also found the baptisms of her two illegitimate daughters, both in 1878 but in different months, but no sign of the baptism of this baby Owen. In fact, nowt on him at all - poor little whatname.............

Chris

[Anne in Carlisle]

I recently looked at a family where the single mother had 6 children (1810-25). When I looked at the parish register the vicar had put for two of the children "reputed father ....". Since all the children did quite well in life (mum was a laundress!) I got to thinking about wills. ......

I got the will of the reputed father and, guess what? He names all the children and leaves money for them to be set up in apprenticeships!!! If I hadn't looked at the Parish Register I would never have known.

Anne