Depending on the date of this registration, there could be evidence of paternity in the Poor Law, or rather Board of Guardians, records for the parish, if extant. You'd almost certainly need to visit a record office, or use their research service or a private researcher. Not many ROs have yet been able to afford to digitise these records, valuable though they are for family and local history information. JK On 8/19/07, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: > > In a message dated 18/08/2007 20:13:05 GMT Daylight Time, [email protected] > writes: > > Hi, Regarding a birth certificate, in the "name and > surname of father" box the registrar started writing > the mother's name "Jan", (mother's name was Jane), and > put a line through it and the number 23. On the right > of the last box on the right he wrote "Twenty three > J.E." JE being his initials. Was this simply to > confirm that he, the Registrar, had made the mistake > or that there is another list somewhere giving an > explanation for no father's name being listed, or some > other reason entirely? Any help will be greatly > appreciated, thank you, Lynne. > > > > > Lynne: > > It was just the registrar explaining the crossing-out, admitting his > mistake and quoting regulation no 23, which allowed him to make the > alteration. > > The usual reason for no father's name being listed is that the father > was either unknown or else the man thought to be responsible had not admitted > paternity. In other words the child was illegitimate. > > Unless there was a court case over the paternity (unlikely unless large > amounts of money were at stake) you will not find the putative father's name > anywhere else. It could well be that not even the mother ever knew his name! > > Geoff Nicholson >