Hello Rob, You might like to consider the circumstances where the baptism date could well be a more reliable indication of birth date / age than the certificate. After 42 days from the date of birth fees were payable to register the birth and if more than 6 months after birth, registration was not "lawful" and any person who "knowingly registered or caused to be registered " a birth more than 6 months after the birth (except for births at sea) "shall forfeit and pay a "Sum not exceeding Fifty Pounds". In the early years of registration a not inconsiderable number of people seem to have thought that if the Registrar did not come to them to register the birth then they could ignore the requirement - particularly as many if not most people were probably of the opinion that Baptism was more important than Civil Registration. As the 19th c progressed word would have got around that a birth certificate could be a useful and perhaps important. document for the child to possess and that late registrations could result in fees and fines well beyond the pockets of most ordinary people - and so to get the now desirable certificate,without expensive fees or impossible fines the declared birth date was delayed by weeks, months or even years Provided the Registrar was not too inquisitive a determined, resolute mother might well "get away with it" - indeed I have such a case in my own family - the single mother who was in service away from her home town, with a married sister looking after the child, delayed the birth date by more than four months. The evidence came in census returns, a Royal Marines enlistment document and, most convincing of all, my mother's retort many years ago when I started looking into family history. Upon my production of her father's birth certificate - (he was born in the 1850s) - she said "that's not right - that's not his birthday - it was ... xx xx" quoting a date at least four months earlier, taking it back to the previous year. Later I found his baptism just a few weeks after the date she knew as his birthday. This sort of deception may not have happened often, but it certainly happened ! Jim On 20 August 2012 19:01, Rob Doe <[email protected]> wrote: > > IGI entries are often regarded as not 100% reliable ... but then so should > Parish Records (and transcripts of PRs) be in my view. I have an example > in > my family where the Parish Record claims a baptism took place two years > before the child was born according to the birth certificate. > > > > > > >