In message of 26 May, Peter Abbott <PeterAbbott.Eymore@btinternet.com> wrote: > Does anyone know what checks were made when registering births in 1902. > > I have a birth registration which I think might have been as follows. > > The mother was single and the father was already married. I think the > registration was made in another registration district from the birth. The > mother registered the birth and gave her forename and birth name as the > surname with a formerly name. The father's name contained the mother's > formerly name as a second forename. The mother did have a brother with the > same first forename. The mother gave an address within the district where > the registration took place. > > The mother married the child's father the next year (in church) and he was > described as a widower and she a spinster with her correct father's > details. The child did tell the family many years later that she knew who > the birth father was and he had married her mother just over 12 months > after she was born. > > I suspect that the mother simply made false statements to the registrar but > would like to know if that were possible. No problem at all. When he married for the first time, my paternal gt-grandfather, being under 21 and estranged from his father, told the registrar that his father was dead and so it was entered in the records. This saved him having to get his father's permission for this obviously impetuous marriage. I have been assured that, while ha may have committed a crime, the marriage was still lawful. -- Tim Powys-Lybbe                                          tim@powys.org              For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org

> I suspect that the mother simply made false statements to the registrar > but would like to know if that were possible. When i first started doing genealogy, I was advised by an older and wiser genealogist that "they all tell lies - and many of them tell lies about /telling/ lies". So true! My paternal grandfather William AINSLEY married twice, and on each occasion gave his father's name as Reginald William AINSLEY - except that he knew damn well that it was Reginald William ATKINSON.... because his mother Alice AINSLEY was in RW's keeping for a number of years before she was ousted by a later mistress and had an illegitimate daughter by someone else... (unless he had 2 mistresses pregnant at the same time of course). It was clearly far more acceptable to lie to Congregation and State than admit one was a bastard! At least my maternal grandmother was more honest in a way, since she put her adoptive father down as her father (I think he was probably her step-grandfather). Mind you, she was a 2nd generation bastard, and that /was/ a family secret - I only learned of that as a deathbed confession! They ALL tell lies.... hugh But