Misspelling of GRO index entry

[oldcrone]

Just out of (sad person) interest, I looked for my own GRO birth index in Ancestry Beta recently, and found that my name 'CLARE' (the one I've always been called, the one that's on my birth certificate) had been typewritten as 'CLARA' (ie this was the original scanned document, not your usual Ancestry typo).

I was, obviously, rather surprised, but thinking about it, does that mean 'officially' that my name is Clara rather than Clare? 

Clare/Clara

[peterb]

Clare, The name on your cert. is probably your correct name. Is your name on the cert. typed, or photocopied from the original register? The fact that the indexer typed it as Clara means nothing, except that they possibly got it wrong.

Cheer up,

PeterB

[oldcrone]

hi PeterB

Thanks for that - my birth certificate is handwritten, (but definitely CLARE!), so the GRO indexer has just mistranscribed it?

I'm not about to throw myself off the nearest bridge over it  , but I was surprised at the error - I even rang my mum in a fit of identity crisis!

best wishes
Clare

[peterb]

Clare,

It could have been worse. One of my ancestors married a chap by the name of Quirk. The registrar wrote it down as Quck, and there it is on the cert. and in the index.

Cheers,

PeterB

[oldcrone]

Oh dear, that's not nice!

I suppose Clara's not too bad - a certain cachet, do you think? 

best wishes

Clara