registering a birth

[Sisterjane]

My missus ( Jane ) who is not known to venture into my little corner( she calls it " deadmans corner " ) came across to find a sheet of paper and started mooching around and upon looking at my mothers birth cert noticed that she was born on the 14th and registered on the 15th in nov 1919and she reckons that is unusual coz  in those days women were confined for weeks! and she got me wondering how common it was for men to register their children back then
 any thoughts?
Joe

[Little Nell]

Hi joe,

A quick trawl through my copy certificates here has it about evens.  The earliest certificate I have is dated 1838 -and Dad registered the baby's birth.  Another one from 1872 - again Dad registered the birth, the day after baby's arrival (first son actually, so that may explain it).  In the early 1900s there are instances of mother and a few years later father registering the births of their children as they arrived.  I think it is a bit of a myth - if you had to look after the other kids and earn a few pennies to supplement the few pennies that husband earned, then you got back on your feet and worked.  Certainly in places like the mills, if you didn't turn up for work (or someone else in your place) then you could lose your job.  Ladies of a higher social class may well have had the luxury of being confined, others were less lucky.

Nell 

[Sisterjane]

thanks for that Nell i think your spot on and most of my lot were mill workers so i think your right it was just strange that i have had mums birth cert for years and never noticed it before
Joe

[Boongie Pam]

Hiya Joe,

I keep a spreadsheet of which relation registered the children and I did a wee pivot table and found ~60% of all births were registered by the father.

Most of these are in Scotland don't know if that makes any difference.  Also most of the women in my family have no occupation on census - again I don't know if that has any correlation. They aren't rich or high class though.

Pam
 

[Bee]

I've just looked through all my birth certs. and it looks like if the birth was registered by the mother it was nearly 6 weeks after the birth but it was only a matter of days if the father did the registering, certainly nothing to do with being rich etc, all my rellies seem to be ag labs etc.

Changing the subject slightly, my grandmother died aged 34  on 25 September 1917, the death was registered on the 26th and she was buried on the 27th, I know it was during the war but they didn't hang around much did they.

Bee 

[Sisterjane]

hi Bee
i have just had a look through the other birth certs i have and 4 of them were registered between 4-5 weeks and my brother just made it at 41 days 
Joe