no fathers name on bith certificate

[tomy]

Hi all,i have just managed to get my grandfathers birth certificate.Alexander Kerr 04/04/1886,it has his mothers maiden name but no fathers name.It says that the fathers name was not captured so does this mean the obvious that the father isn't known or what else can it mean.Cheers

[dathai]

Father's name not captured      seems to suggest that it was possibly written down but maybe faded due to watery ink  just my personal view on it
had he any sibling's born before or after him to compare with
is his father's name recorded on his marriage cert

[tomy]

Just a line drawn through where his fathers name should be.He had a sister born in 1889 with the fathers name as John Mcroberts and this is who I have always thought was his father and my Great Grandfather but now I just do not know.They all came to Airdrie as a family and in the 1891 census John Mcroberts names Alexander as his son but its possible that he didn't meet Alexanders mother Emma Kerr until around 1889.

[KGarrad]

It could also mean that he was illegitimate!

[tomy]

Yes my thoughts are he was illegitimate,and he just used John Mcroberts as his father.I have been advised that I should look in the church records and I have a friend who is trying to help but it is a real shock to me to find out I may not know who my Great Grandfather really is.

[Elwyn Soutter]

With a legitimate birth, there is a presumption of legitimacy, and the birth can be registered without both parents necessarily being present. With an illegitimate birth, the father must be present and confirm paternity for his name to appear on the certificate. If that doesn’t happen, then the Registrar will put a line through the box for his name. Otherwise the mother might name someone else without their knowledge, which could lead to obvious difficulties later. Where the parents were not married the word “formerly” will normally have been deleted against the mother’s name (because in most cases she’ll still be using her maiden name). So you can look for that on the birth certificate.

In some illegitimate births I have seen, the mother used the father’s name as a middle name. So you get a clue to his identity that way. Doesn’t always happen though.

And as you have discovered, some baptism records will record the father of an illegitimate child, often with words like “reputed” against his name.

[tomy]

On Alexanders birth certificate there is a line through where his fathers name should be and his mother uses her maiden name so can I say that he is illegitimate for sure? .The funny thing about all this is that John Mcroberts and Emma Kerr had a daughter three years later in 1889 and on her birth certificate they are making out they are married as Emma gives her name as Mcroberts so I am left wondering if they were actually seeing each other in 1886.

[Elwyn Soutter]

Irish birth certificates don’t explicitly say illegitimate on them but this birth certificate has been issued in the standard format that you would expect to find for an illegitimate birth. If the couple had been married at the time of the birth, you would expect to see the father’s name, and the mother would be Emma McRoberts, formerly Kerr. Obviously that’s not the case with this certificate, so I would say you can safely assume it was an illegitimate birth.

I assume you have looked for a marriage between the parents. But even if you did not find one in the civil registration records, they may have considered themselves husband and wife by custom and repute. Today we use the term “common law spouse” though that has no real basis in law, but custom and repute marriages in Scotland did have legal validity until 1939 or so.

An irregular marriage did not require the presence of a clergyman. Irregular marriages were by exchange of promises before witnesses, by betrothal and consummation, or by cohabitation and repute, and were forms of marriage recognised by Scots Law, yet may have taken place without any official record of the event. They remained a lawful form of marriage until the Marriage (Scotland) Act of 1939, which effectively replaced them by register office ceremonies. (Not previously an option in Scotland).

See:

http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/research/economicsocialhistory/historymedicine/scottishwayofbirthanddeath/marriage/

[tomy]

I can understand now why they were declaring themselves to be man and wife on their daughters birth certificate in 1889.I have a marriage certificate for them in 1900 in Airdrie so could I assume that if John was Alexander's father that he would have added his name to the birth certificate.