Searching for William 'Bill' Hogg

[dawnsh]

I'm looking at a birth cert from 1974 and there are boxes for:

Child, date and place of birth, name, surname & sex
Father, name & surname, place of birth, occupation
Mother, name & surname, place of birth, maiden surname, surname at marriage if different from maiden surname

I'm also looking at a cert from 1986 and mother's occupation has been written after her name

I know that even later certs have a space for mother's occupation

[dawnsh]

There has always been the legal assumption that the husband of a married woman is the father of a child.

Informant box from 1974

[NikkiW]

My next question would be, was he present at the registration?
If, as you say, your mum believed him to be from Birkenhead, she may have offered that information in his absence. 
I can't remember now how we registered our children's births 

He is named as the Father and the informant and it is signed W.Hogg (though all the writing is the same on the cert)

She actually believed he was born in Ireland, but she thought his mum was from Liverpool and that he had lived there, but she never mentioned Birkenhead to me before I told her it was on the certificate

I have had to order the certificates as she didn't have any of them.

[heywood]

It must be frustrating for you. He may still be living and that needs to be considered.

As you pointed out at the beginning, nothing seems to be a good fit for him. If he was born in Ireland, as mum thought, then perhaps you should be looking there but it all seems quite difficult!

[NikkiW]

It is very frustrating, I could understand it being hard to find grandparents but to find my own father who is possibly still alive, and who lived in the same area of the world as I did seems incredible to me.
I've been told that there might not be any Irish records because lots were burnt so I'm not hopeful for anything from Ireland. 

[heywood]

Not entirely true. There are lots of Irish records and your father was born relatively recently.

[NikkiW]

Not entirely true. There are lots of Irish records and your father was born relatively recently.

I really hope there is something leading to him and his father then

[chempat]

He could have been born before his parents' marriage, and so have you looked for illegitimate births in the relevant quarter(s) in Birkenhead?

[dawnsh]

There's only 1 William in Wirral district (for Birkenhead) in the quarter for his birth (which NikkiiW has shared with me so I can check for a potential death).

That child had a middle initial and the surname was Jones.

There are a few scenarios going around in my head at the moment.

William really believed that he was born in Birkenhead but may have been born elsewhere and just grew up there from a very early age not knowing anything else.

He was born illegitmately and created a father for propriety's sake on his marriage certificate to cover this up.

He may have been adopted into this name, I will check the adoption register to see if there are any entries.

He is the child in Ireland found by Heywood several replies ago but with no evidence of a mother's name we don't seem to be able to prove it.

It's a shame that, knowing his birth date, we can't use the 1939 register to find him as his record will be closed.