No maiden name on GRO searches

[roycymru]

Hello

GRO birth searches now show maiden name of mother, which is very useful. However I have noticed that for many of the birth search results maiden name is not given. Does anyone know why? Is this because GRO have not done this for all records, the child was illegitimate and therefore the mother had no married name and therefore no maiden name, as such, or are there other reasons?

Regards

[BumbleB]

I think the main reason is due to the child being illegitimate, but I could be wrong.   

[Jebber]

As BumbleB says, it is usually a sign of illegitimacy. More rarely, it could be a case of the mother's maiden name being the same as her married name, this sometimes occurs when cousins marry.

[smudwhisk]

I've seen some where the mother's maiden name was the same as the married name and the GRO have listed as such with the same for both.  I think generally no maiden name means illegitimate unless they have made a mistake in the indexing.

[clairec666]

From my experience:

Mother's maiden name was only recorded if the certificate says "mother Mary Smith formerly Jones" etc. If the wording is at all ambiguous, as it was for one of my relatives, the mother's maiden name may be blank.

Sometimes if a woman was widowed and remarried, her previous married name is listed instead of her maiden name - possibly the registrar asked for her "previous" name and not her "maiden" name.