RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Lisajb on Wednesday 27 December 17 17:17 GMT (UK)
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I've read several times both on this and other forums that a letter "S" against a birth registration means the child was adopted. Is this always the case?
A child linked with my husbands family was born in 1963, and adopted, yet the image on freebmd shows no letter S.
Or have I got it wrong and the S would actually be shown on the certificate rather than the register?
This person is still alive, so I cannot provide a name.
Thanks
Lisa
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What you are looking at on FreeBMD is an index, not the register. I know of plenty of adoptions where there is no indication in the index. Where there are changes to a register entry (which can be indicated by a number of styles of annotation) these can be for different reasons - most commonly for a re-registration.
When an adoption takes place, the Superintendent Registrar who holds the original birth register entry is notified and they add the word "adopted" in the margin of the entry, and sign/initial it. There is no reference added to the new /adopted name.
That margin note will be shown on any certificate later produced, but there may be no indication in the indexes.
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Thanks - that makes things much clearer.
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Just checked the index for my father's elder sister (born before his mothers marriage and given up for adoption) - I have her birth certificate which states adopted in the margin
There is no S on the index
Also checked my husbands birth name - no S on his either