Query on Civil Registration

[trish251]

If a child was born 1851, but not registered until 1852, would she appear in the 1852 index?  Were there any penalties for late registration?

thanks

Trish

[Valda]

You had your usual 6 weeks (so any child born in late November or December of the previous year could appear in the following year's quarter) and after that if you still wanted to register the child and not pay a fine you moved the birth back to still fall into the 6 weeks registration period.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~framland/acts/1836Act.htm

Sections XXII to XXIV
A transcript of the 1836 Act for the registering of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in England

I know of a birth which appears in the birth index in 1902 but which wasn't in fact registered until 1949.

Regards
Valda

[peterb]

Hi,
Could I pose a follow up question? Could there be a delay between Local registration and GRO registration. Sometimes I find that YorkshireBMD gives a birth registration as, for example, 1867 and FreeBMD gives it as Mar 1868.

PeterB

[trish251]

Hi Valda

Thank you for the information. At 50 pounds for a registration more than 6 months late!! I would no doubt have lied!

I have another question too.
The person I am interested in was registered (I think - but I guess it will cost to be sure) Mar 1852, but was baptised Feb 1851. She has a brother, also registered Mar 1852 who was baptised Mar 1852.
Your example indicates they back date the register, but mine would indicate they do not? Or the girl I find in 1852, may not be mine.

Trish

[Valda]

Peter
I'd have to see an actual example of a certificate. Yorkshire BMD is modern transcribers indexing certificates held by local registrars. I don't know how they are doing that. Are they indexing to date of birth year or date of registration? The GRO is indexed to the registration quarter and that would matter with a birth in December registered in January.

Trish
the example I gave was C20th not in the relative early days of registration when there was actually no punishment for not registering the birth - only if you tried to do it later. Fines for non-registration didn't arrive until the 1870s which acted as a much stronger deterrent, though the last non-registration of a birth I know was in 1908.
Difficult to again answer the question properly without seeing the actual certificate. Is the registration done at the same time as the brother - the same page number would indicate that?

The 1902 example I gave was from the retyped registers not the original handwritten registers. With a time lag that long on the handwritten volumes the birth would have to have been inserted later, but when the volume was replaced the insertion became unnoticeable. He actually has two birth registration entries. He was born illegitimately and his birth was not registered - I know I have a copy of the certificate from the 1902 entry. His parents subsequently married but in 1902 that would not have legitimised him, however he was known all his life by his father's name. In 1949 when he registered his birth, the entry in the index in his mother's maiden name only, was placed in 1902 and his birth entry using his father's surname was placed in 1949 (mother's maiden name in brackets with this later entry). One entry is in the index for West Ham March quarter 1902, which is where and when he was born, and the other is in East Ham September quarter 1949, where he was subsequently living at the time of the actual registration. There is nothing about the 1949 name in the index that would alert you to the fact the birth was not in 1949. I presume if I requested the birth certificate from the East Ham entry it would be identical to the certificate I hold from the West Ham 1902 entry. At local level I don't know whether that would mean both registration offices held a copy of the birth certificate one able to produce it for 1902 and the other for 1949? The man's name and both his surnames are quite distinctive so it is obvious both entries refer to him and his birth certificate confirms the timings and places.

Regards
Valda

[trish251]

Hi Valda

Many thanks for the interesting reply - how you managed to find both of your certificates is amazing - I guess because of the unique name.

I'm not sure if my 2 folks are on the same page , because one has a query on the page number on the freeBDM transcript. Thus said, I will see what I can find next time I visit the LDS and look at their index - or I shall expend some money. I think it it probably likely that they were both registered together - with similar dates presumably they have recorded them as twins. Alternatively, the girl is someone else (it's a fairly common name) and mine has not been registered at all.

Thanks again

Trish

[Valda]

You should be able to check the page image for yourself on FreeBMD

http://images.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/choose.pl

If they were registered as twins then a time of birth would be given to indicate which is the older and younger twin. You do get times of birth occasionally for non-twins, but you should always get a time on the birth certificate for a twin (though I'm not sure that would be the case if one twin was still born - in 1852 nothing would be registered to indicate a still birth - neither a death nor a birth registration. Still births do not appear in the modern index but they are now registered none the less).

There are various reasons for what might seem like a non-registration of a birth. Were the parents married at the time, in which case the birth might be registered in the mother's surname.
Had theparents made up their mind about the child's name. Most births registered as male and female are children who died fairly shortly after their births and never got given a name, at least in the birth registration indexes, but this is not the case for all births. Again as late as 1907 I know of a birth registered just as male. He went onto live well into his 80s and was called Charles eventually, but just not in time for his birth registration.
The child's name could have been mispelt either the first name or surname or even both in the index.
There was a change of name, which can be something simple like Helen to Ellen or from Mary Ann to the pet name Polly, or the person or parents just threw out the first name and only used the second name for whatever reason.
The name could have been mispelt in its male or female form Francis/Frances Jesse/Jessie....
The baptismal name is not quite the same as the registration name.
The birth was registered and if you checked with the local registrar the certificate could be produced, but it never made it into the GRO indexes. I have a birth certificate produced by the Newcastle registrar for 1842 that is definitely not in the GRO indexes no matter how creative I have been in thinking how it could have been indexed. The name is clearly written on the certificate.
The clerk completely messed up the entry in the GRO index - either the name and or district. Again I have a birth in the 1850s where the index gives the name as Joseph George. No birth certificate could be produced for a child with the surname I was interested in with those names at that reference. I persisted with the GRO at Southport because I thought the names should be James Thomas, despite the entry reading Joseph George and in fact below the certificate for the child called Joseph George (and I never did find out what his surname was), was found the child I was interested in presumably with a slightly different page number which was not indexed, the clerk having muddled the two children and given only one entry in the index with the first names of one child and the surname of the other. Since there were no checking mechanisms in place (and none when temps were used to retype some of the older volumes which were in bad condition and subsequently thrown out) the GRO index is prone to errors.

There is quite a list of possible reasons for why a birth can't be found and other people may have other examples (such as aliases).

I presume you have checked beyond FreeBMD since that is an incomplete index (their coverage charts show they have very poor coverage for 1851 but good coverage for 1852)

http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/progressB.shtml

but have you searched on the subsequent census for your person and also for anyone else in the same district who might have the same name (might be tricky if the name is too common). That might save you some money ordering a certificate which turns out to be someone else.

Regards
Valda

[trish251]

Hi Valda

Thanks - it will take me a little while to digest all of your reply. I'll let you know what I find

Trish

[RJ_Paton]

You also have the added problem that in the first days of registration while there was a hefty penalty for late registration there was no penalty for not registering. (this was soon rectified - but it did leave a few problems)