Search by mother's name only

[DudleyWinchurch]

Ahah,
if you are talking about catholic records, then mother's maiden name should be on all the baptisms, even if she was married at the time, if they were using the full pro-forma for the records (as opposed to hand-written entries, which may vary in detail from church to church).  However, the pro-forma would have been in Latin and often the baptismal names or a near approximation of them were entered in Latin too.  This can cause variations in both the baptismal record and the index if there is one.  The index may have been prepared by back-translation from the Latin so you may get a child registered as Nancy or Fanny but indexed as Ann(e) or Frances.

I don't understand the reference to school though.  It would normally be the church or chapel that would hold records of a catholic baptism and in the Midlands, for instance, most of the pre-1900 ones have now been transferred to the Archdiocesan archives.

[Galium]

If you are searching for a birth registration [rather than a baptism] the child will be indexed with the mother's surname.

Up until 1969, birth certificates do not show a surname for the child, and are indexed using the parents' surname (if they are married) or under the mother's surname if no father is named on the certificate.

The GRO index does not show mother's maiden names until 1911, so you cannot use that as a search option for births before that date if you are searching on FreeBMD.

The birth index on Lancashire BMD does show mother's maiden names for some areas, but unfortunately not all at present, although I believe they are being added, and more will be shown in time.

[behindthefrogs]

I think that you may need to search, or get help to search, local records for baptisms but for that you would need to know what religion.  Although, if you do have very precise addresses, that should narrow it down to a few possible churches/chapels.

Surely there is no reason to think that her religion was not christian or were you suggesting that it was necessary to know to which denomination of the christian church her parents belonged.

David

[DudleyWinchurch]

I think that you may need to search, or get help to search, local records for baptisms but for that you would need to know what religion.  Although, if you do have very precise addresses, that should narrow it down to a few possible churches/chapels.

Surely there is no reason to think that her religion was not christian or were you suggesting that it was necessary to know to which denomination of the christian church her parents belonged.

David

I was suggesting that, if Steve was unable to do the searches himself, he would need to give enough information to narrow the searches as much as possible, if he would like some other helpful RootsChatter to try to help.  Both the denomination and the address would help to limit the likely registers needing to be searched.  If you are relying on church baptism records to get extra details to narrow down possible birth registrations, it is much less to ask someone to trawl through one parish register for a couple of years than to do the same for all churches of all denominations in a broad area.  Old registers for different denominations, such as catholic may be still in the parish or in a catholic archive (although, if filmed or transcribed a copy may be in the local archives too).  If the religion were other than christian then the registers may be deposited in a specialist archive, according to the religion.

If catholic and you know the parish, however, this is a very good way of getting details as the standard form of baptismal record contains a lot of information.  I have been extremely lucky to find many (more than a hundred) of my relatives, complete with mothers' maiden names and dates of birth and names of godparents, in the same parish registers.  Although I no longer live in the area, I am able get to the archives to do this research a few times each year.  Unfortunately, in areas where the registers are not yet deposited in an archive, it would be lot of extra work to ask a busy parish priest to do.

[steve albin]

Dear Dudley,

I searched a few of the local churches for a baptism record but no luck. I am certain he was illegitimate so this makes my research harder.

Kind regards
Steve

[DudleyWinchurch]

Hi Steve,

the mother in this case does not seem to have been trying to hide the children's origins so, if she was catholic, then it's likely that they were baptized in a church somewhere.  There are lots of children recorded in catholic baptism registers with only the mother's name, sometimes with additional comments, sometimes not. 

In cases where concealment was attempted then you may be less lucky.  The parent(s)/wider family may have declared an "emergency" and baptized the child themselves at home.  In such cases, they should have taken the child to church to be "conditionally" baptized later.  This could have been much later so you may need to look up to 7-15 years later too (preparation for first communion and/or confirmation).

The church baptism could also be further from home than expected too.  If they were not still in the mother's parents' parish, she could have gone back there for the birth and/or baptism so you may end up with a catch-22 that you can't find the baptism without the birth record and v.v.

Have you found the later children's baptisms yet?  If so, the godparents may be people who helped the mother earlier and so finding their addresses via censuses may point to where the mother was.

If you are sure you have a relatively precise address, you might better asking the local register office to work with that and the mother's name in identifying the birth certificate.  Some of them are extremely helpful and not as rigid as the GRO, in that if they find a slightly different address, they may at least call to ask if you would like it.

Good luck!

[steve albin]

Dear Dudley,

I do know the exact address but being in Melbourne makes my task a bit harder. When a kid is born out of wedlock the only sure info will be the mum's name and their address. After several attempts at finding a baptism cert I have given up 
If only I could attend or know someone at the GRO I would like to attempt a broad search. Here in Melb I can stand at the counter all day with my credit card and they will cross ref and spit the documents out in seconds - the whole process is digitzed here.

Kind regards
Steve

[DudleyWinchurch]

Hi Steve,

it's still not entirely clear what you are asking for.

In England & Wales, since 1837, birth certificates (certified copies of a civil registration of a birth) have been the only legal registration system and these can be purchased from either the GRO, or in most cases, from the Register Office in the registration district where the birth took place.

In cases where there is any need to check specific details as there is more than one possible registration for the birth you are seeking, then I would recommend using the local office, if you can work out which one, as in most cases you can then supply all the information that you have and, if there are several possibilities, the staff will use the information to select the correct one.  You can also specify how sure you are about these details (e.g. you can ask for the certificate only if the mother's name is correct, but for the address I'd be inclined to specify a street name but not the number as the format of these sometimes varied from one census to another, or just say that the street is X and the number possibly Y).

After 1837, church records were no longer a legal requirement and before and after that date catholic records do not have the status of legal documents here so there is no one specified procedure as to where they can be found.

You mentioned catholic records so I assume that you are fairly confident that the mother was a catholic.  If she came from the British Midlands there is a single archives in Birmingham that holds all the records that have been deposited and many of these have been filmed and some indexed on IGI (especially the latest version on the LDS pilot site).  However, the indexing does not cover all the information in the records.

If you could be more precise as to which district you are searching, then probably someone on RootsChat may be able to tell you whether the local register office will do searches for registrations and how helpful they tend to be.  Also where the records for the local churches (according to denomination) may be.  Some people here may even have access to records for a particular parish.

In some other parts of the country catholic registers are still generally held in the parishes and in all parishes where the register is still open (still in use) they will be in the parish itself and only the parish priest can arrange a look-up so you would need to contact them direct.  Some have email addresses but many more may only accept requests in writing.

Sheila

[steve albin]

Dear Dudley,

They lived in Leeds (Burmantofts). Like I said I have no idea about the local area and where I might search for records from 1883 other than the normal Govt BMD. In the past I have tried a many, many variations for Harry Powell but my search always came back without a result. I have also spent a lot of time using every cross reference I can think of with IGI but again no luck. As I said before, being in Australia makes the task impossible. There were no Harry Powell's born in LEEDS 1883 on the free BMD list. He lived at 28 Argyle Street, Leeds for many years. If I was to search the surrounding suburbs then I would need to purchase about 12 birth certificates for Harry's and Henry's born in 1883.

Kind regards
Steve


Kind regards
Steve