Amended Birth Certificate

[coffeegossip]

I have just learnt from an uncle that my brother is only my half brother. Yet his birth certificate has both my parents names on it, even though my mother had not met my father at the time of my brothers birth. Could my father have retrospectively 'adopted' my brother and had his name put on the birth certificate?

[Winterbloom21]

Does this birth certificate have a cross reference on it to an earlier cert?     If your mother hadn't met your father at the time of the birth, yet his name is on the cert, there must be an original certificate somewhere.     I have had the same thing in my tree where a woman has a baby and the father is not named and she subsequently gets married.  The husband's name goes on new certificate.    I think that this is strictly speaking only allowed if the person named on the subsequent cert was, indeed, the father and he just didn't go on the original cert for whatever reason - they had fallen out, or he left and they subsequently reconciled.    But of course, as we all know, people tell porkies about fathers a lot of the time!

On the other hand, if you are getting all of this information from a third party, you have to bear in mind that their information may not be accurate, for any number of reasons.   In other words, your Dad may well be the father and he may well have known your mum earlier, but nobody else knows that.

[coffeegossip]

I have just ordered the birth certificate, what should I be looking for - is there any shorthand on it that will give me a clue. My brother is 60 and my father died many years ago, my mother is alive but I cannot grill her, as she has spent the last 60 years covering her tracks.  I discovered by accident that my parents did not get married until long after I was born and my mother changed her name by deed poll in order to get a passport as we all lived in the Middle East when I was a baby.  Could it be possible that she had my brother and registered him twice? I have found a record of a baby being born a couple of years earlier with my mothers maiden name (unfortunately Smith = v. common) but my brother forename Robin in the right region. Then again two years later using my fathers name Cooper even though my uncle does not believe they met until my brother was about 2 years old.

[avm228]

It certainly would have been, and still is, possible to re-register a birth with father's details added in later on (this has often happened when natural parents married after the original registration, but could simply be that the unmarried father was not around/able to attend the registration appointment first time around). 

However, they would have had to declare to the registrar that he was indeed the natural father. An adoptive father or stepfather could not lawfully be added in in this way.

[TomRees]

Its the Birth Index that will have a note - I'm not sure, but I dont think theres a note on the actual Cert, unless there is a corrected error on it - then it takes the form of a numbered comment in the margin.

So for example if R**** was originally registered in say Jun Q of 1940, there may be an '*' by the name on the Index, and a footnote saying 'See Sep 1942' - go to Sept Q of 1942 and look for him with his current surname.

[Winterbloom21]

If I were you, I think I'd be tempted to go back and grill the uncle some more to see how much foundation there might or might not be for what he has said, too.   

[groom]

As your parents didn't marry until after your birth, there must have been a reason to prevent this, especially as your mother went to the trouble of changing her name. Perhaps she did in fact meet your father long before it was common knowledge and it was kept secret, with her not acknowledging him as your brother's father to the family. As Winterbloom said, it looks like your uncle who might hold the key to this. Why is he so sure you do not have the same father, who does he think is your brother's father?

[Annie65115]

Before you go grilling anyone, or ordering certificates,can I just say that I can appreciate that this info might have come as a bit of a shock to you.

How much do you think you will want to know when the initial shock/surprise has settled? Do you think that this knowledge will change the relationship you have with any surviving members of the family? And I wonder how and why your uncle told you -- I presume he's quite elderly, as you say that your brother is 60 - did he tell you in malice? in secret? did he assume that you already knew? Is he a reliable witness? Are you close to your brother, is this something you could discuss with him?

I don't expect you to answer any of those rather personal questions on a public board but I would respectfully suggest that you might want to consider sitting on this info and perhaps talking through the feelings it may have generated with someone you trust and hold dear.

It's one thing learning that our distant ancestors might not have been who we thought - it's another thing learning similar about those people we grew up with.

[coffeegossip]

My fathers original wife was a Scottish Catholic so I assume you would not divorce him.
My uncle (who lives in Oz) was 8 years younger than my mum and just remembers being told his sister was pregnant by a stranger, then two years later my dad appeared on the scene, I have grilled my uncle who is visiting UK but his memory is a bit sketchy of that time as he was about to or had just left home. My mother did not change her name by deed poll until 1953 (isnt the internet a wonderful tool to find all this stuff out) but my brother was born in 1951 with both my parents names correctly. That is what is puzzling me. Any ideas? As I said I have found an earlier birth with my brothers name but would they really pretend he was two years younger than he was for the whole of his life?