Registered Twice

[mothball]

Hello I am doing someone's tree, I haven not come across this before, and shall not use real names.

This woman married twice with quite an unusual surname.

With both husband's she has her two children with the exactly the same index except the husbands' surnames

Index

Mary Jones Wales 11a 123
Mary Williams Wales 11a 123

Mark Jones Wales 11a 156
Mark Williams Wales 11a 156

The two husbands were married 17 years apart and could be the children of either. 

What do you think is the story here?

Many thanks in advance

[stanmapstone]

They are not registered twice they are indexed twice, under the father's and the mother's surnames as it is not known which surname the child will use. This happens if the parents are not married.

Stan

[mothball]

So it means when she had the children whilst married to husband no 1 the father was husband No 2 whom she married 17 later?

[Treetotal]

I have a similar situation in my family line where a divorcee had two children who took her surname, they were then registered under their Father's surname after she married some time later.
Carol

[mothball]

Thanks both, I had an idea they might have been the children of the second husband, it's the fact the index references were the same that surprised me. Never seen it before.

[Treetotal]

I had to contact a couple of Ancestry tree owners as they had the children attached to the wrong Father and they took some convincing that they were the same children 
Carol

[Dundee]

Sorry I am thinking!

[AntonyMMM]

Working from indexes always involves some element of assumption, but it helps to remember that births are not indexed by the surname of the child (there is no surname shown for the child on birth registers before 1969).

They are indexed under the surname(s) of the parent(s), depending on their marital status. So births to an unmarried couple will usually appear twice, once under each surname but with identical references..

An added complication is that the new GRO index uses different indexing rules than the old printed index, so  the results of searches can be different.

Births can also be re-registered to add an unmarried father (but never a step-father), or after the later marriage of the parents, and sometimes both, so things can get quite complex.

[groom]

My great nephew and nieces are registered 3 times! Once under their mother, once under their father and once under the double barrelled name that they use. That is the one on the birth certificates.