1889 Historical --Victoria Australia Birth certificates - the procedure

[susiee]

 24 /12/1889  a birth occurred   in  a  very isolated small   town in  rural victoria .
Mountains Midwife was  the   the mothers own mother.     No witnesses.   

SUNDAY 24 Feb  -Birth is reg'd
 That date  is on the cert --  how come its open  on a   sunday in a tiny  town in the hills hundreds of miles from melbourne  - it does say it was Reg in that  little  town.

 It was exactly 8 weeks  after the birth    and was registered  by the brother.
   The parents were  not married.
  The baby was Reg with the mothers surname  and  no fathers name .
 
 A small note   is written on the side  of the cert  dated June the same year - saying that in the 8th column  where the informant  is named  that  the  informant was  in fact the uncle not the brother .

For many other reasons- We are  suspicious  the   said birth  mother is  not the mother and that another woman had the baby  that day  and this "Birth mother "  took  ownership  as the babys mother to protect others.       Which would have been easy in 1889 when no other witnesses were there and midwife was   the mothers mother.    -

We just realised that  even that little side note is  bit odd .   How come the informant who was family  wrote brother   and not uncle  anyway, ( only aged 30  but the writing  of his sig was  of an  aged  person )      what was the reporting procedure  for a birth then .   

[jorose]

I can only presume that the brother was the first person to go into town and January was the earliest he was going there. He didn't necessarily write down anything when he gave his statement to the registrar, he could have given the information verbally. I think probably he said "brother" when asked how he was related, meaning his relationship to the mother, and this was corrected to "uncle" later when somebody realised the oops.

It would be uncommon for someone to falsify having had an illegitimate child, normally making yourself out to be married when you weren't was the thing! However, it was certainly possible as the nature of the system relied on people giving correct information and the cases that made it to court, a scattering of which from the 1880s and 1890s I offer below, were almost certainly a vast minority compared to those which went unnoticed.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/191476882?searchTerm=%22false%20registration%20of%20birth%22
(father registered his own illegitimate child as that of his sister and listed himself as the uncle!)

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/66152039?searchTerm=%22false%20registration%20of%20birth%22
(grandmother gave false information to hide the fact her daughter had had an illegitimate child)

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/193983979?searchTerm=%22false%20registration%20of%20birth%22
(false registration, child that did not exist)

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/59754237?searchTerm=%22false%20registration%20of%20birth%22
(widow putting down the name of husband who had died two years back)

[susiee]

Thankyou Jorose

I also went back and edited it a bit when i realised it was Feb 24  the reg happened .
He was meant  to sign his name  - which look ed to me like an elderly person signed it really  and he was 30 ish

It was also a Sunday .

I dont think she was  attempting to look married .
But im not sure this baby really was  hers.

Then skip forward to 1916 when that baby  was getting married in Melbourne
 
And when asked her Mothers name by the Minister  at her  Marriage-----  she gives an entirely  different name to what  the rest of us   know her  mother to be .

She has  given the  Priest a completely different name !

She names another woman  who also  lives hundreds of miles from  Melbourne   in the next town.

Its all a  mess ,  most of her lifes primary docs  are all  suspicious.
Even her school records have no  enrolements   and she is  at a school clearly at age 20 !

[majm]

24 /12/1889  a birth occurred   in  a  very isolated small   town in  rural victoria .
Mountains Midwife was  the   the mothers own mother.     No witnesses.   

SUNDAY 24 Feb  -Birth is reg'd
 That date  is on the cert --  how come its open  on a   sunday in a tiny  town in the hills hundreds of miles from melbourne  - it does say it was Reg in that  little  town.

 It was exactly 8 weeks  after the birth    and was registered  by the brother.
   The parents were  not married.
  The baby was Reg with the mothers surname  and  no fathers name .
 
 A small note   is written on the side  of the cert  dated June the same year - saying that in the 8th column  where the informant  is named  that  the  informant was  in fact the uncle not the brother .

For many other reasons- We are  suspicious  the   said birth  mother is  not the mother and that another woman had the baby  that day  and this "Birth mother "  took  ownership  as the babys mother to protect others.       Which would have been easy in 1889 when no other witnesses were there and midwife was   the mothers mother.    -

We just realised that  even that little side note is  bit odd .   How come the informant who was family  wrote brother   and not uncle  anyway, ( only aged 30  but the writing  of his sig was  of an  aged  person )      what was the reporting procedure  for a birth then .

Thankyou Jorose

I also went back and edited it a bit when i realised it was Feb 24  the reg happened .
He was meant  to sign his name  - which look ed to me like an elderly person signed it really  and he was 30 ish

It was also a Sunday .

I dont think she was  attempting to look married .
But im not sure this baby really was  hers.

Then skip forward to 1916 when that baby  was getting married in Melbourne
 
And when asked her Mothers name by the Minister  at her  Marriage-----  she gives an entirely  different name to what  the rest of us   know her  mother to be .

She has  given the  Priest a completely different name !

She names another woman  who also  lives hundreds of miles from  Melbourne   in the next town.

Its all a  mess ,  most of her lifes primary docs  are all  suspicious.
Even her school records have no  enrolements   and she is  at a school clearly at age 20 !

 

Please can you check some of the info you have provided.

   24 February 1890 ...  what day of the week ?  Trove newspapers have it as a Monday in NSW.

  brother v uncle .... it depends on how the bdm clerk asked the question and on how the informant understood the question and how the clerk recorded the answer..  'What is your relationship?'  ... he was brother to the baby's mum. He could have been watching what was written as it was being scribbled, if so he was reading upside down ..... or he may have simply obeyed he request to 'sign here' to avoid embarrassing himself over any lack of formal education.
  June 1890 an endorsement made to the registration .... is that alteration formally initialized by bdm or could it be something a family historian wrote in the 20th century before scanning and sharing their own research.   
  1916 a marriage registration gives different info about the bride's parentage..... a question to ponder .... did the clergy mix up the info they recorded in their register .... afterall .... it would not be the first time that has occurred ....  and who checks on the day what the clergy writes into the official record .... afterall the bride, groom and witnesses are all only asked to 'sign here'
  still at school aged 20 years ...  so at school in 1910 .... sounds like they were employed as a teachers aide or were being trained as a teacher ....


JM

[sparrett]

Hi susiee,
Jorose and JM have given some very good thoughts here on possible reasons for the anomalies on your certificate.

However you may find that further specific help is forthcoming if you were to share a few names, places and dates.

Quite tricky to assist when your information is a bit vague.

A few snips of the document would help too

Sue

[susiee]

Thank you  JM

I see the site i used to calculate  the day of the week was  wrong.
Monday makes much more sense, thank you .

re the notation .
This  cert was given to me in 2 pieces and would you believe the seam is right on it.   However i see there is the  2 initials ( JL )  for John Lake  the Deputy Reg   so i guess it was by the  Registery.
I was surprised  that a tiny little town  had Registry .

Re the Marriage cert issue .
No no , mistake there.,  i'm sure it  was an intentional  entry,  i have spoken to a  few Priests on this issue  and  each has said in this context  very very unlikely  to be a mistake.    The woman  named    would have had to be physically there on the day  and it is so unlikely,     she was from hundreds of miles away from a nearby town.

 The only witnesses were the Wife and daughter of the Clergy man ( Congregational Church)   and for that womans name to  happen by accident is so so remote.

 No i feel  sure there is no mistake  with it.   I guess as it was   legally compelling    and she knew  that a Marriage   record   must be  a true one.         So i  imagine her own Mother had  told her  about her parentage  story.

When this women died in  *1889 - 1931 in Malaya ,   no obits appeared in Vic from either of her supposed parents. 

And when  those  supposed parents died,  neither had her name as a child on their    victorian death certs .     They never married   and were quite separate people but  in isolated rural area  where everyone  knew every one .

Also her own death cert   is a complete mystery  and impossible to get  from Malaysia
even when she  was interviewed  in Australia  as a well known  Soprano her age  fluctuated greatly  and as i mentioned before  she was at a well know Catholic College known for its  singing training .  She def was a student  not a teacher, nor a training teacher.   But a very  old student.  There are  no enrolment details  i have triple checked .

There is a   NSW over the border Baptism for her   aged 21 !!!  and again  there is the wrong birthdate on that as well .

The story goes  her Father  who  was not married to mother  heard her singing and  got her into this college and paid the fees .   So she at some point changed her name to his from her  mothers  surname.

So  i am  going beck to all her certs and rechecking all that  of them  carefully.

And any family connected to who i think  was the mother  do not want to engage with this hypothisis  at all ......  so  i am keeping it  private  to be respectful of others  really but i appreciate it  would be helpful to put the certs up for sure.

Its a   hot mess !!!

[susiee]

I have  ( or trying to )    attached a tiny little   annotation in the  empty Fathers  column wasnt sure if it was a scribble  or  in fact a little numeral ?

[susiee]

Both Father columns empty except for this .

[majm]

Ahh..... a student aged 20 having her voice trained.  .... well if I look back at my family histories ... one of my parents and their cousins were aged in their 20s in the 1930s .... and were  all involved as students at the "Sydney Con" .... So although a different era to your lass,  I see nothing odd about being a student involved in Classical training ... voice or instrument .... 

In NSW again, I can assure you, that many of the NSW Deputy Registrars were part timers... for example some were also selling postage  stamps,  confectioners .... some were Clerks of Petty Sessions at local court houses ...

I don't have intimate knowledge on Vic BDM but if it were NSW ,  then in the tiny townships of the post gold rush goldfields districts  the Deputy Registrars were ... (in my opinion) .... often almost illiterate,  inexperienced with ink and pen,  and sloppy in their recording.   They were not given much support by NSW Reg Generals Office and were often multitasking. 

NSW Registrations .... Births were driven by the family attending,  deaths were driven by the funeral directors, and marriages were driven by clergy.  So births were registered by informants without a huge experience portfolio to follow, whereas deaths and marriages the process would have involved experienced people on both sides of the counter.  Pro forma documentation was not introduced until post WWI in NSW.   

I wonder if a similar set if practices operated in Victoria in the years up to the end of WWI. 

JM