I am hoping that this is the right place for a request of this nature. I am looking for the birth registration number for a Charles Edward Fenner, who was born in Christchurch on 12 September 1881, as although he shows up in the New Zealand Birth Index on Ancestry in the last quarter of 1881, I cannot find his birth registration on the Department of Internal Affairs Births, Deaths, & Marriages Online website. This request is linked to a thread that is currently running on the Great War Forum, and I'm just wanting to tidy a few loose ends up, one of which is to find his official birth registration.
His three older siblings, Arthur Weir Fenner, born 1877, Clara Weir Fenner, born 1878, and Herbert Fenner, born 1880, can all be found, but Charles is not showing up, even though we know when he was born, which leads me to suspect that there has been a transcription error in recording his details. His three older siblings are registered with their mother's name given as Theresa, although it is in fact T(h)irzah, and their father's name is given as not recorded, although we know that the father of all four siblings was Robert Weir. Tirzah Anne Prior was previously married to Thomas Smith Fenner in England, before emigrating to New Zealand sometime between 1871 and 1876, when a daughter was born in Greymouth. Thomas died in Hokitika in 1877, and she seems to have taken up with Robert Weir about the same time, and then moved to Christchurch where all four children were born. As far as is known Tirzah and Robert never married as we have been unable to find a marriage registration, but the children were known by the surname Weir, rather than Fenner, as indeed was Tirzah, during their lives.
Charles Edward Weir has a rather colourful history, but I won't recap all that here as it would fill several pages.
If anybody could help out with Charles' birth registration number it would be much appreciated.
Craig
