Can't find this birth registration

[mckha489]

why would she resemble Matilda's niece so much...but we'll never know for sure!

People do see what they want to see.
I have a step mother., who has been that to me for over 50 years.  People are always telling us what a likeness there is between us.  We have distinctly different colouring.
But I do think over time we have developed mannerisms in common and this is what people see.

[Silvercup]

I don't know. It was my grandparents who met her and thought they were sisters...my grandmother was an artist so very good at analysing faces and she said they were practically identical! My gt grandmother had introduced Beatrice as a friend rather than a cousin and claimed they weren't related so there was no reason for them to think it really.

[Mabel Bagshawe]

If Beatrice/Birdie's birth was registered with Elizabeth Sawyer as a single woman, would there be a father on the birth certificate?

Is it safe to assume that if the baby had been Edward McArthy's, that they would have been given McArthy as a surname rather than Sawyer?

I've seen a scenario before where a baby who was adopted was registered with the adopted parents name as a middle name. Was that common practice if it was known who would adopt?

Depends how honest the parents are with registrar about their marital status. You quite often find a child born to a single mother with the father's surname as a middle name - that's what's raised my suspicions here

I agree that you see what you want/think.  I recently commented on a old photo of a childhood neighbour and her daughter and how similar they were, only to be told the daughter was adopted