The GRO sent me a copy of the birth certificate for Bernard Carter, 1927.2 Pontefract vol. 9c page 255. It names Bernard as the son of Hezekiah Carter and Hannah, née Cawthorn.
His date of birth is given as 26 April 1911 (sic).
When an index tells me that a birth is recorded in a given quarter, I’ve always felt comfortable assuming that the actual birth would be no more than 30 days before the quarter began. My first (of two) questions is this: how often does it happen that there’s such a long gap between the birth and the record?
In this particular case, another birth certificate had already been issued for Bernard shortly after his birth in 1911. Hezekiah and Hannah were married on 30 October 1911 (1911.4 Pontefract vol. 9c page 185; I’ve only seen the index, but the church certificate is available on Ancestry). Bernard’s birth was therefore before his parents’ marriage.
The GRO online index has a birth certificate for Bernard Carter Cawthorn (1911.2 Pontefract vol. 9c page 152). I haven’t seen a actual copy, but the online index has a dash against the mother’s maiden name (which is what you’d expect; Bernard Carter Cawthorn would have had his mother’s surname and his father would not have been named on the birth certificate).
As Bernard already had a birth certificate in 1911, I can’t see why a different one was issued for him in 1927. So my second question is this: might the 1927 certificate have been issued just to establish that Hezekiah Carter was the father?
