Counterfeit birth certificates in 1920s?

[Noteventhebirdsareupyet]

No, another woman was the birth mother. Elsie Koselj, born Louise Koselj. It may well be a dead end now but I am just looking for some link between the Koselj's and the Forrests. Why did my great grandparents (as we knew them) take in Harold Forrest Koselj? Were they paid.

I had thought that Ivan was off in America but he marries Elsie in England in 1918 and I paid for Audrey's birth certificate today ( Harold Jr's birth sister recently discovered by amazing folk on this thread) and it shows Ivan re-registering Audrey's birth with his details after the were formally married. I haven't got a copy of the 1917 certificate to see what exactly has been amended but the wording on the 1919 certificate indicates that they are NOW married so I am inferring that he wasn't on the original.

So Ivan registered Audrey's birth again in Feb 1919, 4 months before Harold Jr was born. It seems unlikely that he had no idea of the birth if my grandfather.

[heywood]

As you can see from Audrey’s certificate there is an ‘A’ for Occasional Copy A certificates.
Audrey was registered with both names in 1917, Koselj and Weigand and similarly in 1919, Weigand with mmn Weigand.

I have read over the two threads but have you posted the full details from Harold’s birth certificate?

Added
I see DNA has been mentioned and that seems a good idea.
I know you say that Audrey is a sister your grandfather did not know about but that may not be the case.
It does seem quite a tangle.

[Noteventhebirdsareupyet]

As I look at this certificate now. I'm suddenly wondering whether the short version ever had koselj on it at all? They are down as the parents and the index has him as Harold Arthur Forrest Koselj but that doesn't seem to be the name he's been given in that column. Could it be that the short form of this very certificate is the one he had all along and it never read Koselj on his copy, hence him never questioning his roots. Still odd that someone suggested he was adopted after the certificate was lost but maybe that was a pure coincidence.

[KGarrad]

A child takes his surname from his parents.
Column 2 only ever shows forenames.

[AntonyMMM]

As you can see from Audrey’s certificate there is an ‘A’ for Occasional Copy A certificates.
Audrey was registered with both names in 1917, Koselj and Weigand and similarly in 1919, Weigand with mmn Weigand.

To clarify things slightly :

The 1917 entry for Audrey is indexed only under Wiegand. The entry is in the printed index ( with mother's maiden shown as Weigand), but not on FreeBMD. GRO has the entry ( St Marylebone vol1a p647) and has no maiden name shown for the mother which suggests  that there is no father named on the entry.

The 1917 entry also has been noted as Occasional Copy A indicating a copy was submitted to GRO outside of the usual quarterly returns process. That may be connected to the 1919 entry, but may not.  The "A" shouldn't appear on any certificate - it is purely an indexing note.

The 1919 entry is a re-registration to add an unmarried father to an entry - although they have married since the birth they weren't at the time, so they have both signed the entry as "joint informants", and you get the "now the wife of" wording. This predates the Legitimacy Act of 1926 so isn't the same as the more common re-registrations done after that. GRO have indexed the 1919 entry under Koslej and shown a mother's maiden name of Weigand( which technically they shouldn't).

[heywood]

Thanks for the explanation, AntonyMMM. I was going off the Free BMD indexes.

Looking at the dates and names, perhaps it was an informal arrangement that the child would be handed over after birth and be given the name of the new foster parent as part of his name.

[AntonyMMM]

As I look at this certificate now. I'm suddenly wondering whether the short version ever had koselj on it at all? They are down as the parents and the index has him as Harold Arthur Forrest Koselj but that doesn't seem to be the name he's been given in that column. Could it be that the short form of this very certificate is the one he had all along and it never read Koselj on his copy,

There is never a surname shown for the child on a birth register entry (in E/W) before 1969, so Harold Arthur Forrest are his given/forenames.

Any short form certificate should usually take the surname from the parent(s) and would usually at that time be the father's surname (if named on the entry). So if he did obtain, or was given, a short certificate at some time it should have had the surname Koselj on it.

[Noteventhebirdsareupyet]

OK thanks for clarifying that. I suppose there's a chance that it was a baptism certificate or done other form of document that he had,  but my Mother swears she saw it at one point and it was most definitely a birth certificate. My Father said that my Grandfather used his army records to obtain a passport, so he may never have really needed it for official purposes until the whole insurance issue came up and the certificate ended up lost. I'm running out of places to look now. If DNA doesn't show me anything, I might have to accept that I've discovered all I can.

[Noteventhebirdsareupyet]

..... he said it had an A in the top corner and after his birth certificate was lost in the post, he was informed by someone trying to help him get a copy, that an A meant he was adopted.

That person gave him bad advice.  If a child was adopted the original birth certificate would have the full word 'adopted' noted on it.  A new short form birth certificate would be issued and specifically had no mention of an adoption, just the name, date of birth and sex.  No parents were named.

Is anyone still alive who actually saw this certificate?  He wouldn't have needed a birth certificate to do most things, lots of people did not have one and a stat. dec. would suffice.

Debra 

Thanks for all your help again Debra. My mother remembers seeing the certificate and my grandfather was a very intelligent man, so when I suggested that it might not have been a birth certificate at all and was perhaps something else, both my Mother and my father said he would have known the difference. He was absolutely certain that it was his birth certificate but I don't know for sure if it was short or long. I imagine now that it was the short gorm after reading all the comments on this thread.