Parents first name on birth records

[AliceMcK]

Hi,

Is there a way to find out the parents first names in birth records without paying for a copy of the birth certificate or ancestry membership? Thanks

[Ellmau]

Going to the county record office to look through baptism registers.

Record offices and libraries often have subscriptions to ancestry/findmypast as well, although no commercial site has access to English/Welsh birth certificates.

[AliceMcK]

Thanks @Ellmau. I use to have an ancestry membership but cancelled it as I didn’t feel I was using it enough. I may restart it.

[FelicityPike]

Scotland’s people if they’re Scottish...but you do need to pay.
Familysearch.org can be good, but can also be hit or miss.

[FelicityPike]

Meant to say....if I can help, just drop me a PM.

[PastMyBestBeforeDate]

If the surnames of the parents are less common you can often find their marriage on FreeBMD. That obviously work with surnames like Smith and Jones.

[Saker]

If you can find the birth record on the GRO index, then you will be able to find the mother's maiden name and as @PastMyBestBeforeDate says you can then use Free BMD to try and identify the marriage. Marriage registration will include first names.

[AliceMcK]

Thanks everyone. I will try and explain what I’m trying to figure out without it sounding too complicated.

I’ve found a marriage I was looking for, I’m 100% certain on that. I was under the impression there were no children involved. However I’m now not certain if this is correct. Based mainly on a hunch rather than anything solid.

I’ve found the records of 3 children with the grooms surname and bride’s maiden name as parents born in the same area after the marriage. But I can’t see the first names of the parents to see if any of these children are their actual children.

Also there is a possibility of 2 of the children’s names changing.

So it’s like this ( I’ve changed names, the real names are not as common, but also not completely uncommon for the area)

John Smith married Mary Clarke. Not long after I’ve founds records on the national BMD archive for the births of :

Andrew James Smith is born with mother’s name Clark
Tom Simon Smith is born with mother’s name Clark
Melanie Smith born with mother’s name Clark

Then just after that their is a listing for

Andrew Sam Jones mother’s maiden name Clark
Tom Sean Jones mother’s maiden name Clark

My theory is, that if there was a child/children as twins are very common in the family, that possibly the child/children had a name change after being registered. I have found 3 other listings within the same family where the child was registered with the mother’s then married name and changed shortly after to their biological father or step fathers name, e.g Thomas Anthony Smith then becomes Thomas Antony Bates. I know these 3 are 100% accurate because I knew this information before I even found the records.

Also the original middle names have significant meaning to the grooms side of the family (2 of his brothers), so if there was a name change it’s possible the bride may have also changed the middle names too to erase all ties with the family.

I’ve just spoken to my DH and he said he has a few things he wants to look up too so we will renew our ancestry subscription and see if we can find what I’m looking for x

[knittingaddict]

Do the timelines of the birth entries fit ie first birth after marriage and subsequent births spread out?

You can usually tell if it's a twin birth by the page number. If they are twins they usually have the same page number.

How far back are we talking about? If it's a few decades, have you looked for marriages under their birth names?

[knittingaddict]

There's no way to see the parents names without seeing the birth certificate. You can order a pdf copy for £7 and an actual certificate for £11. It might be worth ordering one of the certificates to check.

[knittingaddict]

I've jyst re-read your last message and think I understsnd a bit better now. I think it is relatively unusual to re-register a child like that. Obviously I don't know the circumstances, but I would put good money on that being a coincidence. Obtaining a copy of the original one and the one you think it changed to is probably the only way. Would cost £14, but money well spent in my opinion.

[Saker]

I agree the only way to be certain is to order birth certificates. Ancestry won't have parents names, just the registration records that you can find for free on GRO index. You could look to see if you can find any future activity for the different names - e.g if you find that Tom Simon Smith gets married 25 years later or turns up on the electoral register or dies, then he probably didn't have a name change, but if he just disappears completely it makes it more likely he started using a different name. Especially if that's the case for all 3 children.

[AliceMcK]

So after a bit of digging I can rule the boys out. They were born before the marriage took place. The girls birth registration and birth place would fit in perfectly so I’m going to order a copy of the birth certificate to see if my hunch is correct.

Thanks everyone.

[AliceMcK]

With regards to the name changes, it been very common in the family. It’s all relating to out of wedlock births, divorces, remarrying. One of the children, my cousin was given our family name at birth (early 60s) when his parents married they changed his surname to his Dads. They then had a 2nd child before separating. My aunt met someone else and had a third child but because she was still married to her first husband her 3rd child was given her married name. She then married her 2nd husband and my cousin (3rd child) name was then changed to his Dads surname. The 2nd husband then adopted the older 2 so they took his name too. Believe it or not, this is probably one of the least complicated things about my family history 🤦‍♀️

It happened several times thought my large family which is why I thought it could have possibly happened here.

I also come from a family where the older generation refuse to talk about anything, the past is the past and they don’t understand why any of my generation are interested in what happened before we were born. So my cousins and I have been trying to piece bits together ourselves.

[Tambora]

@AliceMcK

So after a bit of digging I can rule the boys out. They were born before the marriage took place. The girls birth registration and birth place would fit in perfectly so I’m going to order a copy of the birth certificate to see if my hunch is correct.

Thanks everyone.

Er... you can't necessarily rule them out because they were born before the marriage took place. If you get my drift.

[AliceMcK]

@Tambora in this case I can. There is no way the grooms parents would have attended their wedding if they had children born out of wedlock. They were really old fashioned and refused to attend any of their children’s weddings if they had children born out of wedlock. I have photos of the very big white church wedding with his parents stood next to him. It would have been sacrilege to them too if he had church wedding after having children. Also, if she had been pregnant they would not have attended either, unless they didn’t know. The dates don’t add to to that though.