Different name than husband on birth certificates ?

[KangarooKenny]

I have some relatives born 1907 onwards. I know that they are not the children of the husband as he had left the home and moved away.
On the birth certificates the wife has changed the first name to the man we think is the father, yet used hers and husband’s surname. How did she manage this ?

9How do you mean? Do you mean that there are two birth certificates with two different names? Or that the mother has named the child Sarah BROWN and said that the parents are Jane SMITH and James SMITH? Or that the mother has "made up" the name of the father on the birth certificate?

The short answer is that people lie and lie for all sorts of reasons. Huge degree of stigma around an illegitimate birth in 1907. It is assumed that all babies born to a married woman are the children of her husband, ever if that husband has disappeared. Just as now, fathers who are not married to the mother have to attend the registry office with her in order to acknowledge paternity and be listed on the birth certificate - to stop mothers making things up or naming an innocent party as the father of their child.

If the mother is presenting herself at the registry office to register her baby as Mrs Jane JONES, then Jones is what the registrar is going to list as the surname of the baby. No negotiation. Then the registrar asks for the given name of the father of the baby Mr Jones - she knows the father is actually not Mr Jones at all. So she gives the real father's given name instead.

She hasn't "managed" anything, or been fraudulent. The assumption has been made that the child is a child of her husband and she has not corrected that assumption.

So husbands name is David Jones. We know that he is not the father of the children, as he had gone. The lodger living in the house, and father of the babies as far as we know, is James Finch. Children’s father on the birth certificate Is James Jones, so the lodgers first name and her husbands surname.

Gotcha.

OK well you have to remember that in 1907 there would have been a huge degree of stigma around illegitimate births. Divorce wasn't a "thing" until the 1920s. Your relative would have needed an Act of Parliament to divorce her husband who had left her - simply impossible for most ordinary women.

So she meets someone new, moves him into the house as the "lodger". They can't marry as she is not free to do so. When her baby is born she is asked at the Registry office what her name is and she says Mrs Jones. So the registrar assumes the father is Mr Jones. Your relative does not correct him. But she is honest too by giving the first name of the real father.

All about keeping up appearances, easy life. Had she said "actually, this isn't my husband's baby, the father is my lodger" the registrar would not have been able to put down any father on the birth certificate. Fatherless/Illegitimate/Bastard children were stigmatised, and the women who had them blamed and shunned.

When her baby is born she is asked at the Registry office what her name is and she says Mrs Jones. So the registrar assumes the father is Mr Jones. Your relative does not correct him.

That was my thought. She's married so her surname is legally Jones so that's the surname her children will take, no matter who the father is.

Lots of unmarried or second relationships in my family tree where the children are registered with mother's surname name (birth, marriage, death) but in day to day life use their biological father's surname (census).

Yes you have to remember that this is all in the day before driving licences, passports, other documents which you might need your birth certificate for. Wages paid in cash, no need for bank accounts and other paperwork. It really doesn't matter what name you have on your birth certificate, you just "go by" another name for every day use.

I just wondered if it was that easy to lie !
I feel so sorry for those kids having the name of a man they never knew.

I feel so sorry for those kids having the name of a man they never knew.

It's their mum's name. That's usually lauded on here where parents don't have the same surname, especially if not married.

How can you be so sure as to say “we know” who the father was? One person knows. And she’s not around

Funnily enough the probable father had left his wife and kids to have more kids with this relative of mine, and he them moved on again and had more in Ireland with another woman.

Isn't it still the case that wives can register a child alone, so can give their married surname and fathers name for the certificate?

It’s come down through the family of the kids who I’m talking about.

Again

ONE person knows who the father is. And that person isn’t here

Almost 120 years ago.

Seriously OP - whatever has “come down” from the kids in the family has gone through many iterations.

I am baffled you can be so sure as to say you “know” who the father is.

You don’t.

Whatever. You obviously know more about my family than me.

Well we both know an equal amount about the sexual shenanigans of your relative 120 year ago.

Bugger all! 😂

Very similar to my gt grandmother's birth certificate,1896. Her mother had been widowed a few years beforehand and was now living with a man, but not married to him.

On the birth certificate he has his correct first name but with her married surname. Don't know whether they set out to falsify or if assumptions were made that they didn't correct.

It's amazing what you can find poking around old documents. My great grandfather had a different first name on his birth certificate and his death certificate.

And on my gt grandfather's birth certificate, 1893, his father was named but he had died 2 years beforehand!

My mum was born in 1948, her mother's husband had left and another man was her father. Her biological father was abusive and assaulted her mother so badly during pregnancy she ended up in hospital for months. He was no longer around when my mum was born.

She has two birth certificates. The first one has the mother's husband's name on it because it is legally assumed that the husband of the mother is the father. She was forced to do that by the registrar (Scotland).

Her second birth certificate has her first name and mother's maiden name and no father listed.

Thankfully she was adopted and didn't grow up in that chaotic family.

Yes married women can go alone to the registry office and register a baby as "the child of our marriage". I registered my second child in the postnatal ward at the hospital the morning after she was born and gave my details and my husband's details and the date of our marriage. Whether anyone checked I was telling the truth I have no idea.

What people are gently trying to suggest @KangarooKenny is that those of us who have family history and genealogy experience know very well that stories which have come down through the family aren't always true. Not because people are deliberately trying to deceive, but because wires get crossed, stories are attributed to the wrong person and so on. Have the direct descendants of the people in this scenario thought about having a DNA test? Might be interesting, especially of the reputed father has had children with three different women.

I’m not trying to work out who the father is, I was simply asking if a woman could register a Christian name that is not the name of her husband. I’ve not asked for anything else.

You can give any child any surname on a birth certificate.

The surname has no legal connection to parentage.

I have the same in my family. Same sort of time period as well. My Grandma's Grandma (my great great granny) was abandoned by her husband and then had three more children with another man. She couldn't divorce because a woman couldn't then. All three babies have the father listed as HisActualFirstname Mother'sMarriedSurname. So not a real person really but we all know who he was. On the 1911 census, they're listed as Head of Household and Domestic Servant respectively. It's not true. They had been together several years at that point, but weren't legally able to state that.

GGGranny and the second partner are also buried together and she has his surname on her gravestone. They lived together as man and wife and she used his name for the last 20 years, but they never actually married. We know this from the records but we also know it because my Grandma was very close to her Grandma and "Step" Grandad. We have photos of them, my Grandma's word (she only died recently) and more importantly, all the letters written at the time. Plus, the youngest baby was still alive when I was a preteen, though very elderly, and was always upset that her Mum and Dad couldn't be legally recognised and her birth certificate was a fabrication.

My granny (a Victorian who lived to 100) used to tell me that official records were half a story and that in her tiny mining town, you just told them what to put and they did it.

Ideally that should be corrected at the registrar by whoever has the information. My dad had given the incorrect maiden name for his father’s mum when he registered his father’s death, and had it corrected at a much later date. I’ve come across registrar’s corrections to the spelling of names in another part of my family

in her tiny mining town, you just told them what to put and they did it.

I was in a lecture by a former police officer turned Registrar who said that when it comes to registering baby's births, then yes they have to accept what they are told. When you pitch up to register your baby saying you're 21 and a model, that's what gets written down. Even if the Registrar doesn't believe you. It's only if they are concerned that there is deliberate fraud or coercion in marriages or something that they might flag it up to the police. But in essence yes, you can say what you want.

You won't fond a genealogist who hasn't seen people lying through their teeth about places of birth, ages, or occupations on official documents.