re-registering a child after marriage

[ApollO88]

Hi ladies
ive just been told that when i marry my sons father in november, we will have to re'register him to make him a child of our marriage. Do we have to actually do this? me and my son had the same lady register our births and i have loved this little detail. we now live in a different city and i'm guessing we will have to register him here??
anyone know if we legally have to do this?
thanks in advance for any info xx

You are supposed to. I did my first two children after we married as I went on to have a third. Although I didn't do it until third child was born. Not sure I would have bothered if we hadn't had more kids.

I'm not sure how much difference it makes though.

I don't think it's a legal requirement, just an option. A throwback to the days when legitimacy mattered. We changed our oldest's certificate, but it was just so she could be the same as her brother.

It is a legal requirement.

But I think that's because no-one has ever got round to changing it, and no one checks if you've done it.

(The fine is something historic too, I think it might be one guinea).

As far as I aware you don't have to do this. When my husband and I were married we were advised that if we had another child this child would take precedent over our 1st ds who would be deemed illegitimate. So it makes both dc legitimate and have equal rights to inheritance etc.
We reregistered our 1st dS when we registered our 2nd Ds's birth.
I believe you can avoid this by having a decent will.
Hope that helps.

Dp and I are about to get married and we have been advised to re-register our children afterwards as well.

We were told it is because as things stand any children born after we were married would take precedence (for, e.g. inheritance) over our existing children.

Illegitimate children have equal rights to inheritance as those born in to married parents. Although it's a legal requirement, as others have said going back to the days when legitimacy mattered, if you don't bother, and most don't, you could be fined, up to the grand total of £2....

There is a legal requirement to re-register the birth if the parents subsequently marry. If you fail to do so you can face a fine of £1. Bet that's got you quaking in your boots!

Illegitimate children have exactly the same rights to inheritance as legitimate children. Children born after marriage will not take precedence over existing children. These days legitimacy is only really relevant for hereditary titles.

Sorry - typo in my last post. Titchy is correct - the fine is £2. For what it is worth the child is legitimated (i.e. ceases to be illegitimate) regardless of whether or not you re-register the birth.

As someone who does a lot of family history, please deregister if only to spare your great grandchildren headaches when they research their ancestors.