Phantom birth in new GRO index?

[Mary from Italy]

I've found a really odd birth entry while checking the new GRO index.

My BIL's great-grandmother was Jane Reynolds (mmn Oliver), baptised in Bassingham, Lincs on 30th March 1851.

This is the birth entry I found on FreeBMD:

Births Jun 1851
Reynolds Jane / Newark / 15 603

We have the birth cert, showing her as born on 2nd March 1851.

I checked the new index to see if there were any missing children for her parents, and was surprised to find the following entries:

REYNOLDS, JANE / OLIVER
GRO Reference: 1851 / J Quarter / in OF THE NEWARK UNION / Volume 15 / Page 603
REYNOLDS, JANE / OLIVER
GRO Reference: 1852 / M Quarter / in OF THE NEWARK UNION / Volume 02C / Page 603

I originally thought I must have boobed and the first Jane died, but the second entry doesn't appear in the FreeBMD index, or on FMP, and nothing comes up if you only enter the volume and page numbers.

The date of the second entry is fairly unlikely because Jane had a sister Letty born in the 4th quarter of 1852, although it isn't absolutely impossible.

I checked for deaths of a Jane Reynolds in the Newark RD between 1851 and 1852, and there isn't one.

I wondered if the second entry was a re-registration or correction, but there are no handwritten entries on the image for the first entry. There's no question of illegitimacy, because Jane was the 4th child, and her parents married in 1846.

It's not a late registration, because according to the cert we have, the birth was registered on 2nd April 1851.

I then noticed that the page numbers of the two entries were the same.

According to Genuki, the volume numbers for Newark RD are as follows:

XV (1837-51), 7b (1852-1946), 3C (1946-74), 8 (1974-92).

So 2C isn't a valid volume number for Newark RD. I checked Genuki again, and 2C was the volume number for Newbury, Berks (immediately after Newark in the alphabetical list of RDs) in the period 1852-1946.

I'm assuming there's been some kind of mistake, maybe due to the change of volume between 1851 and 1852, although it seems odd that the year and quarter are wrong as well as the volume number.

I could try buying a cert using the 1852 reference numbers, but I suspect I'll get the cert I already have.

I'm guessing there may have been a Jane Reynolds mmn Oliver born in the Newbury RD in 1852, but although there are some other Reynolds-Oliver marriages on FreeBMD there isn't one in Berks, and there are no Reynolds mmn Oliver births in the Newbury RD between 1845 and 1860 on the GRO index.

Does anyone have any other possible explanation before I report it to the GRO as an error? It says they don't enter into correspondence about reported errors, although having bought the original cert a few years ago I could maybe e-mail them.

[Mary from Italy]

By the way, I've checked the images for the 1st quarter of 1852 on Ancestry, and I can't find a Jane Reynolds whose birth could have generated that entry.

[kiterunner]

Looks like a mistake to me.

[Mary from Italy]

Thanks, Kite, glad I haven't missed anything obvious