Theatrical family - missing

[kiterunner]

Originally Posted by Lorraine Karen

I seem to remember reading an article about children being baptised to parents who were pretending to be married and being paid to keep quiet in the Kensington area in late Victorian times but alas can't find again, read a long, long time ago, just as starting this research and didn't realise the significance then.

But the children who you mention were also registered at the register office as though their parents were married too, weren't they? And long before they were baptised.

[Lorraine Karen]

Yes that's right one set of parents on their birth certificates and a different set of parents on their baptisms.

[Phoenix]

You were fined if you did not register the birth of a child. So you got it registered. If you wanted to appear respectable, you said you were married.

When Best Mate's great aunt was faced with this situation, she lost her head completely. She had already said her surname was her maiden name. The only man's name she could think of off the top of her head was her brother's. Do we think this was incest? Of course not.

What you then did was get what is now called the short certificate. This simply had name and date of birth, no parents' names. Whoever got the children baptised either did not know or remember what was on the certificate.

[Lorraine Karen]

Thanks Phoenix

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genera...land_and_Wales
Until 1926, there were no registrations at all of still born children. For illegitimate children, the original 1836 legislation provided that "it shall not be necessary to register the name of any father of a bastard child." From 1850, instructions to registrars were clarified to state that, "No putative father is allowed to sign an entry in the character of 'Father'." However, the law was changed again 1875 to allow a father of an illegitimate child to record his name on his child's birth certificate if he attended the register office with the mother. Wikipedia.

Short certificate
Long Certificate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

I wonder why birth registrations were setup with short certificates and long certificates, were they used for different purposes - and also the registrars not asking for your birth certificates when registering your marriage and your marriage certificate when registering your baby's birth in those moralising finger pointing times - were the authorities expecting people to be honest / did the registrars ever check up on information given to fine or imprison offenders as an example to others?

Were baptism records, birth certificates and marriage certificates precious documents in earlier times or did people give a variety of reasons why they didn't have these personal documents.

People die in all sorts of circumstances so obtaining their baptism, birth and marriage records could be difficult unless family and friends know where they were stored or the authorities searched the premises for any documentation if living alone.

[Olde Crone]

There was (and still is) a hefty fine for deliberately giving wrong information, so informants were trusted to be truthful. It wasn't the registrar's job to ascertain the truth unless he suspected serious fraud. Many people lied and most of them got away with it.

I must look shifty because when the registrar visited me in hospital aftrr the birth of one of my children, he asked if I was married (routine question) and when I said yes, promptly asked me the date of my marriage!

Short certificates were issued free at the time of registration. Long certificates had to be paid for and most people couldn't see the point of that, so didn't bother.

OC

[Lorraine Karen]

Thank you OC - very interesting!

Probably couldn't afford to buy the long certificates also.