ooohhh...eerrrr!.....

[ninatoo]

Hmmm, thanks David,

It seems there may have been some argument about the name then, as the Baptism took place a good month before the registration!!!

Nina

[DavidWW]

Hmmm, thanks David,

It seems there may have been some argument about the name then, as the Baptism took place a good month before the registration!!!

Nina

Possibly, but then could it not also have been the case that the registration was forgotten about, until the day dawned when the horrible realisation struck that they'd completely forgotten about the registration of the birth, with all that that implied in terms of an accompanying fine for a late registration?

Incidentally, I was working on the basis of a guide for registrars published in the 1907, - Bisset-Smith's Vital Registration, - for the 21 days figure, but don't believe that it would have been different a few decades later............ (just checked on the GROS website and it's still 21 days !)

I can't deny that your proposed scenario is a possibility, but there's a basic principle in the scientific world called Occam's Razor, which basically states that, in the lack of evidence to the contrary, the simpler theory is the more likely to be correct, - see Wikipedia on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor for a much better explanation

David

[ninatoo]

Well it could be David, but if you knew my Gran and how stubborn she could be about getting her way....also she was very fastidious about dates and keeping records.

Of course it was during the war, so that may well have been a distracting factor!

[DavidWW]

Well it could be David, but if you knew my Gran and how stubborn she could be about getting her way....also she was very fastidious about dates and keeping records.

Of course it was during the war, so that may well have been a distracting factor!

To the extent of being happy to pay the fine for not meeting the 21 days deadline ?, - 21 shillings (one guinea) in 1907, and quite possibly a good bit higher a few decades later..............

David

[ninatoo]

No, she would NOT be happy about that!!! I think they invented that saying about the tight fisted Scots from looking at my Gran. So there would have had to have been a GOOD reason (in her own mind) to end up having to pay that fine...perhaps she thought she would win the argument, but it was all in vain in the end as Dad was still registered and named by his father. My Granda was in the war, so maybe registration was delayed until his next leave.

[DavidWW]

No, she would NOT be happy about that!!! I think they invented that saying about the tight fisted Scots from looking at my Gran. So there would have had to have been a GOOD reason (in her own mind) to end up having to pay that fine...perhaps she thought she would win the argument, but it was all in vain in the end as Dad was still registered and named by his father. My Granda was in the war, so maybe registration was delayed until his next leave.

Or could it have been the case that she wasn't aware of the fine for a registration beyond the 21 days deadline?, so therefore received a most unpleasant surprise, always assuming that she wasn't able to talk round the registrar and persuade him to waive the fine in this instance?, because, perhaps, of the wartime situation - was the father at home?

David

[ninatoo]

The father is the informant on the birth registration, and of course I don't know if she went with him. However she had had a child previously, who was born and died in England (and therefore admittedly may have had other time constraints) but because of this she would have been well aware that she ought to have the child registered, that there were procedures to follow.

Nina

[sporran]

Hello Nina,


bearing in mind that you mentioned an earlier birth and death in England, the English situation was different:

"In the early days the parents had 3 weeks to register in and could not register at all after 3 months. After a while this was changed to 6 weeks to register in, a late registration could be made up to a year after the birth if the superintendent took the information and signed the register too, and registration could not take place after 1 year without reference to GRO. Once the delay was this long then proof of the event had to be provided by other parties who knew of this event eg midwife or doctor or siblings alive at the time and able to recall the event. Even now, if it is not possible to provide the proof and/or the people who can attest to the truth of the event it is not possible to register and there are people walking around today with no birth certificate.

It means, therefore, that a birth registered very late could be in the indexes a whole year later or more than expected. It is also relevant in that there were penalties for late registrations that were quite severe in the beginning and rather than get into trouble parents would "adjust" the date of birth to fall within the specified time for registration. If you have a discrepancy between a date of birth on a certificate and one given on a baptismal certificate, have a look at the date of registration. If it is very close to the six weeks, it is quite likely that the parents didn't tell the truth at registration but did at baptism where there were no penalties. There were no checks on the dates of birth until well into this century."

("This century" is 1900-1999).

The extract was taken from the excellent site http://www.dixons.clara.co.uk/Certificates/indexbd.htm , and I can not recommend it too highly for understanding the nature of English and Welsh BMD records and for helping people in their searches.


Regards,

John

[ninatoo]

Well, this one certainly slipped past me! Thanks sporran for the information, I do appreciate it.

Nina