* Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

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AdrianBruce
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Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by AdrianBruce »

I have seen people talking about finding (non-genealogy) birth certificates that had been issued at odd times and was wondering if any of you with one of them, have ever satisfied yourself just why those certificates were issued?

The one I have is my maternal grandad where I'd sent off for his birth certificate (BC) back in 2004. Some time after that, I discovered that my mother's filing system was slightly more comprehensive than either of us actually knew and we actually already had a copy of her dad's BC. However, the oddity is that the BC in question was issued in 1920 - and he had been born in 1894. I can't see any obvious reason for Grandad wanting a BC - he'd been in the Army during WW1; had been discharged at the end (based on Electoral Rolls); had lived in the same house since WW1 and wouldn't marry until September 1924. So far as I know, he'd worked as a railway labourer throughout that time.

There's nothing on the 1920 BC to give me a clue and it's identical to the 2004 one - right down to the spelling of his own father's job as "laborer". If anyone can suggest anything else about why he (I presume) applied for the 1920 BC, I'd be grateful.

Oddly, he also had two contemporary death certificates (DCs) in my mother's files, though that's more easily explicable. Firstly there's the standard DC issued to Mum in 1962 when she registered his death, printed with a statutory fee of 3s 9d. Also, there's another DC with a printed heading "Issued at a fee of one shilling in pursuance of and for the purposes of the First Schedule to the Industrial Assurance and Friendly Societies Act 1948". This was also issued on the date of registration and it even records that it was issued to Mum. There's a panel on the reverse used by the Co-operative Insurance Society (in this case) to record the policy details and the amount paid out. I presume that this is very much like what I did to process my parents' deaths - pay for several copies just in case the people who I sent them to, decided to keep them - actually, I think almost everyone returned the DCs to me.

I hope the DC case is of interest to someone... And a Happy Christmas & New Year to you all...
Adrian
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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by brianlummis »

Adrian

I seem to recall answering a similar question to yours in the past as to why a Birth Certificate might have been issued at a later date. It used to be common when taking out a life policy for the insurance company or friendly society to ask for proof of age and if the original birth certificate was not available, a copy would be obtained. Some insurance companies did not ask for confirmation but if the policy was later used to secure a mortgage or a bank loan, the bank would ask for the proof of age. I can well remember when working for a major Bank that the bank's security ledgers were annotated in red with the words "Age admitted" to record the fact that a Birth Certificate had been noted by the insurance company.

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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by LornaCraig »

I have some birth certs which were issued later in the life of the individuals but they are clearly printed with the reason (old age pension or employment of a young person) and were issued at a special concessionary price. See this topic Birth Certificates in the 1880s (19627)

If there is no obvious explanation/purpose on your 1920 certificate I think Brian's suggestion of an insurance policy is plausible.

Is it possible that your grandad had some reason to question his own birth date/place/parents and just wanted to check?
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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by davidf »

Perhaps he needed one for employment issues - would he have joined some form of pension fund in 1920 - would have required proof of age?

(Recently an employer told me that because my UK passport had expired "my nationality had expired" and they could not continue to employ me under Home Office Immigration rules - but if I sent them an official copy of my birth certificate that would "make things OK"!)
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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by AdrianBruce »

Thanks for the suggestion of the insurance policy. Interesting that the second DC does indeed relate to an insurance policy - but it was one taken out in 1951, so that one wouldn't have been the driver. In any case my maternal line was seriously poor, so I'm not expecting to find much in the way of policies, especially ones securing anything. Still, you never know...

Lorna - the 1920 BC is free of any special comments about its purpose (unlike the second DC). But actually, you just might have hit the nail on the head with your query if...
... grandad had some reason to question his own birth date/place/parents and just wanted to check?
The family story is that grandad's parents didn't get round to registering his birth until they'd just missed the deadline. When his father went to the Registrar, he added two days to the actual birth-date to make him "legal" again. By the time that my mother told me this story, although she knew her Dad's birthday was 6 October, she didn't know whether 6th was the real date or the adjusted date. The BC gave the date as 8 October, implying 6 October was the real date - which is supported by his baptism that gave his birth date as 6 October.

Here's the irony though - Grandad's birth was registered 21 days after his birth - and the legal limit is that the birth be recorded no more than 42 days later, so there was no need to adjust his birth-date after all. Oddly, his elder brother had been registered a full 39 days after his birth, so someone must have known the correct deadline once.

In all that, I wonder if Grandad had lost track of what his birth-date was or what it was supposed to be - maybe he was going for a job on the railways (say) who wanted a bit more certainty about his birth, so Grandad wanted a proper BC so that he could either give the "official" birth-date - or know how to lie consistently!

Yes, I doubt I'll ever know the story but you've given me some possibilities to think over, thanks.
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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by David Hawkins »

I also have one of these "duplicate" certificates for my cousin born on 26 August 1938. This was dated 18 July 1947 and clearly states it was issued for the purposes of "FAMILY ALLOWANCES ACT" in a dedicated box at the top of the certificate.

The birth was not registered until 8 October 1938, and the BMD index indeed shows a 4th quarter registration. The original certificate contains an interesting phrase at the bottom of the column containing informant's details stating "as per declaration dated 7th October 1938." This phrase also appears on the later certificate from 1947.

Could this be something to do with the late registration (more than 42 days)?

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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by AdrianBruce »

The only declaration document I see referenced on any of my BCs is one where the birth mother was in Hartlepool when she went to register the birth, which had actually taken place in Liverpool. The birth could not be registered in Hartlepool, only in the area where it took place (ie Liverpool), but the mother could (had to) make a declaration there, allowing it to be registered by Liverpool after Hartlepool had passed the details on to Liverpool.

This is what the relevant bit looks like:
Screenshot 2022-01-02 171216.jpg
Screenshot 2022-01-02 171216.jpg (166.21 KiB) Viewed 3727 times
The only real clue about what's going on is the mother's address, which is way different from the birthplace. Whether there are other uses for declarations, I don't know - probably.
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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by RS3100 »

I posted previously about "my grandfather's birth certificate" here:

https://www.fhug.org.uk/forum/viewtopic ... 39&t=18263

He appeared to have obtained it from Somerset House when he was 49 years old. Suggestions were put forward about an insurance policy or other life events, none of which seemed to apply.

I inserted "my grandfather's birth certificate" within quotation marks, because it was found amongst several other BMD certificates and other documents that had been in the possession of my parents, but unfortunately not until after both had died. It led me on a merry goose chase for some time, until I realised that, although it related to a person of the same name and born about the same time, it was not his birth certificate, but that of a completely unrelated namesake.

A few months ago my brother found some additional papers and photographs in a box whilst clearing out his loft, amongst which was a note written by our mother regarding various aspects of our family history. It reinforces my previous supposition that our grandfather was perhaps attempting to discover his own ancestry. He was orphaned at just 3 years of age, and taken into the care of the West Ham Union, eventually being "sent" into the navy. Our mother's note confirms my thoughts that he never knew much about his origins, so I am now fairly certain that was probably the purpose of his application. She wrote that both he and our parents had attempted to discover more, without success.

Although he was orphaned whilst living in West Ham, he was actually born in Lincolnshire, but I doubt that he knew that at all, and having perhaps approached Somerset House requesting a birth certificate in his name, giving his year of birth and place as London, the certificate he was supplied with was the only one that they could have been expected to come up with, according to the information supplied.

Due to the wonders of DNA testing and the sheer amount of information including indexed and digitised records available nowadays at the click of a mouse, it took me only a few months to crack the puzzle once I realised I was up the wrong alley. It saddens me that my grandfather, father and uncle all died without ever having been able to discover the truth though.

I also have an old copy birth certificate for my grandmother, which is much larger in size than modern certificates, printed on plain white paper, and in very delicate condition. It was issued for the purposes of the Factory and Workshop Act of 1901, and includes a declaration on the reverse, signed by my great-grandfather, that the copy was required for the purpose of enabling his daughter to enter into service. She was not quite thirteen at the time.
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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by David Hawkins »

I attach a damaged copy of the "duplicate" certificate so you can see the placement of the "purposes" box and the extra info in the "informant" box. Hope this is of some interest.

David
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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by AdrianBruce »

Yes - never seen a Family Allowances Act copy of a BC, thanks. (I guess these are the sort of things that survive only in family files.)

I think the declaration is similar to mine - a different area.

The birth was in Petersfield and according to https://www.ukbmd.org.uk/reg/districts/petersfield.html that was in a Registration District called Petersfield, and a Sub-District of Petersfield - all of which is (fortunately for my sanity) what it says on the top of the certificate.

The mother (the informant) lived in Westbourne. Up to 1935, there was a Registration District called Westbourne https://www.ukbmd.org.uk/reg/districts/westbourne.html but then the parish of Westbourne was moved into Chichester Registration District https://www.ukbmd.org.uk/reg/districts/chichester.html.

So the birth is supposed to be registered in Petersfield Reg District - because it's several miles from her current address to Petersfield Reg District, she went to her current local Registrar of Births & Deaths somewhere in (presumably) the Chichester Reg District - they may even have been still in Westbourne - made a declaration about the birth there, and they sent the info to Petersfield's Registrar of Births and Deaths, who did the actual registration in their books.

That's what I think happened.
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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by David Hawkins »

Thanks Adrian, that would make perfect sense.

Ann's parents had been living in Bognor Regis (as the father's address shows), but for some reason Ann was born in Petersfield. Ann and her mother Bronwen then went to live with Bronwen's mother at the family home in Westbourne for a couple of months before moving back to her husband in Bognor. It was obviously during the period when was living with her mother that she realised the child needed to be registered - this was her first child so she may well not have known. Although Petersfield is only some 15 miles from Westbourne, I guess travel was not as easy as it is today, so local registration, albeit in the wrong area, was the simplest option. So the original certificate came from Petersfield with the associated declaration, and all subsequent copies would have come from the same place.

One more mystery solved! Thanks.

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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by AntonyM »

"As per declaration" or "by declaration" has nothing to do with the timing of a registration, it just means that the information was given at a registration office away from the district in which the birth (or occasionally death) took place.

The event can only be registered in the district in which it took place, but the system recognises that this may not always be convenient or possible for an informant to do so they can choose to attend a registration office anywhere else (in England/Wales).

The informant gives all the necessary information to a registrar, but instead of completing a register entry it is recorded on a "declaration" form. This is then sent by post to the correct district and the details are used to complete an entry in the relevant register. The informant isn't present to sign the entry so their details are recorded in the informant column with "by declaration" added. There will always be a day or two difference between the date of the declaration and the date of registration, which reflects the time it took to arrive at the correct office.

A very common practice - and even more so today.

Not to be confused with the phrase "by statutory declaration" which is something else entirely and will usually relate to a correction being made.
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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by David Hawkins »

Thanks for that excellent explanation Antony.

Adrian, I have come across another reason for issuing another birth certificate, see attached copy. I've not sent all of the copy as the person concerned is still alive. However, the birth was registered on 3rd July 1946, and this certificate for "National Health Insurance Acts" was issued on 30th September 1946.

Regards

David
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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by AdrianBruce »

No, I'd not seen that one either, David, but I suspect there may be a number of variants.

It always amuses me, that phrase "No other purposes whatever"... Exactly who is going to turn down that copy of a birth certificate? "No Mr Bloggs, I know you were born for the purposes of NI, but we have no other proof that you exist so goodbye!"

As an aside, it's not an area that I know, so I allowed myself to go down the rabbit hole of wondering when the County of West Sussex was created... According to https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit/10001201 it was an Administrative County created in 1889, when the Ancient County of Sussex was split into two, although a version of Sussex continued to 1930 as a "Poor Law/Registration County" (https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit/10152860)

I might add that the interlinked entries show that VisionOfBritain isn't always complete / consistent - Chichester Municipal Borough (https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit/10041880) is supposed to be part of the Admin County of West Sussex from 1835, according to its entry - which isn't going to work if WS (and Admin Counties in general!) didn't exist until 1889.

I shall try to forget this pedantry!
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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by RS3100 »

This is another - my grandmother's, issued for the purposes of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901 when she was thirteen.

The declaration on the reverse, completed and signed by her father, stated that it was "required to enable her to go into service".
BirthCertExtract.JPG
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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by AdrianBruce »

Another intriguing angle... I can understand the desire to prove age before entering some sort of work, and so the reduced(?) cost of that proof. The oddity here (to me!) is the "not available for purposes of secondary education." I wonder what those possible purposes might have been?
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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by LornaCraig »

I've got one of those 'Factory and Workshop' ones for my grandfather. It was issued in 1908 when he was 13. However it doesn't have that line saying "not available for purposes of secondary education" at the top. Apart from that the wording at the top of the front of the form is the same.

However on the back this paragraph is included:
paragraph snip.JPG
paragraph snip.JPG (16.24 KiB) Viewed 2959 times
Note that it refers to "elementary education of a young person under the age of sixteen years". If elementary education went up to 16, perhaps secondary education in those days meant over 16! (That doesn't answer Adrian's question I'm afraid!)
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Re: Grandad's multiple (old) certificates

Post by RS3100 »

A bit of googling found this, from Hansard, debated on Monday 27th February 1928:

Mr. C. EDWARDS
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that children entering the elementary schools or when seeking employment can, by filling up a prescribed form, obtain a birth certificate for the sum of 6d.; that in some districts this rule is also applied to children entering county or secondary schools, whilst in others the full fee is charged; and will he take steps to enforce this rule in all cases and have it made uniform?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN
I have been asked to reply. The special rate of 6d. for the issue of a birth certificate in the circumstances to which the hon. Member refers is applied by Section 135 of the Education Act, 1921, to cases where the age is required to be proved for the purposes of the provisions of the Act relating to elementary education, or for any purpose connected with the elementary education or employment in labour of the child or young person. I am advised that this provision does not extend to purposes relating to or connected with education which is not elementary; and I have no power to extend it. But I am not prepared to express any opinion with regard to any particular cases of doubt which may have arisen.


I realise that it refers to a 1921 Act, but similar provision may have been covered by the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901 and the Elementary Education Act 1876, both of which contain provisions regarding the issue of birth certificates.

The latter Act states, "Where the age of any child is required to be ascertained or proved for the purposes of this Act, or for any purpose connected, with the elementary education or employment in labour of such child, any person on presenting a written requisition in such form and containing such particulars as may be from time to time prescribed by the Local Government Board, and on payment of such fee, not exceeding one shilling, as the Local Government Board from time to time fix, shall be entitled to obtain a certified copy under the hand of the registrar or superintendent registrar of the entry in the register under the Births and Deaths Registration Acts 1836 to 1874, of the birth of the child named in the requisition.
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