The re-registration of births (in England/Wales) after the Legitimacy Act 1926 isn't well understood so it was very good to see the entry in the latest newsletter ( 20th Nov 2023).
I would add a few observations ...
The 1926 Act led to a huge influx of re-registrations in the registers in 1927/28 as people took advantage of the new legislation. Legitimacy (and being able to prove it) mattered at that time, not just because of any stigma, but crucially because of inheritance rights ( which weren't finally changed until the 1980s). But there can be a huge gap between the original birth, the marriage and the re-registration - I have an example of a birth in 1892, the parents marrying in 1894, but where the birth wasn't re-registered until 1939, when the "child" was 47 years old.
However, after the act was introduced legitimacy was automatic by the marriage, and wasn't dependent on re-registration, and there was no penalty (or offence) for failing to re-register so in effect it was an optional step to take . The 1926 Act also required the parents to have been free to marry at the time the child was born, even though they didn't, as the government felt that otherwise they would be seen to be "condoning adultery", so many children were not eligible to be declared legitimate (or re-registered).
For a child to be re-registered under the Act, the parents would have to confirm that the now husband was in fact the father of the child, and not just a step-father, but of course whether he truly was or not could not be tested, nor are re-registrations ever part of the adoption process.
The restriction on the parents having been free to marry was removed by a later Legitimacy Act (in 1959), but it wasn't until the Legitimacy Act of 1976 that a penalty was introduced for failing to re-register and so it became in effect compulsory. That is the law in place today, and as so many children are now born before the parents marry re-registrations are an everyday event in register offices - but even so many parents still either forget, don't realise, or just don't bother to do it. I'm not aware that anyone has ever been prosecuted under the requirement, and there is certainly no chasing of parents to do it, beyond reminding them when they marry.
Births are also commonly re-registered to add an unmarried father to an entry on which he wasn't originally named ( perhaps he was unable to attend the original registration), and can occasionally be re-registered for other reasons, if the Registrar General directs it.
Today it isn't unusual for a birth to be registered three times... ( and the name of the child can be changed each time, in certain circumstances)
1) By an unmarried mother alone ( no father named), then
2) Re-registered to add the unmarried father to the entry, then
3) Re-registered again, under the Legitimacy Act after the parents marry
In the article - the suggestion that the wrong year has been put on the later certificate is incorrect - the year at the top of the certificate is always taken from the year of registration - it refers to the year of the birth register in the district this entry was taken from, not the actual birth event, so 1931 is in fact correct.
Most importantly, a re-registration creates a new entry in a register, and will have a different reference (and can be months/years later), unlike a correction which just amends an existing entry.
Antony
(former deputy registrar)
I would add a few observations ...
The 1926 Act led to a huge influx of re-registrations in the registers in 1927/28 as people took advantage of the new legislation. Legitimacy (and being able to prove it) mattered at that time, not just because of any stigma, but crucially because of inheritance rights ( which weren't finally changed until the 1980s). But there can be a huge gap between the original birth, the marriage and the re-registration - I have an example of a birth in 1892, the parents marrying in 1894, but where the birth wasn't re-registered until 1939, when the "child" was 47 years old.
However, after the act was introduced legitimacy was automatic by the marriage, and wasn't dependent on re-registration, and there was no penalty (or offence) for failing to re-register so in effect it was an optional step to take . The 1926 Act also required the parents to have been free to marry at the time the child was born, even though they didn't, as the government felt that otherwise they would be seen to be "condoning adultery", so many children were not eligible to be declared legitimate (or re-registered).
For a child to be re-registered under the Act, the parents would have to confirm that the now husband was in fact the father of the child, and not just a step-father, but of course whether he truly was or not could not be tested, nor are re-registrations ever part of the adoption process.
The restriction on the parents having been free to marry was removed by a later Legitimacy Act (in 1959), but it wasn't until the Legitimacy Act of 1976 that a penalty was introduced for failing to re-register and so it became in effect compulsory. That is the law in place today, and as so many children are now born before the parents marry re-registrations are an everyday event in register offices - but even so many parents still either forget, don't realise, or just don't bother to do it. I'm not aware that anyone has ever been prosecuted under the requirement, and there is certainly no chasing of parents to do it, beyond reminding them when they marry.
Births are also commonly re-registered to add an unmarried father to an entry on which he wasn't originally named ( perhaps he was unable to attend the original registration), and can occasionally be re-registered for other reasons, if the Registrar General directs it.
Today it isn't unusual for a birth to be registered three times... ( and the name of the child can be changed each time, in certain circumstances)
1) By an unmarried mother alone ( no father named), then
2) Re-registered to add the unmarried father to the entry, then
3) Re-registered again, under the Legitimacy Act after the parents marry
In the article - the suggestion that the wrong year has been put on the later certificate is incorrect - the year at the top of the certificate is always taken from the year of registration - it refers to the year of the birth register in the district this entry was taken from, not the actual birth event, so 1931 is in fact correct.
Most importantly, a re-registration creates a new entry in a register, and will have a different reference (and can be months/years later), unlike a correction which just amends an existing entry.
Antony
(former deputy registrar)
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