crossed out entry on freebmd ?

[garstonite]

I have in my family a member who is b 1969 dec qtr Liverpool - still alive - but on her freebmd entry it has a ? at the end
when I click on the ? it has a comment in Capital Letters
#COMMENT HANDWRITTEN AMENDMENT OF CROSSED OUT PAGE NUMBER 445
could some kind member explain what this means please ...do I take it that she had another name ??
thanks
allan:confused:

[Olde Crone]

Allan

No, I think it is just recording the fact that the page number had been crossed out (probably by accident) and that the transcriber has used that page number even though it was crossed through.

OC

[garstonite]

Thanks very much OC - is that why it has an S on the end ??
**d 5096/S ??
I won`t put the first 2 numbers up in case her cert can be traced ...
never seen /S after a cert number before ??

[kiterunner]

Have you looked at the image, Allan? The comment is just saying what the keyer saw on the image so it would help to look at the actual image. I was trying to work through all the Liverpool birth registrations for that quarter with a ? and a female-looking name to find the one with that page number in the comment but Internet Explorer kept messing up and I have to quickly go shopping now, but if you want to PM me the name I could look at it for you later.

[kiterunner]

Never mind, found it now from the extra info that you posted up. Just looking at it...

[Olde Crone]

Oh, it looks like either a re-registration or an amendment if it has an "s" after it. The most usual reason for that would be that parents married after the birth.

OC

[kiterunner]

Okay, yes, it has a crossed out page number which could be 445 but is hard to make out, and 5069/S has been written in. (The FreeBMD transcriber has made a mistake in keying it and swopped the 6 and the 9 round, so be careful if you order a copy of the cert. This shows why you should always check the image on FreeBMD.)

I'm sure we have discussed what the "S" means before but I can't remember if we came up with a definite answer. I think it means a re-registration of some sort.

[Merry]

I agree that I thought we had previously decided an S meant some sort of re-registration. However, I'm struggling to find another entry for the same person. Usually if you include the mmn and the forename along with the reg district you will find some other entry/ies. I'm using Ancestry not FreeBMD.

[garstonite]

P****** M**** b 1969 was adopted at about 6 weeks old by my Mother in law..I was wondering if that may be the reason for the Crossed out page ? and the letter /S after the cert number ?
obviously she has a different name now and is aware of her birth name ....

[Merry]

This would appear to be the definitive answer (quoting our Asa, but stolen from another site!)

A four figure digit followed by /S indicates an adoption. If a birth was re-registered it would have 'see D/43' indicating quarter and year the birth was re-registered.

[garstonite]

Thank you very much Merry ...I had an idea it was something to do with adoption - or should I say , because I knew she was adopted I tended to think that ...for the record - she went out with my wife last night ( she is 17 years younger ) and is now on the couch in front of me fast asleep worse the wear for too much white wine ....lol

thanks to all who answered - I think this little problem has been solved ...cheers
allan

[Olde Crone]

Oh dear, I struggle with this answer!

Why on earth would a BIRTH register have any reference to adoption - which is supposed to be private and is listed on a separate register of adoptions?

I think it is incidental to adoption and probably merely shows a change to the original birth cert before adoption takes place - perhaps to remove a father's name.

I have a friend who was born and then adopted in Liverpool in 1946. His birth reg shows no such "s" suffix.

OC

[kiterunner]

I found a post on an old Genes Reunited thread which says that:

"in these earlier birth indexes there is no indication or amendents to birth GRO indexes that show .....it was in 1960 that any indication that adoption or name alteration shows in the GRO indexes,,,

an adoption or name change will show the entry number for the adoptee in the Adopted Children Register,,,followed by--/S or /A.against the original birth GRO index"

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/ancestors/thread/1025826

I don't know whether this is correct, though.

[Merry]

That would fit with the two people I know of who are adopted whose birth names I know, One born 1935 and adopted in about 1940 - index entry looks normal. One born 1968 and adopted the same year - has a four figure page number followed by /S

[Olde Crone]

But can anyone suggest an administrative reason why adoption would be flagged up in this way in the GRO indexes?

(All the registrations I have seen with suffix A, have all been ones missed off the register page, so 123A is an addition to page 123. Nothing to do with adoption).

OC

[Merry]

I don't know, but in 1960-something the GRO wouldn't have envisaged us searching via computer, so an individual would only have a hope of seeing their original registration if they already knew their birth name. That's all I can think of.

[Olde Crone]

Mmm, I wonder. I have heard stories - which I thought were probably apocryphal - of people trying to get their original birth certs in the 60s and 70s and being refused by the GRO, who said something like "we know what you're up to" (it was illegal then, of course).

Although - as an original birth cert says "ADOPTED" on it, I don't see why they would need to flag up the index as well.

So - if there have been one million adoptions since 1927, there ought to be one million registrations with an S suffix. Or whatever the relative number is for the 1960s and 70s.

OC

[Olde Crone]

Thankyou for the link, Kate. Interesting that a Registrar says there is NO adoption significance in the S suffix!

OC

[Merry]

I tried to do a search on ancestry for the page number ????/S but that didn't work.

I looked at a few GRO pages and on the ones I looked at (Smiths in 1968) there was probably an average of one entry per page with the page number crossed through and a four digit/S ref replacing it.

[kiterunner]

Thankyou for the link, Kate. Interesting that a Registrar says there is NO adoption significance in the S suffix!



Yes, but presumably he was a local registrar and didn't work directly for the GRO.

[Olde Crone]

Yes, you are right Kate, he did say he was a local Registrar, but the points he made were valid, i.e. adoption is confidential and nothing to do with BIRTH records.

After much thought (haha) I have come to the conclusion that "S" must mean Superintendant's list! This would of course include adoptions but possibly other matters as well, such as false registration maybe. As an entry of birth can never be removed from the register once made, I suppose that it can only be removed from the indexes and failing that, there needs to be some indication to GRO staff that they need to refer an application for a BC to the Superintendant Registrar.

As Merry says, in the 1960s no one envisaged us all sat here in our jimjams idly clicking through thousands of birth records BUT the GRO inadvertently gave adoptees a clue to their birth identity by flagging up those who were adopted out! No worse a manual search in the 60s than any other BMD search through the books.

Another point - local BMDs show no such indication of adoption, so presumably it was left up to the vigilance of the local Registrar not to issue a certificate.

(I really hate these uncertainties and I wish it was in black and white somewhere! What law triggered this?)

[kiterunner]

(I really hate these uncertainties and I wish it was in black and white somewhere! What law triggered this?)

I was trying to figure that out yesterday but I couldn't find copies of the old Adoption Acts online to see what they said. I found a kind of summary of the 1960 one in Hansard and it looked unlikely to be anything to do with that, but maybe the 1958 one? I didn't find a summary of that yet.

[Olde Crone]

Kate

I wonder if it might have been registration law? Off to look!

OC