Unusual birth cert maybe

lillymindy

Hi,
I hope someone will know the answer to this. I cannot seem to find an answer anywhere.

My father died a few years back and I started researching our family tree. I got his birth cert and it says he was born in the 1950's. (Date is correct, no problems there)
However, it says that his birth cert is registered in 2001. Anyone know why that would be?
Maybe it's common but I'm not sure why it his birth cert would be registered nearly fifty years late.
Thanks.

pinkypinky

It could have happened for a few reasons: did he ever change his name to the Irish version? Some people go to the trouble of re-registering in Irish.

Also possible, it was accidentally never registered in the first place.

Does his birth appear in the indexes? They go up to 1958 on various websites (Familysearch.org, Findmypast, Ancestry).

lillymindy

Thanks for replying.
We are from the Gaeltacht but he wouild not have changed his name. I can definitely rule that one out.
His birth cert does not show up on any index. I found his mothers birth cert and potentially his grandparents.. I actually got a copy of his cert from the HSE.
I
Also interestingly, there is no fathers name on the cert so it would seem he was never registered.
I wonder is it unusual for children from the 1950's not to be registered?

pinkypinky

When there's no father's name on a birth cert, it usually means the parents were not married.
Have you looked for his birth under his mother's surname?
It could have been re-registered with his father's name later.

If you want to PM me the name and details, I can double check he's not in the index.

Another possibility: could he have been adopted, possibly because of the above? Legal adoption began in 1953.

lillymindy

Thanks, i'll pm you details now.
I do have an ancestry account but i cannot see anything for him. I do have his mothers birth and death cert though.

srmf5

My dentist knew a man who, as far as the state was concerned, disn't exist. His birth was never registered. He farmed with his brother but it was his brother who did all the paper work signing documentation and he never married. I think that it was only when he died that they realised his birth had never been registered. I don't really know the details but I just remember my dentist mentioning it.

pinkypinky

It definitely did happen, particularly to people who were on the margins of society.

enfield

I was born in the 1950's and could never find my birth cert due to a fire at the office, or so I was told. I said to my local Peace Commissioner that I needed my birth cert and it does not exist and I needed to re-register it. He said you don't re-register it, you register it. He did it with a sworn statement, so although I was born in the 1950's my birth is recorded as registered in the 1980's.