Foreign Birth Registration.UK GRO. Errors on Birth and Death Certs.

Chauncey Gardner

Hi all.

My partner is applying for foreign birth registration.

I have applied to UK General Register Office, however her father's birth certificate has an error in spelling of surname (1 letter) and her grandfather's date of birth on his death certificate is wrong by 7 years and the day and month also incorrect. So a totally wrong date of birth on death cert.

Does anyone know how this can be amended? And if this will affect application for Irish Foreign Birth Registration?

Many thanks

Elwyn

My experience (from working with a Registrar in the past) is that there are only limited circumstances when information on a certificate can be changed.  Normally it’s where the Registrar has made a mistake. So if you give the surname as SMYTH but they record it as SMITH, they may be willing to correct their own mistake. But where the information was given in good faith but is later found to be wrong, it can’t be amended.

What the record contains is a formal record of the information as given by the informant, to the best of the informant’s knowledge. In many cases, especially deaths, no documentation proving the date of birth is required and the information is taken on trust. If a date of birth is wrong, then it’s wrong. That’s an end to the matter.

You could contact the Registrar at the office where the death was recorded but I am pretty sure they won’t change anything, unless they made the mistake.

You could try sending a covering letter explaining the discrepancy. Or the Irish authorities might ask for that to be by means of a sworn affidavit in front of a Commissioner of Oaths explaining your understanding of the discrepancy.

Chauncey Gardner

Thanks Elwyn. Thats very helpful.

Would you know how accepting the Irish Passport Office/Foreign Birth Registrations office are in accepting such errors? ie: particularly in the case of the Grandfather where the date of birth on death cert is totally wrong, but other details "appear" to match?

Peregrinus

Is there a problem with the date being wrong? As in, is the wrong date going to result in somebody being denied citizenship, or something of the kind? Or are you just concerned, as a matter of principle, to get the details right?

Elwyn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120771606#Comment_120771606

I have no personal experience of dealing with the Irish authorities on this subject but I have seen a post on another Board where no birth certificate could be found, and a baptismal certificate was used instead (which had no date of birth at all), and the application was successful. I have also seen one where the spelling of the surname on a birth certificate was rather different. (McLoughlin in Ireland had become McLauchlan in Scotland). Again that went through OK.

I think they’ll use their common sense.  If something seems wrong you may expect them to query it, but they know that not every official record is 100% accurate.

pinkypinky

I think you need to get specialist advice. I know that Claire Santry sometimes helps people with these applications. This is one of her websites: https://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/

Chauncey Gardner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120771656#Comment_120771656

Hi Peregrinus.

Yes the concern is that for the purpose of Foreign Birth Registration, my partner wont be able to provide sufficient reliable documentation to prove that this person is her grandfather.

Chauncey Gardner

PS: The fathers birth cert has one common enough error, an "m" where the letter should be an "n".

For the grandfather, we have his Irish birth cert with correct location, date of birth, parents, and his name appears on 1901 and 1911 census. But the UK death certificate, totally wrong date of birth by 7 years.

Peregrinus

How so? Do any of the documents which identify him as her grandfather give his true date of birth?

Peregrinus

OK. And - forgive the question - do you need to present the grandfather's UK death certificate as part of your application for a foreign birth registration? It doesn't seem to me to be relevant when - or even whether - he has died; what matters is that he was born in Ireland.

Chauncey Gardner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120771832#Comment_120771832

No, to my understanding, she has to prove who her father is, and then the connection is made from her father to his father.

Again to my knowledge, there is no document (birth/death cert) that connects/confirms a grand daughter to a grandfather?

Chauncey Gardner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120771898#Comment_120771898

Yes, grandfather death certificate is needed as part of FBR application.

Chauncey Gardner

Thanks folks.

I'll let you know how this progresses/concludes.

Chauncey Gardner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120771572#Comment_120771572

Hi folks.

If of any interest folks, here's an update.

Grandfather in law, for whatever reason(s), incorrect date of birth listed on Wedding Cert, by minus 7 years.

This incorrect date of birth, then also appeared on his death cert.

His name was also consistently misspelt on official Wedding cert, by one letter, "m" instead of an "n".

Interestingly enough, his sons name was then also had same misspelling on his birth cert. Which was the reason why I couldn't find his birth cert either.

However he (the son) then gave the original "correct" spelling on his children's birth certificates.

Its interesting that incorrect spellings can be given to registrar, which then become the new "official/legal" name? Or do they?

The whole process is revealing an interesting famiiy history/dimension which I wont go into here. But one aspect is the Grandfather-in-law probably wishing to be incommunicado after leaving Ireland post Civil War.

Elwyn

The idea of a single or correct spelling for a surname or a place name in Ireland is very much a recent phenomenon designed to meet the needs of modern officialdom. Before that there was no consistency. Names were spelled phonetically and each variation was down to the whim of the particular person recording the information. You will often see the spelling change as the records go back. This rarely indicates a deliberate decision to alter the name, nor even a mistake. Not everyone was literate, but even when they were, exact and consistent spelling simply wasn’t something they bothered about. 

In 1899, the Rev Smith reviewed the early records of Antrim 1st Presbyterian church (covering the years 1674 to c 1736). He noted: “Even the same word is not always spelled alike by the same hand. Indeed spelling with most of the recording officials (and they must have been fairly numerous) was a matter of the most sublime indifference. The name William, for instance, is spelled 3 different ways in as many lines; while Donegore, a neighbouring parish, is spelled 10 different ways; but these extend over a good number of years. Many families names are spelled phonetically, while others are given in the most round-about fashion.”

So expect spelling to vary. That was the norm. 

In the UK and Ireland you are free to use any name you like, save as long as it’s not for fraud. So the spelling on a certificate doesn’t really mean anything in terms of obliging anyone to use it.  I am sure the Passport & Nationality officials will have seen many certificates with inaccurate or conflicting information.

Chauncey Gardner

Thanks so much Elwyn, very interesting and helpful.

Peregrinus

Fascinating fact of the day: Six signatures by William Shakespeare survive. He spells his name differently in each one. In none of them does he use the spelling "Shakespeare".

OK, the OP's grandfather probably wasn't a contemporary of Shakespeare. But the fixation with having a single canonical "correct spelling" for a person's name is pretty recent.

Chauncey Gardner

Food for thought there Peregrinus. Very Orwellian. Imagine if we had the “freedom” to give our preferred dates of birth, society as we know it would collapse, or at least the individual would become a non-person.

Brings to mind the lyrics of the New Muzik song “Living by Numbers”.

“They don’t want your name, just your number”.

lordal

Hi, I’m wondering if you found a solution to this issue. My husband is in the same situation. His granddads date of birth on his Irish birth certificate and his birth date on his UK death certificate done match, they’re completely different dates, months and years. Wondering how to align this or if it might be accepted. I saw your post and wondered what ye had done about it in the end, any information would be greatly appreciated.

Elwyn

lordal

Historically, information on Irish birth, marriage and death certificates was provided on the basis of trust, and generally without documentary proof. (Recently there have been some changes to that).   But in general, with historical records, when say, a death was registered, the information recorded was based on what the informant said. If that was wrong (albeit given in good faith) then so be it. It records what was said to the Registrar, not what the real facts may have been.  In general, statutory records cannot be changed unless there is evidence that the Registrar made a mistake, or by order of a court.  But not because the informant made a mistake.

I’d suggest you provide your documentation to the authorities who need them and explain why, in your view, they don’t all accord. It won’t be the first time they have come across this problem.

Elwyn

Chauncey Gardner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121010065#Comment_121010065

Hi

A timely enough question. We have just sent off the application for FBR today.

With all the documents together, they presented well (made sense and appeared genuine) so we decided not to include a covering letter to flag up the grandfathers incorrect date of birth. (We might regret that 😁). So we just sent all requested documentation as it stood.

As Elwyn has suggested it's not something that they haven't seen before. In hindsight, I probably should have included a covering letter, but I'm not sure what explanation I could give them as I'd be guessing.

If I had to make a guess, I would put it down to him being much older than his bride.