Genealogy Chat

I've been looking for a birth of someone born March 1944, now might they have been registered a lot later than their birth or not at all considering there was a war goin' on?, I looked at Jan/Feb/Mar & Apr/May/Jun already and no sign of him. Thanks.

Could he have been born in Scotland or Ireland maybe?

I have an Aunt born in 1940 but her original birth certificate looks like it came from a little triplicate reciept book. I think if the local register office had a problem e.g. the registrar was killed, then they may have registered events later then we would expect them to be normally.

I'm almost certain he was born in Orpington, his son says he was, i'll look for records upto the end of 1945 and see what comes up, thanks.

Just because his son said the birth was in orpington does not mean it did. Orpington would be in the Bromley district of Kent, but since children were being evacuated from Kent, it would make sence that a pregnant woman would have left Kent. You say th bith your looking for was 1944 that is the end of the war when most children in Kent would have already been evauated. Try just looking for the right name, make a list and then narrow them down. If you know the mothers maiden name then this will be easier to do.

Good point Lunar. Also lots of people had been bombed out or moved out of city areas to stay with other family members. Jay

If you know this person had siblings you could check their birth reg's for mum's maiden name.......... Merry

Any ref for 'Male'? What if he had two forenames and you only know him by the second one? Jay

All registrars have deputies. If there was only one registrar per district and he died due to bombing, or natural causes, or fell down and broke his ankle or had a week's holiday, no one would be able to register anything! I don't think there was any major disruption because of WW1. I also think that by 1944 lots of evacuated folk had returned home as the Blitz finished on 11 May 1941. I think it more likely that the birth didn't occur in Orpington, or was missed off the GRO index. Have you found any births at all for the right name in the right time frame? nell

Or he was registered under a different surname, perhaps his mother's maiden name? Kate.

Births during W War 2 were disrupted for one reason and another. My family came from Plymouth and most people would know us as a Plymouth Family. However much of the Plymouth population was transferred elsewhere after the April 1941 Blitzes and so many Plymouthians would have been born N Devon or Cornwall going back to live in that devastated City after the war ended in 1945. I have a sister who was born in Bodmin in 1944. Can you look at your Orpington Family and know whether or not they may have been sent to relatives in the country and the country may mean just a bit further south of Orpington into Kent Countryside, Sussex or Surrey or further afield even to the North of England? Kent and London people were victims of the Doodle bugs and the V2 Rockets of 1944/5 and so a pregnant woman may well have been evacuated with her other children into the country to live with other relatives in safer areas if it had been a private evacuation or sent by Local Authorities to other areas altogether and many London, Kent and Essex evacuees were sent to Cornwall/Devon/Somerset/Dorset during the war and remained in these places until the end of the war. In fact many did not return to their home areas until a coulple of years after the war. Suggest you do some homework in Orpington Library to see where people who lived in the area may have gone or can you do some other detective work from your own knowledge of your familly? These were desperate years for families and so many upheavals were taking place. I have spent many hours researching evacuation of Plymouth people and the information available is very sketchy due to the Wartime conditions. Was the father in one of the Services so was a baby expected of a short leave reunion? Born in March may not have been registered until at least 6 weeks and may be later as although there was a requirement to register in six weeks, wartime will have brought its own disruptions. It is worth checking births until the end of 1944 just in case there was some disruption. Born in March, he would not be in the register until the June Quarter and he may have missed the June deadline for whatever reason, so you may find him in the September Quarter and even the December Quarter. Janet

I have a friend born in 1940 (not sure where, but somewhere in England) who wasn't registered for a year!! and the certificate actually records her birth as being in 1941. Since she isn't eligible for an aged pension.... but if she had been, she would have had problems. So yes, anything is possible although I have no doubt her parents would have been 'in trouble' had someone twigged in the first year, that she wasn't registered. Victoria

Thanks for all the suggestions, the reason I'm trying to find him is to find his mothers maiden name and he was an only child. His name is definately just John, I've found a lot of names just they all have a middle initial. I've checked all the way to the end of 1945 just in case with no luck.

Do you already have his marriage certificate? It should give his father's name and occupation, which might help you to find his parents' marriage certificate if his father had a rare first or combination of first and middle names, but of course if his father was John too it might not help that much! Kate.