When tracing back ancestory and you find no trace of your fathers birth in the parish records and?

Question

nothing appears under the name stated on his birth certificate and that you think that your father's real surname was different from that shown on the birth certificate. I talking circ 1912 here.

It would seem that my father was not who he thought he was and that his real father could have had him adopted through chancery into another family to save face.

How can I follow this through as I have come up against a brick wall...no one registered with my Fathers surname.

Answer 1

try looking in the census records of that location, if there was a child born in that area, it should be listed, back track from there, be mindful of variations of spelling changes, they were really common backthen, especially by someone who intentionally did not want to be found

Answer 2

Start asking family members question? Who did it, when, why and where?

Answer 3

I  think it is Americans talking about censuses. It seems from the wording of your question that you are in the UK. Our next census due out isn't until January 2012, and that is only up to March 1911, so he won't be on there. It will be another 10 years after that, when he would be a child of perhaps 9, don't think it would be helpful.

If your Father was adopted, it seems strange there is a birth certificate for him. I would have expected to have found a Baptism entry and no birth certificate. Have you tried the Church Baptism register for the local area? If so, what about Non-Conformist registers? Your County Studies Library could help on that.

One line of enquiry may be through the police. Early adoption records were kept at the local police station. Unfortunately many have been destroyed at times when the significance was not realised. The police authorities have changed and merged over time, you would need to find out what police force was operating at the time, and if there is either a police museum for that area, or a police historian who would know what records are available.

If the "adoption" wasn't legal, and his "birth" registered to the wrong parents, I'm afraid you have come up against a brick wall.

Answer 4

where are you searching his name?  i maybe able to help

Answer 5

When I came accross this situation for my father, I searched churches where we thought he was baptised, his army records and the Census Bureau.The Census Bureau does reports every ten years and they had all my father's sibling on record.You may also search school records to see when he first began school. Maybe the Social Security office may have records if he worked or collected social security.

Answer 6

If you have a birth certificate, you have a name and date.  But if you are searching parish records, then perhaps your Dad wasn't baptised until much later, or at all.  Try the local parish churches, and the churches near the hospital where he was born.  Here in Ireland, that far back, many infants were christened on their way home from the hospital,  which may not have been in the home parish.

Answer 7

Just a hunch, but back then records weren't kept as well as they are now. Perhaps something just slipped by