Info much appreciated regarding child born before a marriage .

[ky78]

Hi,
I have been trying 2 find my grt grandfathers birth since starting researching my family a Year ago with no luck, though i think i may of finally found him, though his birth reg states that he is an illegitamate child.
The age range matches and it states his mother as who i have as being his mother.

Could anybody please tell me if when a child is born though the parents arent married is it common for the mother to put the child's fathers surname as a middlename and the child to then later in life use his middlename as his surname? Or could it be that his parents married after his birth hence then his middlename then becomming his surname?

I am from Australia and am not sure how the surname change etc works.

Any info greatly appreciated.
Best regards
Kylee

[lindadorren]

Hi,

Using the father's surname as a middle name happens quite often but there isn't a set pattern that I have been able to identify. In some families you will find Child 1 born illegitimately will be (for example) Smith Jones and subsequent siblings born after the marriage will be Jones Smith. :confused
I also believe that sometimes the father's name was used as a middlename in order to "encourage" him to acknowledge the child as his!

Don't know if this will help much!

Linda

[airdlass]

I know of at least two people in my family tree who had their natural father's name as their middle name on their birth certificate and later on I found that they used his name as their surname eg on marriage cert .

I think with Scotlands People now it will actually cross index this which can help in the search for your relatives. This has thrown up some surprises sometimes and it also helped me eventually find someone I had searched for for a long time.

[domino]

i have one ancestor who had an illegitimate chid and he was given his mothers surname as a forename and his fathers surname as his surname

[ky78]

Hi Linda, Airdlass + Domino,
Thanks 4 ur relpies 2 my message.

Airlass,
My ancestor had as in ur case used his middlename on his marriage cert as his surname, so id been searching for his birth cert on what he had put on his marriage cert.
I did a search regarding using birth his mothers surname and his fathers on Scotlandspeople and thats how i found that he had been registered under his mothers surname and having his fathers surname as his middlename.
Thanks again to u all 4 ur replies
Kylee :-)