Re: Spoiler Tuesday 1st Dec.

Where the mother is unmarried, the child will be registered
with the mother's
surname /unless/ the father accepts paternity and is present
at the
registration of the child. In that case his name will be on
the birth
certificate (as opposed to "unknown") and the child will
carry the father's
surname.

Is there no discretion in the matter? I mean, supposing the
couple were only friends and no more by the time the child was
born, and while admitting joint responsibility for the
financial upkeep of the child, and declaring a "genetic"
interest, the father, by mutual consent, was not going to live
with the mother - who might by that time be on the brink of a
new relationship - and was free to go an lead his own life
and she hers - does the law _really_ say that the child _has_
to bear the father's surname?
I haven't looked at a birth certificate for years, but I
thought it used to say what first names the child had, and
what the full names of the parents were, but did not assign a
surname to the child. OAM?

I can't comment on how the rules work in England, but I have
seen several birth certificates where the mother is described
along the lines of 'Jean Bloggs wife of John Bloggs whom she has
not seen for three years and who she declares is not the father
of the child, maiden surname Soap' or 'Maggie Smith, wife of
Jimmy Smith who died on <insert date more than 9 months before
the birth of the child>, maiden surname Broon'. In the indexes,
the child of Jean Bloggs would be indexed under both Bloggs and
Soap, and in the latter case it would be indexed as both Smith
and Broon.

If the father accompanies the mother and signs the register
along with her, the child is also indexed under his surname. So
you can get one birth registered under three different names.
(There's an added complication if one or more of the surnames is
double-barrelled, but I won't bore you with that.)

The father cannot have his name added retrospectively to the
original birth certificate , though it can be recorded in the
Register of Corrected Entries, and in this case the father's
surname is also added to the index.

How all this impinges on parental rights I don't know.

Anne B


.

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  • Re: Spoiler Tuesday 1st Dec.
    ... surname /unless/ the father accepts paternity and is present at the ... registration of the child. ... and declaring a "genetic" interest, the father, by mutual consent, was ... parents were, but did not assign a surname to the child. ...
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