inheriting twice

badmemory

It is always possible that the birth certificate shows the grandmother as the mother.

Yorkshireman99

PasturesNew wrote: »

My guess is that he'd have not been officially adopted. Back then, inter-family, it just rarely happened unless the taker was taking the child because the parent was a danger to the child.

This type of thing is quite common and normal - daughter gets pregnant, her parents take the child and the daughter gets on with her life. My gt-granny did it twice, with both her daughters' events.... and no adoption went on at all. It's just how people lived. The attitude was to just "take them in and bring them up", legal stuff was much less likely back then. It was also common to not tell the child.

When I was growing up there was a LOT of this going on... if your daughter got pregnant and you could take the child in, you did that.

You may well be right but it is a guess which simply is not enough in this case. Far more credence is given to birth certificates as a means of identity proof than should be. I once helped administer a small pesion fund with just fifty members employed in dairying. One new employee was unable to produce his birth certificate as his birth had never been registered. Fortunately with the help of several sworn statements were able to prove his parentage and get his birth regisatered. This was almost fifty years ago and was not a simple task by any means.

PasturesNew

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

You may well be right but it is a guess which simply is not enough in this case.

I wasn't saying it would be good enough - just that, back then, people didn't "adopt", they just took kids in .... so to expect the outcome to be that there wasn't an adoption.

Of course all correct routes/documents need to be produced/seen so everybody knows what's what.

Margot123

There is a similar thread from a couple of months ago. The claimant had to prove via DNA as the court would not accept just the birth certificate.

Margot123

PasturesNew wrote: »

I wasn't saying it would be good enough - just that, back then, people didn't "adopt", they just took kids in .... so to expect the outcome to be that there wasn't an adoption.

Of course all correct routes/documents need to be produced/seen so everybody knows what's what.

This is very true and continued well into the 1970s, as far as I am aware.
Seldom were the children officially adopted as there would have been shame brought on the family had they not simply 'got on with things' and allowed their daughters to have opportunities in life without the encumbrance of a child in addition to being ostracised .

Times have changed a lot, thank goodness.

Yorkshireman99

PasturesNew wrote: »

I wasn't saying it would be good enough - just that, back then, people didn't "adopt", they just took kids in .... so to expect the outcome to be that there wasn't an adoption.

Of course all correct routes/documents need to be produced/seen so everybody knows what's what.

Apologies. When someone says "I guess" it sets alarm bells going because it often means they have no idea! As M123 rightly says the practice did continue a long time. As an amateur genealogist it caused me great confusion over a great uncle. I subsequently found out that his birth in the late nineteenth century had been registered as a son to his granny. The clue was in his registration when he joined the navy. When I mentioned it to another relative it produced a vitriolic denial which was really all the proof I really needed! A picture of him sat on his grandfather's knee inscribed saying it was his grandson produced more bluster!

Keep_pedalling

Margot123 wrote: »

There is a similar thread from a couple of months ago. The claimant had to prove via DNA as the court would not accept just the birth certificate.

I think you mean this one.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5718719

As in virtually all cases requiring DNA testing it relates to paternity, requiring a DNA test to prove you are your mother’s child would only be needed if their was any doubt about your identity or if their was no documentation of the birth.