My foreign birth registration application has been rejected because Dad’s name is not on my birth certificate. My parents and I thought this had all been rectified in 1976 but it appears not and Dad would be very upset.
I was born in July 1954, before my parents married. My dad had been in the Merchant Navy since wartime and was at sea by the time my mother registered my birth in August 1954, so the registrar told her Dad’s name could not be put on my birth certificate because they were unmarried. She was still using her maiden name at the time and they didn’t get married until 1957, when Dad left the navy. They were a bit embarrassed about this but my parents believed children were legitimised by their parents’ Catholic marriage and never realised they could have added his name retrospectively to my birth certificate. I was just known by dad’s surname and knew no different. I went to school and right through my university education using that surname, unaware of any discrepancy.
It was only just before my degree exams & I was away at University. I was 21 years old and needed a passport for my first job overseas, so I got my birth certificate and realised (to my horror) the wrong surname was on it. Dad took legal advice. His solicitor said the cheapest and quickest was to get my urgently needed passport was to change my name by deed poll to that by which I had always been known, so in 1976 I did this. I sent this document and copies of my school certificates, Cert. Ed and B.Ed. Hons degree (all in dad’s surname) to Dublin with other required documents. Dad’s name is, of course, on my marriage certificate.
I sent the explanation above with my application but they won’t believe Dad is my father unless I get his name added to my birth certificate retrospectively, otherwise he will not process my application.
Now, I am sixty-five years old and Dad passed away 10 years ago and my mother 20 years ago. I spoke to several really helpful people at the Registrar’s Office here today but they don’t think Dad’s name can be added now. They thought it unlikely I would get a Declaration of Paternity from the Courts, as all Dad’s siblings have passed away, so no reliable DNA could be obtained. They said that the normal process in cases like this is for the child, if an adult over 18, to change to their father’s name by Deed Poll, which I had already done in 1976.
I think this is really unfair on “illegitimate” children, as there are loads of people born within wedlock who are not who they think they are! I never thought there would be specific rules for children whose parents marry after the birth of their children.
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