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Hi was just wondering if you could steer me in the right direction please.asking on behalf of a friend .my friends daughter will be 21 in two weeks time when her mother register the birth she felt under pressure to put the fathers name on .she did put some one down but now not sure if it was the right man as at the time there was two .how does she go about to find the right father would she have to contact both the men to get D.N.A My friend is 42 and her daughter is 21soon so happened a long time ago . neither men have been in their lifes . hope some one could help thanks

She would need to get dna from either man or family member

Maybe just do her own dna and see if she gets any hits on possible family tree match

HI thankyou for your help.i will tell her when im in work tomorrow

I don’t think the friend can effect the change to a birth certificate. it has to be the mother or one of the fathers. Her dna test would need to be done by an ‘approved’ company.

Janette’s friend can google this to find the right gov.uk page.

i thought the father had to go to reg the birth if his name on certificate

Not if the mother was married to the man she named.

Hi Malyon,it was 21 years ago my friend had a one night stand then met some one lasted a week and that was that . she had no idea she was expecting ,her mother went with her to reg the birth and told her she had to put some one down as the father. so she chose one of the blokes wich was very wrong . wrong advice a mother could give her daughter.

How did they manage to name someone who wasn't there, and to whom the mother wasn't married?

Or have the legal requirements changed to reflect the countless illegitimate births there are nowadays?

it was different then .its all changed now both parents have to be there now

I've always understood that to be the other way round until very recently.

hi just asked my friend she says she went with her mum and both parents did not have to be there it was 18 5 2000

It was certainly the case that in the past unmarried fathers had to be present at the registration to be named on the certificate We had legal advice on an inheritance issue.

Parental responsibility rules change in 2003.

I know someone who was not able to name a child's father on a 1995 birth certificate, because the man was not present.
There was no question that he was the father and he acknowledged the child as his.

The current situation - in England/Wales. You don't say where the birth was registered:

Unmarried parents

The details of both parents can be included on the birth certificate if one of the following happens:

they sign the birth register together
one parent completes a statutory declaration of parentage form and the other takes the signed form to register the birth
one parent goes to register the birth with a document from the court (for example, a court order) giving the father parental responsibility
https://www.gov.uk/register-birth/who-can-register-a-birth

If the birth was in England/Wales, one has to think that someone must have lied - to the effect that the parents were married.