Deceased father on birth certificate ?

I have a birth certificate and the fathers name is on, but mother was a widow at the time. All surnames are the same(mothers maiden name is also present). Was it allowed in 1891 for this to be so, should the certificate not have had deceased in brackets written on too?

 

Could it be that it depends on what questions she was asked. Maybe they just asked 'Name of Father?'

 

Was the mother shown as a widow on the certificate? If so, it is odd that the father wasn't shown as deceased. Otherwise, unless the registrar had specifically asked, or the mother had volunteered the information, then the father wouldn't be shown as deceased.

In general, a woman's husband was assumed to be the father of her child unless their was good reason to believe he was not. This would also apply if the husband died before the birth - providing he hadn't died too long before the birth.

 

Thnaks Pauline. The mother is down as a widow in the census the month before the birth. The history of the family is sketchy, so when I got the birth certificate I was surprised to see a father. I thought fathers had to be present for their name to be added and logically if deceased I thought it would say as it often does on a marriage certificate. I can't even prove she was married as she has recently come back from USA as a widow aged 23, with her mother and a daughter with a different surname!

 

A father only had to be present in order for his name to be added if he wasn't married to the mother. If the mother was - or said she was - married then she could give her husband's name as the father without him being there.

But saying she was married to the father doesn't prove she actually was - in 1891 lots of people preferred not to admit a child had been born out of wedlock.