The Legitimacy Act 1926 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The purpose of the Legitimacy Act 1926 was to amend the law relating to children born out of wedlock.

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Legitimacy Act 1926

Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to amend the law relating to children born out of wedlock.
Citation	16 & 17 Geo. 5. c. 60
Dates
Royal assent	15 December 1926
Other legislation
Amended by	Legitimacy Act 1959 Children Act 1975
Status: Partially repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted
Text of the Legitimacy Act 1926 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.

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The fundamental principle of the Legitimacy Act 1926 is exposed in article 1(2): "Nothing in this Act shall operate to legitimate a person whose father or mother was married to a third person when the illegitimate person was born." The Act allowed children to be legitimised by the subsequent marriage of their parents, provided that neither parent had been married to a third party at the time of the birth. In those circumstances, the legitimised birth was re-entered in the birth indexes for that year (sometimes many years after the original birth). The original entry would be annotated to refer to the new entry.^[1]

The act was modified by the Legitimacy Act 1959, which extended it to children whose parent(s) had been married to somebody else when they were born.^[1]