Illegitimate births

If only we could go back and ask questions.

For a long time, I couldnt find any records for my 2xgreat grandfather, Joshua, before his marriage.
There was a father's name written on his marriage certificate, but I couldnt find any trace of anyone with that name, either..

Bit by bit, I have found enough to solve most, though not quite all of it.

Basically, Joshua had been brought up by his grandmother but, judging by the censuses, under the pretence that she was his mother, and that he had a much older brother (his uncle) and a married sister (his real mother), Mary.

It is rather strange, because Mary's husband, Jacob (!!!) was named as the father on the baptism record that I found for Joshua, and Mary and Jacob married only a couple of months after that baptism.

Why, if Jacob was genuinely the father, was Joshua brought up by his grandmother and with her surname?
Was Jacob really the father?
But why would his name be on the baptism record unless he was the father? For his wife-to-be's sake, to make the birth, and her, more respectable?
If that were the case, why wasn't Joshua also raised as Jacob's son, or at the very least given his surname?
There are so many questions that I will never have answers to, but at least I think I now know why Joshua gave the name Jonas when asked his father's name for the marriage certificate. I can just picture him giving his own details then deliberately letting it be assumed that his father's surname was the same as his own.

I fear his wife Ann might have had a similarly complicated background, as I have still not managed to find a single record for her prior to their marriage, even though she was supposedly born in the same area and lived there at the time of the marriage.

"*Grandmama*, Yes, I have heard this about syphilis. The first baby born was usually OK, because the disease hadn't progressed, but for the next few years each baby was affected. they either were miscarried, or died very young or if they survived they might have various disabilities. Then it would go into remission, and pregnancies would be successful, but eventually it would recur and the mother would be seriously ill. Someone estimated that one in seven of the population suffered from syphilis in the 19th century - no wonder mothers told their girls to keep their hands on their ha'penny when dating.

Family history can be a real eye opener. No real illegitimate children found yet. But my Great-Great Grandfather took his life because he kept getting pains in his head. There was a newspaper report that I have a copy of. A female relative died in a workhouse due to hysteria, 3 months after her daughter was born. Reading between the lines she probably had Post Partum depression. A Great Great Aunt married when she was 14. She obviously lied to the priest saying she was 18, age on her marriage certificate, but her birth certificate and census say otherwise. My paternal grandfather died in a Japanese POW, so my Grandmother left my dad [3 years old] with her mother and disappeared up to Glasgow. We found out that she worked in a department store. There she met the man that I knew to be my Grandfather. They went on to live together, on and off, in London, but he also kept company with another woman in the next street. They went on to have two children, but didn't get married until the late 60's. So initially they were illigitimate for a while. It can be a bit addictive finding out what people got up to,

Sorry, my post should not have been ‘attached’ to the one above about the prison birth. My mistake - clumsy fingers!

kjmpde

I remember working with somebody who used to work in a prison. The birth certificate would just give the address eg 222 X Road. When older and researching their family tree etc were quite distressed to find that they were born in a prison

My mother always threatened that if I ever got pregnant without being married, she would throw me out., This was around 1960-65. After she died, I was going through her papers and found family birth and marriage certificates. These showed that my grandparents got married in Dec 1919. My mother was born 6 weeks later!
I wondered why she seemed so horrified about the possibility of me having an illegitimate child, given the past. She was very close to her mother, so it clearly didn’t affect their relationship, yet if I had been so irresponsible, it would certainly have affected ours.
People are weird!

My great grandmother had at least 4 illegitimate children. None of them had a father's name on their birth certificates, except that my grandfather had the name Smith between his 2 first names and his mother's surname. She ran a "boarding house" which I'm convinced was a house of ill repute, because there never seemed to be boarders there on the censuses. I think that it was probably the best way she could provide an education for her children, which she was determined to do to give them a better start in life. A chance she never had herself, and I admire her for it. When I started looking into my family tree, my father said " What do you want to do that for?", so I'm sure that he knew something about his background

The Irish government is paying ccompensation under a so-called redress scheme to all those who were born in a County Mother and Baby home and were there at leasr 6 months. This may become even earlier, as it's before the courts at the moment. Many who were born in Homes in Ireland but now live in the UK may not know of this. It's on www.gov.ie. for anyone interested, Mothers still living are also being paid. The concept of illegitimacy no longer legally exists in Ireland.

I only discovered after my mum died that her parents didn’t marry until she was 12. I knew her father had been married before and had several children. He was 60 when mum was born. Her mother had been married and had a couple of children but she ran off with someone else and had more children. She ended up in a Workhouse. Then she met my grandfather who was over 20 years older. They lived together and had 6 children (including my mum) but couldn’t marry until my grandmother’s first husband had died. They couldn’t afford a divorce. What a tangled web etc.

On the other hand, OH’s father was illegitimate. Sadly, not long after OH was born, with his father’s mother living in the house, she killed herself. Apparently she thought she was in the way. OH doesn’t remember her. OH’s father, who was a difficult man and never used my Christian name, always felt he had been badly treated.

A friend of mine knew her mother had been adopted and, if l remember correctly, her grandmother was a servant. There was no record of the father and we have often wondered if he was one of the sons of the family who owned the house. This would have been around 100 years ago and such situations were all too common, sadly. It could well be the case that a number of the illegitimate births were because of this type of situation.

I even just looked now at the birth certificate of my child. I am there put as my husband's surname and my maiden name is recorded also in a separate row

If you married to the man, historically you are his mrs. So what is the difference

I kept my birth surname on my passport because found it a bit hassle to change it to my husband but actively use my husband's surname on all my English documents and always provide both the passport and the marriage certificate. Seems the English authorities, jobs, all of them have no issue with knowing who I am. My child has her father's surname

My maternal great grandfather was illegitimate and it was only by doing my DNA that I found that his mother had been impregnated by her employers son. He was from the big house where she was a maid! He had another illegitimate child in the same village in Cambridgeshire.
He subsequently went to Australia ( might have been sent there in disgrace!) and finally married out there. My DNA picked up his granddaughter and she contacted me and told me the story. Up till then I had a complete blank on that part of the family.
She had all his letters about gold mining in the late nineteenth century and they are fascinating
Love family history!

Yes, and certainly a few cases of the first child born 6 months after the parents’ marriage!

Plenty of illegitimate births. But none. Of the women were thrown out of their home by outraged parents, the babies just joined the family. In the same way that parents took. I'm widowed daughters and their children
It didn't stop unmareied women with a child, marrying someone who. Just accepted their child as one of the family. Sometimes if you were a widower with children who needed looking after quickly such a woman was an ideal new wife

I remember working with somebody who used to work in a prison. The birth certificate would just give the address eg 222 X Road. When older and researching their family tree etc were quite distressed to find that they were born in a prison

Some generations back an ancestor on my father's side had a boy that she gave her surname and the father wasn't named. The mother was a witness at her son's wedding and described herself as 'singlewonan'. My maiden surname would have been different had she not given her son hers.
I was born 'out of wedlock' as were my 2 GDGs but happily no-one cares now.

My 2x GGrandmother wasn’t married to her son’s Father at his birth, but they married later though GGrandfather bore her surname, as do the rest of our family descendants. They were from farming stock and I was told it was a regular situation to ensure the female would be productive to ensure the continuation of the family line. Looking back further in my ancestry there are other similar occurrences.

Many years ago on a family history programme, bigamy cropped up. Divorce used to be difficult and costly but with few people having telephones and no social media it was relatively easy to move to another part of the country and re-marry and not be found out. The programme looked at a couple (I think the bigamist couple) who had several children then a gap of a few years, then more children and it was suggested that syphilis could have been the reason for the gap, that it can go into remission. Possibly syphilis was caught after the first children, causing the death or non-conception of children for a few years, then it went into remission and one or two more children appeared. Has anyone else heard of this?

A relative of mine was imprisoned in Inveraray Jail for child murder. She was unmarried and already had one illegitimate child. I don’t know the details as she became ill and died there. It could have been a cot death I suppose.

My late Dad would never tell me anything about his early childhood and I accepted it. However, recently I was doing a bit of research into fils history and thought I'd see if I could find anything on Dad. I did. He was born illegitimately in the workhouse. I now realise why he gave me nice things, not spoilt but things I really appreciated.

Some areas in the U.K. are still gossipy about this subject.

I have been interested in our Family History and for about 10 years.
It’s fascinating how many couples ‘had’ to get married, even my own living relatives.
Still stigma around that around here.

I was sad to find out that my great grandmother died in an asylum in 1914. She had syphilis. This was never spoken of. I only found out through Ancestry
.com.

My favorite subject. Amazing facts come to light like one great auntie married a bigamist. My grandmother had 5 children after my grandfather died, very young..she had 4 of those were born children before she married the father..
My husband's Great grandmother had 2 illegitimate children..
It put the cat among the pidgeons when my then future in laws were against my husband marrying me with an illegitimate child..they wanted better for their only child!!
But,marry we did, my husband adopted my son, a ready made family. We never had any children, but had 64 wonderful years until he passed away.
I discovered my father's mother had 6 children by my grandfather, she left him during WW1. Went on to have 4 and used tge fathers name herself and the children . Those 4 had no idea the parents weren't married until the funeral..as practicing Catholics they were horrified. Ancestry is a marvelous tool.

Yes I found two in my family history. The wife of my mum's uncle had a boy in 1910. She was only 19 and found to have tried to conceal the dead body. She pleaded guilty and the record says - Bound over in £10 to come up for judgement if called upon.
My own dad was born in 1899 but his parents didn't marry until 1901. His father died in 1902 in South Africa in the 2nd Boer War.