Illegitimate births

Bigamy on both sides of my family
My grandad did time for it plus his name wasn’t Saunders but Mewitt!!

Like you, Henetha, my Mum was enormously ashamed by her illegitimacy. She was born (as was her sister) as the child of a man who was not her Mum's husband and although the Mum stayed with her husband, everybody in the small village knew. On paper she was registered with her Mum's husband as father. She was ostracised at school and by her biological father's family. Even her Birth father wouldn't acknowledge the relationship when she was grown up and worked for him. On

When I told her I was pregnant by my live in partner she was horrified and wanted me to abort so I wouldn't have an illegitimate child. I wasn't in a position to marry the father as we were both waiting for our divorces.

When my biological grandad became ill, he came to live with me for his final years of care. I always called him, "Uncle," and my youngest child was the only one who called him, "Grandad." He was actually thrilled with that. I encouraged him to write a notarised letter which acknowledged my Mum's relationship to him. She was so pleased.

It was a different age and whilst I sometimes think that people have children on a whim with no record of the father's name because they aren't married, I am so glad that illegitimacy is no longer a barrier to being included in society.

I think that in the wilds of Yorkshire where my ancestors originated, not only was it difficult to get to a church where they could marry, but also a case of "try before you buy". The men needed to know the wife would be fertile and capable of bearing sons to help them in their farming and cutlery business so would have the first child illegitimate. It happened in nearly every case in my family in the 17/early 1800s.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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!

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