How were illigitimate children recorded in the past?

L1011

Found some indication that my g-g-grandfather /g-g-grandmother may have had their first child a few years before they got married - in 1881 or 1882 (1883 marriage year - although this is from his RIC record as I can't find their marriage cert)

I also cannot find a birth register entry for him anywhere in existence. Bought the entire set of possibles from the GRO (all of which would have been even further before the marriage date too), none are him

Is there a chance he'd have been recorded with his mother's surname? Or whether it'd have been such a dire "sin" that they'd have hidden the birth to the extent of not registering? Bearing in mind that he was a copper.

Every other child, the g-g-grandmother's death and the g-g-grandfather's second marriage and her death (not a lucky lad eh) are all accurately recorded and I've picked up most of the certs at this stage so they weren't shy of registration.

pedroeibar1

It would be usual to have the child registered in the mother's name unless the father acknowledged the child - I have a record for an illig. birth showing only the mother's maiden name, a dash in the column for 'Father' and a line drawn through 'Formerly' (known as) under the mother's name. Date was 1891.

L1011

Time to trawl through the index books in the GRO then.

The marriage is another mystery but locating that cert won't reveal much - I've found both parents for both of them already for starters. That first son has done a fantastic vanishing act though, even his grandson doesn't know where he is after 1905 despite having kids born as late as the 1920s.

pedroeibar1

MYOB wrote: »

Time to trawl through the index books in the GRO then.

The marriage is another mystery but locating that cert won't reveal much - I've found both parents for both of them already for starters. That first son has done a fantastic vanishing act though, even his grandson doesn't know where he is after 1905 despite having kids born as late as the 1920s.

The marriage witness names might give a useful clue or two. I would be more inclined to spend the time on familysearch first, around the same locality, include neighbouring big towns. The 1891 birth I mentioned above was in a workhouse (town near mother's home). Four years later the mother (and 6 mths pregnant) married X ; the 1891 child (a daughter) was brought up with the children of the X marriage and indeed helped to rear them when X died very young. I suspect that she was the child of X.

L1011

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

The marriage witness names might give a useful clue or two. I would be more inclined to spend the time on familysearch first, around the same locality, include neighbouring big towns. The 1891 birth I mentioned above was in a workhouse (town near mother's home). Four years later the mother (and 6 mths pregnant) married X ; the 1891 child (a daughter) was brought up with the children of the X marriage and indeed helped to rear them when X died very young. I suspect that she was the child of X.

Husband's name is rare enough that I've run out of options for the marriage - seem to remember it only finds three index entries nationwide one of which is his second marriage anyway.

Could have fallen through the cracks of the digitisation of the indexes, obviously. Church records for where I assume they were married were burnt in a fire so no way to check there.

L1011

Just noticed Ancestry don't seem to have 1883 Glenties marriages up. Found a possible match via the LDS for the wife but not the husband there, and checking on FMP its two guesses as spouse aren't any use - but I'll grab the cert next time I'm in. This is a very likely year match going on what other records I have.

If they've not got the 1883 Glenties records for anything it could just have been a family standard 6 month pregnancy so I'll keep digging down that route. Would mean that the son got his age wrong when he got married, but that's not that unlikely.

dido2

I just looked for Glenties Marriages in 1883 and there are over 200 of them, if you want to PM the name I can check for you....

robp

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

It would be usual to have the child registered in the mother's name unless the father acknowledged the child - I have a record for an illig. birth showing only the mother's maiden name, a dash in the column for 'Father' and a line drawn through 'Formerly' (known as) under the mother's name. Date was 1891.

Which do you think is more common?

odds_on

Sometimes she went over to England and the baby was born there - check FreeBMD.

pedroeibar1

robp wrote: »

Which do you think is more common?

From what I’ve heard it was more usual not to name the father in records - often he would deny paternity and in pre DNA days it was impossible to prove it, though as it grew older a child with red hair and a dimpled chin could easily be ascribed to an individual. Denial of paternity also meant no requirement to provide financial support.

Sometimes the purported father’s name was written in the margin of the register by the priest/clerk, who often had a good idea of what was going on in his parish. On other occasions if the father denied responsibility the mother Jane Smith would sometimes register the child using the father’s surname name as a middle name – e.g. John Burke Smith. In other cases the grandmother would sometimes pass off the child of an unmarried daughter as her own, and thus a ‘sibling’ was actually a niece/nephew of the other children. It was equally possible, particularly in the countryside that the pregnant girl was thrown out by the family and thus gave birth in the workhouse (which is where the 1872 birth I mention took place.)

I’m not an expert on this and only know what I do due to research on a few incidences in my extended family tree in 1790 - 1820, 1840’s and in 1872. What struck me initially was that illegitimacy in 19th c Ireland was far more common than I had thought. The first instance I discovered is written in a letter (1850, Ireland) and is a response to a genealogical query from another branch of the family and mentions ‘the large number of illegitimate children’ sired by the respondent’s grandfather and granduncle. The latter two were a physician and an attorney, practicing late 1700’s / early 1800’s. Educated surmise on my part (OK, guesswork based on suitably named individuals that just ‘appear’ in the right place, at the right age, at the right time and otherwise are total genealogical dead-ends) suggests that some of the illegitimate offspring took/were given the father’s surname.

In a c1850 Irish court case I’ve researched the evidence of one of the prosecution witnesses was denigrated by the defense because she had ‘several illegitimate children’ (six I think, born both before her marriage and after her husband had left her to join the army) but the judge in his summation said (+/-) that just because she had ‘disregarded and violated chastity it did not follow that she should not be believed on oath’ .

L1011

Just following up on this - I found the civil cert transcribed on the IFHF site (would have gone broke using GRO indices as its a very common name but the IFHF allowed a parent name search). Kid was illegitimate however from the transcription it looks like they outright lied on the birth cert, giving a maiden name etc. Such wonderful respect for the law from an officer of it :pac:

Now, if the IFHF gave the reference number so I could buy the proper cert to verify the transcription, that'd be great but knowing the date has at least reduced me to only two options.

pedroeibar1

MYOB wrote: »

...... knowing the date has at least reduced me to only two options.

Love when that happens, almost as good as finding the correct / only one!:)

pedroeibar1

I’ve restarted on a difficult line (a Driscol/Driscoll/O’Driscoll connection in/near Cork city) and came across this online copy of part of a parish register which shows the illegitimate status entered under the ‘Remarks’ column.

Waitsian

One of my great aunts had two children out of wedlock, 1902 and 1908, and both are recorded in the parish registers (I've seen the originals, not microfilm) as being illegitimate. The first is named and has '(illeg.)' after his name, no father named. The second is recorded as 'illegitimate, father thought to be XXX XXXXX'. The father of the second child was known then to be the father of the first. The parents of the two married in 1914.

The thing that amazes me is that I know from local knowledge and family stories that she wasn't shunned or ostracized by the community nor by the local priests and nuns. You hear so much about Magdalene laundries, industrial schools and the stigma and shame of being an unwed mother but in her case nothing ill came of it. I can imagine though some subtle pressure was put on the two to marry, which they eventually did indeed do.