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Topic: Is it possible to find the father of an illegitimate child? (Read 567 times)
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ScottishAncestry
RootsChat Member
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Posts: 134
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Hi,
You might be interested in this link on the Scottish general board: http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,288594.0.html we have been discussing the same thing.
It's one of those things that there is no conclusive answer to. Sometimes the OPR’s or the Kirk sessions tell you who the father was but by 1890 they often don’t. I always look at the records that do exist just in case.
So personally I would say it’s worth a try but if you’re not able to visit the National Archives yourself it can be difficult or expensive to check them all.
Emma
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aghadowey
RootsChat Marquessate
Offline
Posts: 5758
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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Sometimes, in a country district, the neighbours have a fair idea of everything that went on in the area. Where I lived there are 3 or 4 people, aged 70-90, who can usually supply the name of a missing father.
Another idea is to ask different branches of the family. Last year a woman came to me looking for information about her illegitimate mother's father. Her mother was raised by her grandmother and never told anything but a first cousin recently told her who the father had been (he was surprised that no one had ever mentioned it before but he had the details from his mother).
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aghadowey
RootsChat Marquessate
Offline
Posts: 5758
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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Most people didn't put birth announcements in the newspaper in those days and would be highly unlikely to find one for an illegitimate child.
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aghadowey
RootsChat Marquessate
Offline
Posts: 5758
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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Toni- I have been through hundreds of years of newspapers and never remember seeing a birth announcement for an illegitimate child put in the newspaper - except perhaps a member of a royal family or very noble family.
One of the most likely places to find an illegitimate father's child is in baptismal records (depending on whether or not the clergyman put down the information).
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julieann1
RootsChat Senior
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Posts: 499
Looking for ancestors
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Thank you all for your suggestions. She is not a direct ancestor, so I think I'll have to let this one go. It is just that it was a mystery, I had never heard of her being illegitimate, and my grandma spent a lot of time with these aunts and uncles, until I got the 1891 census and then her birth cert. It's possible that Frances herself thought that Gideon was her father, and there is a possibility that he was. I am really interested in this because it would be a light on Gideon's character (my g-grandfather). I have heard stories about him being a difficult character, but on the other side one of his daughters once told me that he was 'a good man'. Did he bring up someone elses child as his own? He was illegitimate himself, and brought up by his grandparents (which seems to have been the usual pattern), which may have given him the insight to do something different. Or he could have been Frances' father, but not married her mother as he was working and living away in Ayr.
Unfortunately, all the remaining members of the family where in ignorance her illegitimacy.
Julie
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BELL;TWEEDIE;PITTILLO/PATTILLO;WATSON;JOHNSTONE;PALMER;MOFFAT:DOBIE;BEATTIE:-dms
HYSLOP;MANSON;CURRIE;JAMIESON;BEATTIE:-Ayr
HOOKER;DYSON;SEABROOKE;DYER;DREWELL;STOCKWELL;CRIPPS;-London
BENDALL-Bristol
WOODEN/WOODIN;JARRETT-Surrey
MURCH;HARRIS;POPE:-Devon QUARM-Devon,London,Anywhere
RUMBLE;HIBBERD;-Wilts
MARTIN - Dorset,Somerset
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