Illegitimacy - how have you handled it on your Family Tree?

[MrsLizzy]

When I met the great granddaughter of my great great grandfather I was very nervous about telling her he was illegitimate, rather than the son of a rather well-off German family.  She told me she thought it very peculiar that I was so worried about telling her!  You can't win, can you?!

 

[newbie]

Tallted,
Thanks to your excellent link I just found the attestation papers of one of my rellies!
Thank you very much,
Newbie

[booger]

Both of my great-gran's parents were illegitimate. It was difficult enough to deduce which Elizabeth Brown was her mother, so I wouldn't risk guessing which man could be the father. It turned out that her mother was Jane Brown - birth certificate didn't have a father's name, village was right, date matched census age/marriage cert. age etc., and Jane was the middle name of my great-gran, so I'm convinced.

Jane was obviously young in 1852 and with the conception being 116-years before I was born I've no way of knowing who her boyfriends were. I could guess, but...

[leagen]

I just found an interesting bit of info about my father.  Family history says his father's wife couldn't have kids so the father took a mistress to have kids.  The mistress died when my father was born and the father took the kids home to his wife and she raised them as her's.  I have a trial to Anc.com and I found that only part of that story is true.      This is the story:  A man and woman lived together as common- law couple.  They had 5 kids in 5 years and 2 died right away.  Then the woman had my father (# 6 kid for her) by A Different man and she did die then.  Her common- law husband farmed most of the kids out to rellys but by the time my father was 7 the man had actually married a woman and the man took my father (Who wasn't even his) to that wife and she raised him as her own.  He never brought the kids who were his by common-law wife home tho.  Oh, he also had a dau. by another woman Before he had the ones w/common-law wife and until she died the common-law wife raised That girl!   I think it is safe to say the man I always thought was my grandfather really Got Around!  And he wasn't really my grandfather.  But I do have a last name for the man who really was now.  And I now have a name for my true grandmother.  And My last  name isn't what I was given at birth.  Instead of my father being an Ortiz y Martinez he was a  Rivera y Merreo. It gets worse.  In P.R. your father's paternal name is your middle name and your mother's paternal name is your last name (Juan Ortiz y Martinez=son of Senor Ortiz and Senora Martinez) so when he came to U.S. my father should have been Senor Ortiz but because he never stops using the mother's name it got mixed up and he was always called Senor Martinez which is the last name I was born with.  So my father was born Juan Rivera y Merreo but by age 16 was called Juan Ortiz y Martinez (The two who raised him) and ended up being Juan Ortiz (middle name) Martinez (Last name).  So I am not a Martinez Or an Ortiz But really a Rivera!  I think I just lost myself and better check a census to see if I exist!      Leagen

[supernova7]

Birth Certificates - Can you really believe what you find in these records?

I wonder if others have come across the situation where I suspect a mother may have tried to disguise the birth of her daughter's illegitimate child... well I'd like your opinion on this story:

After months of investigation and ordering wrongs birth certs etc I finally received the real birth cert of my g grandfather John G Martin.  But on his certificate, his mother, Mary,  is listed as someone I had previously thought was his grandmother, and the birth cert does not list the name of a father, even though I believe that Mary was still married to her husband James at the time of John G's birth. Mary was age 46 at the time of the birth, so it is not a biological impossibility.

What makes me curious, other than the age of Mary, is that the 1871 census records my  John G as living with Alfred Chapman (head) and Mary Ann (wife, who was the daughter of Mary from a previous marriage). John G is listed as son in law which had lead me to assume that he was Mary Ann's son, illegitimately or from a previous marriage . Mary was also in the house at the time as was listed as mother in law or mother of Mary Ann, which is true from other sources.

So is it possible that Mary tried to cover up her daughter Mary Ann's illegitmate birth by listing herself as mother or can I always assume that what I read on birth certificates is the gospel truth?

[Manchester Rambler]

Supernova - I think your first impression is probably true, and John G was Mary Ann's illegitimate child.  I have 2 cases in my own family where a woman declared that a child was hers, while it was common knowledge in the family that it was really her daughter's baby.  If John G was born before 1861, have you found the family on that census?  It would be intersting to see what relationship is stated there.

MR

[TimeSearcher2020]

I expected to find many more (and recent) replies here, especially now that DNA evidence is surely presenting researchers with many verifiable NPEs (non-paternal events) and MPEs (mis-attributed paternal events). So the new question is how will you handle illegitimacy once you find it on your family tree? And how will you cite sources for DNA matches (who are probably still alive) in case of illegitimacy?

[pharmaT]

I expected to find many more (and recent) replies here, especially now that DNA evidence is surely presenting researchers with many verifiable NPEs (non-paternal events) and MPEs (mis-attributed paternal events). So the new question is how will you handle illegitimacy once you find it on your family tree? And how will you cite sources for DNA matches (who are probably still alive) in case of illegitimacy?

I have a case of illegitimacy case in my tree.  My initial clues were the child's name including middle name which was then passed down the family.  There was also a side note by the minister on the baptism. Then the records of the Kirk Session when she had to go to the parish for support.  The alleged father was from 200miles away but I researched the career of the alleged father and did manage to prove that he was based local to the mother a coupled of months either side of the likely conception.  I now have DNA matches who have this family on their tree via legitimate births (according to their online trees anyway). 


The only reference to this family that I have made on my public tree is the use of the middle name in the family coming forward.  I my private tree I have recorded all the research I have done to draw my conclusions.

[Regorian]

My grandfather had a brother John II 1864 to 1929. He was associated with a woman and they had a male child 1921 to 2001. There is issue now. I have included on my Tree. I may try and contact the living relatives and see what they think.