Premature births or wedding anticipation

[robraw]

In my family we have in every generation of premature birth, Many first offsprings were born within 6 months of the marriage.
In Oz I can expalin it in the early days as mnisters of religion were a bit scare and marriages and baptisms occurred ont he same day.  But in England
Were my lot randy or rare
Robraw

[Paul J Ballard]

Robraw,

In earlier times it was incredibly common to have a child before the marriage took place. I have dozens of examples in my tree. I suspect that there are many reasons for this ranging from the fact that some saw the "engagement" as being almost as significant as the marriage through to simply being unlucky 

Paul

[tabitha]

We have a number of bouncing babies born at a terribly premature age!!!!

I have been told that many, many years ago it was quite common for the first child to be born before or shortly after a marriage so the man knew he was marrying a fertile woman.

A sort of old time "try before you buy" situation I suppose 

tabitha

[nutkin]

Yes, there are many a premature birth in my tree in the East Riding of Yorkshire.  Seems they were a promiscuous bunch.

[Bee]

Yes, there are many a premature birth in my tree in the East Riding of Yorkshire.  Seems they were a promiscuous bunch.

Must be something to do with the country air, some of my East Riding branch had very short pregnancies

When I first started family history I used to look for a marriage at least 9 months before the birth, now I start from the birth month and work backwards, it's a lot more successful.

Bee

[BethM]

Ive got a few, which caused me a headache or two..

my most recent find was born only 6 weeks after the marriage - a very short pregnanacy indeed
which now gives me another headache, as my mum is adament that thwere were only four boys born to my G Grandparents and ive found 5....

but all the family photos show 4, and i cant find a death lol - im sure it was either stay a mystery or at somepoint i will find the answer

[maidmarianoops]

anyone else had a father who would not let daughter even sit on a sofa with a boyfriend, then get his own marriage certificate to find he was married christmas eve 1938 and guess who was born in june 1939




sylvia

[saar3]

Two of my ancestors actually married on the day their first child was born - I have both the certificates to prove it. I'm not actually sure which came first, the wedding or the birth but the mind boggles ............

[Salty]

Well I don't know about births before the marriage, but I come from a long line of NO DAD'S myself.

I have one ggg grandma who had four, yes four children, in different villages who had the same surname as mum, but spelt slightly different. Will never know if they had different fathers.

Plus several others who have no fathers name on the birth certificate.

Tom