GT grandmother expecting baby while husband in Hereford Asylum ........

[Marmalady]

" Her marriage certificate has two dashes under father and his occupation.  If David was her father .... Why do that?"

The Registrar can only write down what s/he was told at the time.
The question asked is "who is your father?" and the bride can say anyone she wants, or say "I haven't got one" -- there is no checking done

With 3 years between Kathleens birth and her mother's remarriage to David, there is no proof that David was Kathleen's father. He might be, or the unknown man from the Forest could equally be the father

I have an instance in my tree where there are only dashes for fathers name & occupation so i assumed illegitimacy untill i tracked the bride back in the censuses and she was born well after her parents marriage and her father was alive & well at the time of her marriage
I also have a couple of instances where the fathers name is actually wrong (John instead of Thomas)


You could well have reached the end of the line on this branch!

[sophiewilliams]

Yes Marmalady think you could be right on this one - it's just a hard pill to swallow!

George died in Jan 1916 and that left Alice free to marry.  Why did she leave it till Sept 1917 to re-marry as you say, if David was her father.  My suspicion is now even more that David wasn't and that the man who was maybe was killed in the war ......

Think will have to leave this one alone 

[sophiewilliams]

I have now found out that Alice had a baby boy who lived a year and died in 1912 ...... I'm thinking that this was because of George's syphilis. (Birth and death certs in post)

  My mum and I are now wondering if my grandmother was actually George's after all and the reason she didn't have a birth certificate wasn't because she was illegitimate - as we had always been lead to believe ..... But because she was born when her father was in the Asylum, what an awful thing to put on a birth certificate in those times .... This is only a thought.  We will not know because of difficulty obtaining asylum records from records office as to date of admittance. 

My question is, Is it possible to have a healthy child, my grandmother, after losing a baby to syphilis?  Or is the fact she was healthy more evidence she wasn't Georges.  So many questions!

[Jool]

Hi Sophie, a bit of googling found this
"the father of the child may be syphilitic, but if the disease has not been transmitted to the mother the child will be born free of infection."

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020134syphilis/020134syphilis-ch5.htm

Jool

[sophiewilliams]

Very interesting thank you!

[Sloe Gin]

I have now found out that Alice had a baby boy who lived a year and died in 1912 ...... I'm thinking that this was because of George's syphilis. (Birth and death certs in post)

  My mum and I are now wondering if my grandmother was actually George's after all and the reason she didn't have a birth certificate wasn't because she was illegitimate - as we had always been lead to believe ..... But because she was born when her father was in the Asylum, what an awful thing to put on a birth certificate in those times .... This is only a thought.  We will not know because of difficulty obtaining asylum records from records office as to date of admittance. 

My question is, Is it possible to have a healthy child, my grandmother, after losing a baby to syphilis?  Or is the fact she was healthy more evidence she wasn't Georges.  So many questions!

I don't quite understand what you're getting at.  Only the father's name would appear on the birth certificate, not his address.  The addresses given would be place of birth, and the address of the informant, who would probably be the mother.  So there would be no mention of the asylum on the certificate.

[sophiewilliams]

Thank you for your reply.... Back to plan A then, my grandmother was illegitimate and thats why she didn't have a birth certificate.