RootsChat.Com

What options were there for a single woman of little means to support a lot of children? Before the welfare state and not including the workhouse.

My Margaret was a farm labourer. No marriage and no suspected fathers. Could the father(s) be forced to pay for their children's support - and was that likely in reality? I have heard of bastardy bonds but although I have many illegitimate children in my tree, I only found one where the father had actually been identified as financially responsible. Mostly I found illegitimate children born to one mother numbered one or occasionally two (and then they married). 11 is my all time record and I cannot imagine how Margaret could have supported this many without ever marrying.  Her father was also an ag lab. Small North Yorks rural community.  I can't find the children anywhere, no deaths, marriages or appearing within other households.

Intriguing.

In a word, few. You could apply for the poor rolls, or go to a workhouse. Neither was an appealing prospect.

Maybe my ancestor Emma Auber was a "lady of the night". She had 5 illegitimate children. Unless she was getting financial support from a man. She did give one of her children Gore as a middle name. Again, DNA testing is coming on in leaps and bounds so we may be able to find elusive fathers through autosomal DNA, but I still wonder how much you can actually rely on DNA to smash down those brickwalls?

It would be a mistake to assume that a woman of that era who had multiple illegitimate children was a member of the world's oldest profession. Illegitimacy rates were due to a combination of many factors. Population growth, geographical location, climate, farming practices, religious schisms, and changing cultural and economic conditions would be just a few of those. The vast majority of illegitimate births had nothing to do with prostitution.

Also it's key to note the importance of the different lighting, depth of field, angle of the head, processing and printing, etc. This has an effect on the apparent size of the ears, etc. The hat on the older man also effects the way our eyes percieve things.  It looks like a good 30 or 40 years between these photos, and possibly the first one was professionally taken, while the second may not have been. If indeed it is the same man, and I think it likely is. If it isn't there is certainly a strong family connection.

There really is a lot that goes into this forensic stuff, LOL. I find myself wishing I perhaps had gone a different route in my college career. It's quite an interesting field! And look how well we do just with our home computers! Imagine if we had the million dollar equipment that law enforcement and scientific researchers have!

It's sad that rifts in one generation lead to alienation in another. Seems many tell lies, too. A friend found that his uncles and aunts had told their children that his parents weren't married, when his father had divorced his first wife and remarried. Another person in his family, told a woman that her deceased father was illegitimate, when all that had happened was the mother became pregnant and married when 4-6 months gone.

So it seems there are people who go out of their way to try to legitimise their children and other people who try to de-legitimise legitimate children out of spite.

Sadly, I've learned that one should never underestimate the capacity for human evil. Kindness as well, but it doesn't get as much publicity!

Thanks Monica!