How many Bastards do you have in your tree

[mitchell]

I've lost count 

My granny was one of four children born to my great granny...each child had a different father and great granny never married.

My 2x great granny had three children to her husband and seven more children after he died... all to different fathers.

There are quite a few more in my tree 

Elaine

[sunflower]

Hi

I have a lady (perhaps not the right word) in my family tree that had 4 illigitimate children before she married. The funny part is that her surname was BREEDING. She certainly lived up to her name.

Sunflower

[mikehicks]

It changes on a daily basis 

Seriously though my gt grandmother was illegitimate. She was born Challinor, raised as a Rushton, married a man christened Jones, and they had a son who was a Cartledge!! Beat that!

[Shesmiff]

I stopped counting, but what amazes me is that there was ever so much stigma attached to being illegitimate, almost every family I've come across had illegitimate offspring in it somewhere.

I could actually slap my gr. grandmother for all the time and expense she has cost us in tracing the tree.

My mother  thought her great aunt was her grandmother and that her father only had a brother and a sister, all illegitimate.

It turns out that gt. grandmother's husband cleared off to the U.S. and forgot to send for her and the 5 kids so she appears to have given them away, moved in with some man (unknown) and had my grandfather at age 42.

Her oldest daughter, who my mum thought was her gran helped raise him, as did his half brother and another half sister.

We traced this branch of the "family" all the way back to Ireland in the late 18th century only to find out that grandfather was Ann's illegitimate son and not her daughter's child which meant, of course, that grandfather was a Gibbons by name only and all the research had been a waste of time.

I suppose Ann had been able to  give him the Gibbons name as it was her legal name but it has been very confusing.

Sheila

[alcrighton]

Rob,

Looks like your poll results are showing a bimodal distribution.  I think this tells us that our ancestors fell into two categories:

1.  Made the odd mistake
2. Didn't give a damn

Cheers,

Al

[MarieC]

Good comment, Al!! 

MarieC

[liverpool annie]

bimodal distribution

'cuse me Mr C !  ....... but does that phrase come from your French research then 
My family are as pure as the driven snow .... as my Immaculate Conception great Grandmother shows ...... 

[bearkat]

The Rev John Monkhouse made a note in the parish register of Bramshott, Hants:

"Of the 72 marriages in the last 10 years, ending 1820, not less than 69 females have been unchaste before marriage"

extract from Comyn's New Forest

So, it's looks as if you only got married if you had to in Bramshott.

[Rebecca Steele]

I'm quite surprised actually, I've only got one so far and that was 1900, so it looks like nearly all my girls were good ones!