« on: Friday 29 January 21 22:53 GMT (UK) »
I, as I am sure many other do in FH, will find lots of instances of brides being pregnant at the time of marriage, some of them just pregnant, and others in advanced stages of pregnancy.
I was just discussing this on another thread about my several times great gran who married in May 1784, and gave birth to her first child on the 15th July 1784. Conception date about October 1783, and married at 7 months pregnant. She lived in Bethnal Green, her dad was a Bethnal Green weaver. The man she married in 1784 was also a Bethnal Green weaver 9 years her senior. The child born in July 1784 is my direct ancestor, who later became a cotton winder, and herself was 7 months pregnant when she married in 1806. Like mother, like daughter.
I know most instances the groom probably was the father, as in a shotgun wedding, but there was a percentage of pregnant women who found a man to marry who was not the blood father, so as to try and look respectable. Maybe she had a fling with a man or a trial marriage that did not work out. Or he took fright at fatherhood and did a moonlight flit and was never seen again by the woman who was expecting his baby.
Researching:
LONDON, Coombs, Roberts, Auber, Helsdon, Fradine, Morin, Goodacre
DORSET Coombs, Munday
NORFOLK Helsdon, Riches, Harbord, Budery
KENT Roberts, Goodacre
SUSSEX Walder, Boniface, Dinnage, Standen, Lee, Botten, Wickham, Jupp
SUFFOLK Titshall, Frost, Fairweather, Mayhew, Archer, Eade, Scarfe
DURHAM Stewart, Musgrave, Wilson, Forster
SCOTLAND Stewart in Selkirk
USA Musgrave, Saix
ESSEX Cornwell, Stock, Quilter, Lawrence, Whale, Clift
OXON Edgington, Smith, Inkpen, Snell, Batten, Brain