When the records don't show the full truth - a cautionary tale

[Stanwix England]

Hi everyone,

This is a cautionary tale, which I am sharing so that others can learn from my mistakes.

I am an amateur, obviously, and have been studying my own family history sporadically for over ten years. I've struggled for a few reasons - chronic illness and dyslexia make it hard to grapple with records - but even though I still make mistakes I've learned lots along the way.

One naive thing I believed was that the records couldn't 'lie' and that people didn't misrepresent themselves.

However in the case of one family member that has turned out not to be true.

Some of you will have seen my various threads about Ralph Harwood, who I previously believed to be my 2x Great Grandfather. I derived part of my username, Stanwix from him as he was descended from that line.

I got my great grandmothers birth certificate years ago and noticed that the section for Father was left blank. Naively I didn't know what that meant, and because she had the surname Harwood, I assumed that she had to be Ralph's child. Plus, she had given Ralph's name on her marriage certificate years later. So I just took it all at face value.

Ralph is not to be found on any records living with his family from after 1881. I'd always assumed that maybe he died or just wasn't in the family home on census day.

My GG Grandmother was living with another man as his servant in 1891. She had to be pregnant with my G Grandmother at the time. Again, it didn't dawn on me.

While searching for Ralph, Ancestry kept showing me a military record for a man called Ralph beginning in 1885, but on the first page of this record it showed me that Ralph had sworn that he wasn't married - which I knew that he was. I didn't bother to read the rest of the document, assuming it was for a different person.

It was only when I searched through the rest of the document on a whim that I noticed that Ralph had given his Mother and sisters, whose names I knew, as his next of kin. No mention of a wife.

All of the little bits of information I'd previously ignored began to fit together and I began to realise that perhaps Ralph wasn't my G Grandma's biological father after all.

Ralph's extensive medical record, which includes brief descriptions of treatment for various horrendous ailments I'd rather not have read  , made it seem likely that he was in India when my G Grandmother was conceived.

I still wasn't 100% sure, I wondered if perhaps he might have travelled home on leave.

I've contacted a military expert and he has told me that Ralph, as an ordinary man and not an officer, would not have been in the country and would have known he was signing up to go abroad for a period of five years or more. Only officers got leave apparently.

Having looked at his military record, I was pretty certain that he wasn't my G Grandma's father but this was the confirmation I was looking for.

So that's a branch of my family tree broken off! Luckily, it was particularly long so I hadn't spent hours and hours over it. Maybe one day with DNA and other clues I'll be able to work out what the true lineage is.

I've enjoyed the experience and have really warmed to this complicated branch of my family and would love to know more.

So as the saying goes "Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear!"

I might keep my username as it is to remind myself to check everything twice and doubt it even then!

[Girl Guide]

Yes, you do have to thoroughly investigate all records available to make sure that you are on the right track.

Common problems are when the bride or groom names a father and then it later turns out that the bride or groom was illegitimate.

Knocking off a few years from their age is another common finding.  I had a great grandmother who took ten years off her age on her marriage certificate thereby appearing younger than she actually was.

Another lady registered the birth of her illegitimate son but gave herself a different surname and made out that she was married when she wasn't.  She got away with it because the registrar would have assumed that she was giving him the correct facts.

A quote below with regards to birth registration.

"It was on the all-important date of 1 January 1875 that the Registration of Births and Deaths Act 1874 came into effect and registration became the responsibility of the parents, or the householder where the birth took place, on penalty of a £2 fine."

Despite the above there were no doubt quite a few births that didn't get registered. 

Anyway do continue to enjoy your family history journey.   

[andrewalston]

Sometimes you get unexpected documents which name the biological father. A couple of hundred years ago, the Parish would prosecute putative fathers to recover their financial support of the mother, but by mid Victorian times these "Bastardy Orders" were thin on the ground.

In my own lot, One of my gg grandmothers was illegitimate. Her mother never married, but had four children. These days the tabloids would refer to her as a "4 by 4".

When my gg gm married, her father is named on the certificate. I found him in the right area around the time of conception, but he was 12 miles away by the next census, so it's unlikely that my gg gm knew him.

The name was unusual enough for me to be pretty sure that I have the right ancestor.

So, check ALL the records. Sometimes these nuggets appear!

[coombs]

Good story, and often military records can tell a story. It is possible that the man your great, great gran worked for in 1891 could have been the father, you never know.

I do have a couple of questions, how long after your great gran's birth did her mother marry Ralph Harwood?

Was her birth actually registered under Ralph's surname, or her mother's name, as when you say she had the surname Harwood, then I assume that was after Ralph wed her mother?