Large family structures, late 19th century, especially the placing of children

[brigidmac]

  well done Dulcie

you dont have to completely rewrite your tree
you can add the adopted parents as alternative or tag their relationship in comments

but put birth parents as preferred options if you want to understand the DNA links

you said the baptisms helped but didnt say HOW on this topic
Hope you dont mind me copying this from pm because i think it could help other people 

   "Seven JONES children, on the censuses.
1 + 2 were baptised together March 1869, aged 6 and 4.
No 3 (my great-grandfather) not baptised in sequence.
No. "4" baptised Oct 1869 shortly after she was born, as if no. 3 in the list.
No. 5, birth recorded Oct 1870 but baptism I can't yet find...
No. 6 baptised aged 1, alongside my great-grandfather who is now 7
No. 7 born 1880, can't yet find baptism

The 1871 census supports this out-of-sequence-ness, the children are listed thus:
No. 1 aged 7 (already baptised)
No. 2. aged 5 (already baptised)
No. 4 aged 1 (already baptised)
then No. 3 (my great-grandfather), aged 3, not yet baptised
No. 5, aged 4 months

This suggests that my great-grandfather joined the JONES family some time between the end of 1869 and census-time 1871. But not in 1867, which is what his birth year seems to be.

good luck unravelling the birth parents

[guest259648]

  well done Dulcie

you dont have to completely rewrite your tree
you can add the adopted parents as alternative or tag their relationship in comments

but put birth parents as preferred options if you want to understand the DNA links

you said the baptisms helped but didnt say HOW on this topic
Hope you dont mind me copying this from pm because i think it could help other people 

   "Seven JONES children, on the censuses.
1 + 2 were baptised together March 1869, aged 6 and 4.
No 3 (my great-grandfather) not baptised in sequence.
No. "4" baptised Oct 1869 shortly after she was born, as if no. 3 in the list.
No. 5, birth recorded Oct 1870 but baptism I can't yet find...
No. 6 baptised aged 1, alongside my great-grandfather who is now 7
No. 7 born 1880, can't yet find baptism

The 1871 census supports this out-of-sequence-ness, the children are listed thus:
No. 1 aged 7 (already baptised)
No. 2. aged 5 (already baptised)
No. 4 aged 1 (already baptised)
then No. 3 (my great-grandfather), aged 3, not yet baptised
No. 5, aged 4 months

This suggests that my great-grandfather joined the JONES family some time between the end of 1869 and census-time 1871. But not in 1867, which is what his birth year seems to be.

good luck unravelling the birth parents

Hi brigidmac
Feel free to use anything I've written, it's all OK and truthful.

On your advice I carried on collecting Baptisms and family addresses and census entries and, especially, dates and orders-of-doing-things.

I discovered there were 9 'JONES' children in total, not 7. But two of them seem not to have had any Birth registration, only a baptism and then a Death, because the babies didn't survive long.

My ancestor Henry is listed as Number 3 in the family where he's visible on censuses, however he was not treated as Number 3 in terms of arrival as a baby. And on the 1871 census he's placed lower down the list of children than you'd expect (after some younger ones).

His Birth was registered April 1867, under 'JONES'.
But a JONES baby born 1869 was baptised before him.
Also the 2 babies who didn't survive were baptised before him, in 1872 and 1873.

My ancestor Henry wasn't baptised until 1874, alongside a new JONES arrival called Samuel.

I asked RootsChat where children might be 'placed' (for accommodation) among the family, and lots of good ideas were given. "Anything is possible", was suggested. Children were placed anywhere there was room. But generally, it was within the wider family if possible.

So: something is clearly wrong, according to my DNA results, and things were not as I believed. Was my Henry the product of e.g. an affair for Mrs JONES (with Mr 'TAYLOR'), or e.g. the illegitimate child of a younger sister of Mrs JONES, who had a boyfriend ('BROWN')?

The DNA results and ThruLines and links strongly suggest that there isn't any additional genetic material, no other family involved, no TAYLOR, no BROWN, nothing else at all.
Which (I am told) points to Henry (born 1867) being Mrs JONES' much, much younger brother, 25 years her junior, whom she took on board, named JONES and brought up within her own family. Perhaps Henry was immediately registered as JONES so he felt that he 'belonged'?
But Henry's real parents are his Gran + Grandfather ('SMITH'), next door...

The DNA contains a large batch of links back to Mr & Mrs SMITH (born 1819 + 1820), larger than expected.

Comments welcome. Please help me nail this down. But I'm pretty sure I'm in the right place now.

D

[brigidmac]

out of interest were the children in order of gender on census
sometimes boys are listed before girls so maybe your grandfather was the only one out of order

I have seen other cases where step children are listed below birth children

I think its worth putting up a separate topic about baptism order as a general topic

im investigating a family where first child b 1898 was baptised after child 2,3,4 +5  in 1906
but there may have been another reason
   link to baptism  topic *

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=854707.msg7228813#msg7228813

[guest259648]

out of interest were the children in order of gender on census
sometimes boys are listed before girls so maybe your grandfather was the only one out of order

I have seen other cases where step children are listed below birth children

I think its worth putting up a separate topic about baptism order as a general topic

im investigating a family where first child b 1898 was baptised after child 2,3,4 +5  in 1906
but there may have been another reason
   link to baptism  topic *

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=854707.msg7228813#msg7228813

brigidmac
The children were listed as you would expect, on the 1871 census - listed in order of age, regardless of gender - all except my Henry who was lower down than he should be.
Could have been a clerical error? Except that his baptism was also very much 'lower down' the order than you would expect.
The children were baptised in chronological order, boys mixed with girls - all except my Henry who seemed to be delayed or  and baptised alongside a baby boy, when the baby was 1 but Henry was 7.

I don't think Henry was forgotten about... or too ill... because 2 of the babies were clearly not well, but were still baptised years before him, at a proper service, nevertheless.

Yes, introducing a separate topic would bring in more stories I expect, and we can gain a wider picture of families' behaviour.

D

[Peter L. Mitchell]

Hi Dulciebun.

My great-great grandmother gave birth to an illegitimate girl in 1848, then married the (supposed) father two years later, In 1860 the family emigrated to Australia but the girl was left behind. She had been working as a domestic for her childless aunt and lived with her until she married in 1874. Nobody in the family mentioned it and I only discovered it by accident six months ago.

Good luck with your research!

Peter

[teragram31510]

Hello Dulciebun,

I found this thread very interesting - not that I know anything about DNA.

You wrote:
<The DNA results and ThruLines and links strongly suggest that there isn't any additional genetic material, no other family involved, no TAYLOR, no BROWN, nothing else at all.
Which (I am told) points to Henry (born 1867) being Mrs JONES' much, much younger brother, 25 years her junior, whom she took on board, named JONES and brought up within her own family.>

If this were indeed the case, might it have been because Henry's and Mrs Jones' mother, having borne a child at a late age, died at the birth or fairly soon after? Do you have the date of death of Mrs Smith? Yes, the child, Henry, might easily have been called Jones to "make life easier" for the family, I'd say.
Another aspect is that Mrs Jones had had a child in 1863 then another in 1865. Did she in fact have a third baby in 1867 that died or was stillborn, I wonder, but meant that Mrs Jones was able to wetnurse her baby brother Henry? (Her own children seem to have been conceived with the usual 1 to 2 year gap except for the child born '65 and the following apparently in '69.)

Just a few more thoughts !!

[brigidmac]

Brilliant deductions Sherlock
I love how rootschat detective look at all angles .make deductions and look for proof .

[guest259648]

Hello Dulciebun,

I found this thread very interesting - not that I know anything about DNA.

You wrote:
<The DNA results and ThruLines and links strongly suggest that there isn't any additional genetic material, no other family involved, no TAYLOR, no BROWN, nothing else at all.
Which (I am told) points to Henry (born 1867) being Mrs JONES' much, much younger brother, 25 years her junior, whom she took on board, named JONES and brought up within her own family.>

If this were indeed the case, might it have been because Henry's and Mrs Jones' mother, having borne a child at a late age, died at the birth or fairly soon after? Do you have the date of death of Mrs Smith? Yes, the child, Henry, might easily have been called Jones to "make life easier" for the family, I'd say.
Another aspect is that Mrs Jones had had a child in 1863 then another in 1865. Did she in fact have a third baby in 1867 that died or was stillborn, I wonder, but meant that Mrs Jones was able to wetnurse her baby brother Henry? (Her own children seem to have been conceived with the usual 1 to 2 year gap except for the child born '65 and the following apparently in '69.)

Just a few more thoughts !!

teregram31510

Thank you for your thoughts, they're really helpful.
I've followed up your ideas, in fact I found someone has done a 1-name study of this 'SMITH' family in Birmingham UK, which helps me see the larger picture.

Looking at the 2 families living side by side [SMITH parents, and their eldest daughter SMITH + husband JONES], it seems they were sharing out the youngsters between the 2 properties so that there were more or less equal numbers in each home (avoiding overcrowding). Also, it may be that Mrs SMITH felt that the baby, her very youngest and last, would fit in better with the young children next door, rather than being brought up among her own 20-something and older teenage children who were still at home...?

Mrs SMITH lived another 20 years after the birth of this last baby, having wed at about age 17. So it doesn't seem to be illness or desperate need which caused her baby to be passed next door. I'm chasing up your suggestion that the daughter (Mrs JONES) could have lost a baby in 1867 [where there is a gap in her own childbearing, as you rightly point out], and so her tiny brother SMITH may have been passed to her, to care for.  Will report back.

[guest259648]

Hi Dulciebun.

My great-great grandmother gave birth to an illegitimate girl in 1848, then married the (supposed) father two years later, In 1860 the family emigrated to Australia but the girl was left behind. She had been working as a domestic for her childless aunt and lived with her until she married in 1874. Nobody in the family mentioned it and I only discovered it by accident six months ago.

Good luck with your research!

Peter

Hi Peter
Many thanks for sharing your own story.

I'm thinking that the girl who was left behind may have formed an emotional bond with her childless aunt and preferred to stay where she was, when the parents emigrated?

That's assuming that the girl knew whose daughter she was...!

How exactly did you discover this situation? (you say 'by accident')

D x