DNA testing to get certainity.

[coombs]

As we know occasionally DNA testing can throw up surprises, and can confirm paper trial lines, or sometimes deny them, but it is also very helpful. As other say it is a double edged sword.

Bridal pregnancy was very common, often the couple wanted to prove fertility to get married, or it was a "shotgun" wedding. As we know though, there were some occasions where a man married a pregnant woman and he was not the biological father, but he stepped in for a man who fled or died, or parted ways amicably but stayed in the area and wed another person. The percentage of such events (man weds pregnant woman but is not the father of the firstborn) is probably about 1 to 2% or maybe slightly higher.

For example in my tree I have one ancestor Susan Fradine born 1765 who lived in Bethnal Green, London, who was a daughter of one of the last Huguenots to come to England in 1752. She wed aged 19 in May 1784 to Dennis Helsdon, a non Huguenot Bethnal Green weaver, and she was 7 months pregnant at the time she wed, and gave birth to their first child in July 1784, who was baptised in August 1784 as Elizabeth Carolian Helsdon, daughter of Dennis and Susan Helsdon. As I said, it is highly likely Dennis was the father. Although I cannot be totally certain. Although autosomal DNA testing may one day give the answers, or 99.99999% certainly instead of say 99%.

Also Eliz Carolian was 7 months pregnant in 1806 when she wed, and her husbands mother was also about 5 months pregnant when she wed, so bridal pregnancy was very common.

[Cell]

I've  never counted all my bridal pregnancies throughout time, but at a quick estimate I think  it could be as a high as around   30% ( it's  definitely  over  20%) of all  my family lines if I go back from the early 1900s to the 1700s  that the bride was pregnant with the eldest  child.
It was extremely common throughout all the generations

Even my  grandmother was heavily pregnant when she walked up the aisle with my grandfather  ( she was carrying my parent's oldest sibling - who is 100% my grandfather's child, my 1st cousin has taken a DNA test)  .
I can quite  imagine my great grandmother , old Mary doll  ( who was short ) rounding up my grandfather  ( 6ft,  and a  soldier) with a shot gun  quite easily ( she grew up on a rural farm so did my grandmother , until Mary's husband died  )  and marching him down the aisle to marry her  daughter  LOL  . Poor granddad , he didn't  stand a chance lol 

Mary was apparently one real tough cookie and brought up my grandmother and siblings  with a very strict hand  ( my parent knew Mary and she was even a tough cookie  in old age ) . She had to be, she brought up a young family by herself with mouths  to feed , her husband , my gran's died  father, died when my gran was just 4 years old and  she never remarried,  she brought all the kids up by herself in a time when there was  no help.

My gran  kept that one a secret, lol  sly old dog lol ( I knew my grandparents very well , we were close). I only found out , years  ago when I decided  to get my grandparent's  marriage cert  that my gran had to be  7 months pregnant -  the bump would have been  definetely be showing ( and they married  in the local church lol).

 One of my grandmother's  sisters had just turned  17 years  old when she gave birth  ( who has also tested but I am not going to ask my 2nd cousin  about the dna on her parent's fathers side,  to see if the father  is actually the real father of her  parent). The mother  ( my grandmother's  sister)  got married  a few days after  the birth - the birth  of this child actually has a note on their cert,  saying the parents got married at so and so date ( a date after the birth)  - so  that it could be registered with the father's  name.   It's  the first  one I've ever seen one like this where the registra makes a note of them marrying days after , written on the actual child's  birth cert. ( I have  both the birth  and  the marriage cert) .

I think that was  was definitely a shot gun wedding, whether he is the bio father I don't know, or if he stepped  in to marry her , but I think  he probably is the real  bio father ,as this side of my family  had a real  habit of marrying off their young girls to the local  old men farmers . ( the man she married was   51 years old)..  She was just little more than a kid, just 16 yrs old when she  fell pregnant to  what would be considered to be a very  old  man  to a 16 yr old child. Today it would be totally frowned on.


I can remember when I was a  child, old ladies  ( around my grandparents generation) would  tut tut  tutting at the younger generations who fell pregnant, saying "that would never happen in my days"   Lol  .
 It happened throughout all generations,  and was extremely common in their generation too    , except its perfectly acceptable now, and not covered  up like they used  to do.
Kind regards

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

My maternal grandparents married on xmas day1907 and first child arrived April 1908 though. They had (or at least registered the births of), a further 8 children. The first child died aged 12 and another two died in infancy so six reached adulthood and five had children
 
I've compared results for descendants to both of my grandparents, there are four lines of descendants from my grandmother's side  and five from my grandfather. On paper the relationships from one group to other are 3c and 3c1r.  The two groups don't match each other at all. I know not every 3c will share dna and even fewer 3c1r but given the number of tests and possible permutations I don't think we are that unlucky. 

The grandmother side don't have any mutual matches to suggest a common male ancestor, I also happen to have two groups of mystery matches unique to me (over 60 matches in total from 15cM up to 199cM, two from each group are 140cM or higher), I can't find any crossover between the groups or any link to me.

If you can't follow what I've said don't feel bad, I can't make sense of the results either and I've been trying for 18 months.

[Biggles50]

It was rife, my 2xGGM had at least three children out of wedlock and her Sister at least two.

DNA has given me the likely candidate for a Father of my 3xGGM.

On a different line a y-DNA test gives me a different Biological Family Name than I have.

A paper only genealogical tree gives IMO zero certainty of your line, only when said line is substantiated by DNA can you be confident in the accuracy of your research.

Conversely, as I have shown a Double Edged Sword can slice through your Family Tree and prove that you share Zero DNA with a line in your family tree.

Hence be aware of the potential upheaval in your research.

[coombs]

Thanks for the replies. Although my my book while a paper trail is never 100% certainty without DNA, for me it is very close enough if you have meticulously researched the documents, just DNA is the actual confirmation. If I thought paper trails was less than 50% I would not bother. For me a paper trail is 99% certain, no more, but no less.

My Dennis Helsdon was 28 when he wed Susan Fradine who was 19 in 1784 when she was 7 months pregnant. So he was 9 years her senior. Susan was from a weaving family and Dennis was.

[Biggles50]

Thanks for the replies. Although my my book while a paper trail is never 100% certainty without DNA, for me it is very close enough if you have meticulously researched the documents, just DNA is the actual confirmation. If I thought paper trails was less than 50% I would not bother. For me a paper trail is 99% certain, no more, but no less.

My Dennis Helsdon was 28 when he wed Susan Fradine who was 19 in 1784 when she was 7 months pregnant. So he was 9 years her senior. Susan was from a weaving family and Dennis was.

Sorry to disagree.

My own research is meticulous, all certificates, all citations all BMD records in other words a perfect branch going back to the 1500’s.  With all the specific Church records of Births, Marriages and Deaths on Lan OPC, there is no doubt in the Genealogical line in a particular Village going back to the start of the online records.  There were thousands of records for the Church and I looked at every single one of them, extracted every one with the Family Name and saved it to a Word document, then double checked each and every one.

Except that DNA proves it is wrong and hundreds of research hours not exactly wasted but most of the research was not by then on my actual Biological Family.

So no, you cannot be 99% certain that your line is your Biological line, you can only be sure it is your Genealogical line and these can be very different.

[brigidmac]

I totally agree with Biggles
It's not just women who are pregnant before marriage with a birth  father who is NOT  the future husband

Paper trails can give birth certificate with named father in an impossible case for example after his death or when he was a prisoner of war 2 years before conception and
2 years after

I even have examples of babies of single mothers who were registered  soon after birth to "respectable " couples in totally different towns .
My cases were early 1900s but I know this also happened during WW2 +  Upton 1970s in Ireland ..
+ There can be the cases of babies accidentally swopped  in hospitals tho that is rarer

We are now beginning to get DNA matches to people who have been conceived by egg or sperm donation too so the DNA would not match the paperwork !

[Biggles50]

If anyone thinks that just because you have the paperwork you have an accurate Family Line do take time to listen to the BBC Sounds Blog called “The Gift”.

There are six 28 minute episodes of fascinating revelations that DNA tests have uncovered.

[coombs]

One of my 3xgreat grandmothers birth was never registered as far as I know. The 1921 census points to an October birthdate (calculating her age in years and months given in 1921) and she was born likely 1851, or 1852. I have tried all variants under the sun in the district her birth should have been registered and nothing. She was not baptised but some other siblings were not baptised but births registered.

One possibility is she may have been informally adopted, if DNA testing ever showed that her birth parents were not the paper trail ones, I would not be surprised. Her first entry in the usual registers (census, BMD, PR's) is the 1861 census in Terling, Essex where she was born.