Finding fathers of illegitimate ancestors?

[margaret1]

I suppose I am lucky?
The Manx Museum has twice yearly Presentments available.
The vicar (or religious person in charge) made a report to the Bishop outlining transgressions of ecclesiastical Law.
Amongst these were "Presentments for Fornication", when a baby was born out of wedlock.
The guilty woman was pressurised to name the errant father; do that the baby was not a financial drain on the parish.

These Presentments are not online, and have to be retrieved from the Archives.

Would I be right in presuming these twice yearly Presentments had stopped by 1921?

Margaret

[KGarrad]

I suppose I am lucky?
The Manx Museum has twice yearly Presentments available.
The vicar (or religious person in charge) made a report to the Bishop outlining transgressions of ecclesiastical Law.
Amongst these were "Presentments for Fornication", when a baby was born out of wedlock.
The guilty woman was pressurised to name the errant father; do that the baby was not a financial drain on the parish.

These Presentments are not online, and have to be retrieved from the Archives.

Would I be right in presuming these twice yearly Presentments had stopped by 1921?

Margaret

They gradually died out in the towns late 1800's. Some rural parishes held out a little longer.

[margaret1]

Thank you KGarrad - I have traced the likely father of the illegitimate child using autosomal DNA testing,  however, being named in the Presentments for Fornication, as the father would have given me certainty.

[coombs]

As we know fathers names on birth certs of illegitimate babies rarely were mentioned. From 1875 onwards the consent of the father was required for his name to appear, together with his attendance when the birth was registered.

The mother may have named the father to the registrar after 1875, but if he did not consent and was not present, it was left blank.

Before 1875 the Act of Parliament of 1836 said it is not necessary to register the name of any father of a illegitimate child. It is said some registrars did occasionally enter the name of the putative father but in 1850 the law changed stating that ‘no putative father is to be allowed to sign an entry in the character of Father’.

[coombs]

My ancestor Eliza Smith lived next door to her future husband Thomas Edgington in Broadwaters Yard, down Queen Street in Oxford in the 1841 census taken in June, both described as "MS" and "FS", so servants, and she was pregnant at the time of the 1841 census, as her daughter Susan Smith was baptised in late October 1841. Eliza Smith wed Thomas Edgington in October 1843 when Susan was 2 years old, and she was again pregnant as their eldest wedlock daughter was born in January 1844.

I found a Susan Edgington birth registered in Oxford in the last quarter of 1841, mmn Smith. I shall download the birth cert from the GRO site to see what info it says. It does look like Susan was Thomas' biological daughter.

[LizzieW]

Through DNA, I've traced my g.grandfather's ancestry to a Jewish man born Isaac Gomes da Costa in London in 1717, his father, Abraham, born in Portugal in 1681 (which fits family history).  By researching trees of half a dozen 2nd, 3rd and 4th cousins who I share DNA with and with whom I've been in touch, I know each of these people is descended from a different child of Isaac.  However, I've not been able to find out which of Isaac's children is an ancestor of my g.grandfather.  I had been looking at men born about 25 years before my g.grandfather, but it seems his mother was only 16 when he was born, so now I'm going to look at men aged 16-18 to see if I can find out anything.  I did have a DNA match on Ancestry with someone who was apparently descended from my g.grandfather's half sister, same mother but different father but before I could contact this person, she removed her DNA listing.  Interestingly, the mother married a man with the same surname my g.grandfather used all his life, but he couldn't have been the father if he was only a half sibling who shared a mother.  He isn't on census records with this married couple, although there is a child with his name with them but he is younger than my g.grandfather, I have the birth certificate of younger person, so they didn't just put a younger age on various census to cover up the fact that he was born before his mother married. 

Unless I get a DNA match with another half sibling who shares a father with him, I am never going to find out who his father was.  I live in hope.

[coombs]

Also you can get women who hide their illegitimate grandchildren by claiming they had a last child or 2 in their late 40s or early 50s. But without DNA testing, it is hard to tell if they were illegitimate grandchildren or were in fact late children. Not impossible to have a baby at 50.

[LizzieW]

My g.gran had her last child when she was over 50, he was the 3rd child of her 2nd partner my g.grandfather.  The baby couldn't have been the child of her older daughters (from her first marriage), as they were both pregnant themselves at the time. My gran was only 9 at the time so not old enough to be a mother.  According to family legend, g.gran was in the local papers as being the oldest mother in Hull, although I've not found anything so far. 

Today there was news that Cameron Diaz has just had a baby at 51, her previous child being born 4 years ago, Victoria Coren Mitchell also had a baby last year when she was 51, so definitely not impossible now, even if IVF was used and certainly not impossible when my g.gran had her last child in 1893.

[coombs]

My g.gran had her last child when she was over 50, he was the 3rd child of her 2nd partner my g.grandfather.  The baby couldn't have been the child of her older daughters (from her first marriage), as they were both pregnant themselves at the time. My gran was only 9 at the time so not old enough to be a mother.  According to family legend, g.gran was in the local papers as being the oldest mother in Hull, although I've not found anything so far. 

Today there was news that Cameron Diaz has just had a baby at 51, her previous child being born 4 years ago, Victoria Coren Mitchell also had a baby last year when she was 51, so definitely not impossible now, even if IVF was used and certainly not impossible when my g.gran had her last child in 1893.

I have mentioned before my ancestor Clara Emma Auber was born in 1835, 24th December and her documented mother Elizabeth Auber was 51 at the time, born 1784. Yet Clara had an older sister called Emma Auber, and Clara and Emma are not with Elizabeth Auber in the 1841 census. And even Clara and Emma and Emma's son Edwin born Sep 1840 are nowhere to be found in the 1841 census. Clara then went to live with another sister in about 1843 as Emma had another son out of wedlock, who was handicapped.

I suppose Emma could have been Clara's birth mother, but also could be John and Elizabeth Auber were her birth parents, and she had her at 51 but felt she was too old to have another child so Clara was raised by siblings. Clara was baptised as John and Elizabeth's daughter in April 1836.