Unnamed fathers .outside the box thinking

[brigidmac]

When an ancestor is a single mother

I use a few techniques to identify possible surname of birth father

If the mother was a domestic servant or a lodger in the years preceding the birth .
I do a name search in DNA  search matches function
  of the employers & other staff

I also do a name search of the 4 great grandfathers named on trees of top matches .

This didn't work for my cousin's top match as it turns out that their great grandmother was also a single mother domestic servant so absolutely no surnames in common
So for a long time I had the bio father on the tree as "John from Yorkshire"
Eventually calculated the surname of another single mothers whose descendants were more distant . Her son was not called John but DNA links to him and his uncles suggested that was correct man

Now I'm calculating who was "John"s birth father .
There are clusters of matches  linking to a couple of candidates but locations are totally wrong .
I'm wondering if a stonemason from Liverpool would travel to Yorkshire for work .

I also do name searches on any witnesses at siblings weddings in years near the birth .
I've recently found a connection to one of the surname clusters by doing this .

Inspired by recent
" thinking outside the box" stories

Does anyone else do this ?

[coombs]

Good thinking, and thinking outside the box can help a lot.

My 2xgreat grandmother was illegitimate, born 31 Dec 1863 to a single mother who was the daughter of a local wheelwright. The mother Mary lived right opposite a manor house in the leafy hilly Sussex village she was born and raised in. No father named on the January 1864 birth certificate. The mother then moved to London with a fellow Sussex man (originally born Kent) in around April/May 1864 and they married in July 1864 at West Hackney church. He was a manservant, a footman. He said he was the father on the child's baptism in November 1864 at West Hackney church. Turns out he was married to a very ill wife up to November 1863 (long battle with TB) when his future wife was about 10 months pregnant. DNA testing will be the way to go to confirm my hypothesis, but also I am prepared to discover if the father was maybe another man.

I even have researched many of the other men in the village she lived at with and none seemed to be a candidate, unless he was from further afield.

[brigidmac]

Coombs
I don't know if DNA will be able to disprove that at that level but it might be able to corroborate theory IF his descendants or descendants of his siblings have tested & IF their trees are accurate.

Occasionally I do a random name search of an unusual surname in a matches tree.

At the moment I'm doing some location searches  a supposed  paternal great grandfather came from Liverpool and great grandmother from Chatham Kent but I believe their respective parents both came from Chatham.

[Wexflyer]

The first thing I would do is check if the father is really unnamed. May be named in church register.

[Petros]

The first thing I would do is check if the father is really unnamed. May be named in church register.

Or if the mother obtained a bastardy order. Some country records offices, e.g. Beds, have online searching which can find such items

[coombs]

Coombs
I don't know if DNA will be able to disprove that at that level but it might be able to corroborate theory IF his descendants or descendants of his siblings have tested & IF their trees are accurate.

Occasionally I do a random name search of an unusual surname in a matches tree.

At the moment I'm doing some location searches  a supposed  paternal great grandfather came from Liverpool and great grandmother from Chatham Kent but I believe their respective parents both came from Chatham.

I am yet to jump on the DNA bandwagon but have read your OP about your John and it is a good idea of yours.

My aforementioned 2xgreat gran's likely father Thomas had a married sister but she never had any children however he himself did have a daughter born 1851 by his first wife who died in November 1863. And Thomas and his 2nd wife, who I descend from, had children after the illegitimate child in December 1863.

[Biggles50]

Being able to identify parentage so far back will be very much hit and miss.

I have been searching for one who fathered a child born in 1873 for near on eight years without success so far.  The usual, so many cM matches with no useful ID, shared matches and no trees that offer anything even remotely helpful.

An Ancestry DNA test is a good place to start the search.

[coombs]

Being able to identify parentage so far back will be very much hit and miss.

I have been searching for one who fathered a child born in 1873 for near on eight years without success so far.  The usual, so many cM matches with no useful ID, shared matches and no trees that offer anything even remotely helpful.

An Ancestry DNA test is a good place to start the search.

Yes you have to be prepared for a long, long wait with DNA testing for genealogy. A 3xgreat grandparent is 6 generations back, so while in paper trail times it can be quite recent, seeing as some researchers can get a paper trail going back to Charlemagne, but in DNA terms it is a fair way back.

[PaulineJ]

Okay, so for a smidge of encouragement,  DNA tests have identified a half cousin from a mutual mother (she married twice, so paper trail too) .

Mother, each father b around 1810.

So if she had subsequent kids with the not father, I'd say there is a decent chance.