General Chat

I think that's what got me started Vera. With two children to two marriages, I wanted to get some sense of identity or belonging sorted out for them before it all got dead and buried, so they'd have a bit of an idea where they came from. One son's history is easier than the other's! Why do some people just not want to tell? Parts of my family are the same. It gets frustrating. And those I know may have gladly told me are now gone. How I wish I'd asked then! That's reason number two: to find out what I can now before any more information dies with relatives! Cath, Nr Preston

Hi all Just a little thought about parentage - What are the future genealogists going to find when they try to sort out the parentage of the present generation??? There are so many one-parent families of children with different fathers. Won't that be fun, trying to sort that out. Vera, Manchester LAN

How about this one then! My mother was born on the Isle of Wight. Given the name King! Her mother worked in Osbourne House - the royal gaff! My mother was sent for adoption and had no fathers name on her birth cert. I thought i had finally found my grandfather who was married to my grandmother but oh no, he died 15 months before my mother was born! Why was my mother given the same name as our queen and her sister? Spooky eh, have tracked some relatives down on the island and they think there may be a RECENT Royal connection there. So is Buck House Mine? We can dream, can't we? It gets quite scary when you start to delve into the recent past and when i say recent i mean, the last 80 years! Oh well i may be beheaded for writing this. Take him to the Tower, i can hear. Off with his HEAD!

More common than granny would have us think. Despite what they tell us sex wasn't invented in the 1960's. I've got a McLaughlin Guide to illegitimacy. In it it says as a general guide a son could be given the fathers full name with mothers surname tagged on the end, the example it gives is John Smith Brown. A girl could get fathers surname as a middle name and was sometimes named after paternal grandmother. Very useful little book.

The reason some ancestors appeared to have no father, is that in remote reas there was no priest or vicar on hand at all times to carry out marriages. As a result an 'informal' recognition of the 'coupledom' occurred until such times a visiting cleric appeared, when the marriage and the christening would take place together. Living over the brush was the common phrase for such arrangements.

Hi Jim, just read your reply. I meant THE other Mrs Simpson ( the one with Royal connections) There again, with my luck, it is more likely to be Marge. Come to think of it my skin does look a bit yellow today!!

ive just had big shock when finding my family tree out that my nan had so many children with diffrent fathers. from mary ann

My grandad didn't seem to have a father, no fathers name on his birth or marriage certificate. It looks like his mum was a single parent. My only clue is that his middle name was Stevenson. While I was looking on the 1891 census, I found that his grans' neighbour was called Stevenson!! I'll probably never know the truth behind that one, will I??!!

Deborah, I have a ggfather born 3 years after gggmother was widowed. Someone on this site discovered his middle name was the family name of the local farmer! We have to make some presumptions!! Elisabeth

Very true..Sue. It need not necessarily imply illegitimacy, it may be a pension to the widow of a junior son who died in some way. Battle? especially if the family felt he had married beneath his status. Jim

As far as I know it was money paid to them by their childs father or fathers family. Guess a bit like our modern maintenance. If someone else knows different they might help you more. Susan

What Marge?......D'OH Jim

Well the family does come from Yorkshire so maybe except Wilson is my married name and I am really a 'funky' Gibbon. There again the naughty members of my family were Simpsons, maybe it is THE Mrs Simpson!

You're not related to Sir Harold are you? Jim

THINK I MIGHT HAVE FOUND MY FIRST FAMILY SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD. ONE OF MY GGG GRANDADS DOESN'T HAVE A FATHER LISTED. WHATS EVEN MORE 'SHOCKING' IS HIS MOTHER DIDN'T HAVE A FATHER EITHER. MY GGGGG GRANNY RECEIVED AN ANNUAIANT (IS THAT HOW YOU SPELL IT?) DOES THAT MEAN SHE WAS PAID TO KEEP QUIET. PERHAPS I AM DESCENDED FROM ROYALTY IN AN ILLEGITIMATE WAY!!!