Am I wrong to consider this?

[George]

In 1871, my gg gran is aged 17 and in service, her parents appear at home with no other children, she seems to have been an only child until 1871 when according to the 1881 census & Free BMD a child named Mary Alice was born and appears with my gg grans parents, recorded as their child.

Admittedly the mother is young enough (37 at time of birth) to have given birth to her. If she was born illegitimately to my gg gran but raised as her sibling, would my gg grans parents have registered her as their child?

I am weighing up whether to send for the birth cert, I know the parents could have numerous miscarriages, it just seemed odd for there to be a 17yr gap between children.

George

[Northern Light]

George anything is possible.

I have one in my tree and on the 1841 census it says the mother is Mary but when I sent for the cert it turns out that Mary is the grandmother and Marys eldest daughter Nancy is the childs mother!

Good luck!

[Lin Fisher]

I found a baptism for a child of my G Grandparents but couldn't find a birth to match with correct maiden name. I then found one with the same surname as the childs. I sent for it and she was actually the grandaughter of my g Grandparents. Their eldest daughter was the mother.

So it is very likely.

Lin

[Olde Crone Holden]

I have one or two in my tree, registered as the child of the grandparents. The baptisms tell a different story though - their daughter's child.

OC

[Wilf]

I have a horrible sneaking suspicion about my ancestor.
I have his birth cert which claims he is the son of Edward and Sarah.

Sarah is 45 so it is not impossible for her to be the mother.
My uneasy feeling is that I cannot find a baptism record for him.

All the other children were baptised but there is no entry in the parish records for him. I have even tried the non conformist records too.

Allie

[Vicky the Viking]

I was suspicious about one "daughter" on the 1851 census entry - as a friend put it, she must have been a bit of a surprise ("mum" was about 47, and the previous child that I know about was born 12 years earlier) or else she was covering something up... but at least her birth certificate told the truth. As did her baptism, together with the useful :( info that her father was John Smith, a railway worker from Newcastle.

We do have a more recent case though, a mother who would also have been 47 when her "daughter" was born, some 15 years after the previous child. (She is registered with the 47-yr old as her mum). An aunt has dropped large hints that there is something fishy going on but nothing so far has induced her to spill the beans, and we think the secret will die with her.

On the other hand, I have a genuine case of a couple with only 2 children born 17 years apart, the second when mum was 44/5, and the oldest child is a boy so I doubt there's any cover-up. WWII intervened, but I think there were probably a couple of miscarriages or stillbirths too. But I don't think this is the sort of thing you can talk about with (male) second cousins.

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

I would say it is far more likely for a family to lie to the enumerator than to the registrar. Not that they didn't lie to the registrar sometimes!!

Taking a wild guess I would say for every twenty children listed as son or dau on the census when they were actually grandson or granddaughter, maybe only one family (if that) would have also lied to the registrar about who the mother of the child was.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Merry

Well, one certainty is that very few people indeed dared lie to the VICAR!

Mine seemed to hold the Registrar in some contempt (jumped up penpusher), viewed the enumerator as a nosey parker, but respected the Vicar as an agent of God and church not being a place where you would dare to tell lies.

(Mind you, the enumerator often got his own back by putting things like "not married" against the name of a "wife", or the best yet: "Acts as wife" pmsl.)

OC

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

I agree OC, but it's easier to lie to the enumerator when the child in Q is aged 4 or 5, than it is to lie to the registrar who has seen your teen dau looking pregnant for the last few months!

So if 500 families lied to the enumerator, 25 lied to the registrar and one lied to the vicar! Obviously we are only taking about the MOTHERs of children here. Everyone lied about everything when it came to the name of the childs father!!!

[Olde Crone Holden]

Merry

Yes - I am always amazed at the huge numbers of children fathered by the Master at the Big House, and the dearth of children fathered by the coalman or the pot boy or a married ag lab.

I think the enumerator was fair game for a lie - truth wasn't actually all that important for a statistical gathering exercise.

I suspect a great many girls were sent away to nurse a sick auntie and granny stuffed cushion up her skirt for a few months and "gave birth" overnight.

The Registrar might have his suspicions if he KNEW the family, but again, it wasn't his business to cross question the "mother" - he may have pointed out it is an offence to lie, or he may just not have cared two hoots.

OC

[dicole]

We "old" mothers object to the slurs you cast (lol) -- my youngest child was born when I was 44 yrs and 11months.

But I am as suspiscious as you - my great great grandmother had a child when she would have been between 46 and 51, depending on the census. What makes me VERY doubtful about her mother/grandmother is that this last child was given the same name as her eldest (Susannah), but there is no evidence that the first daughter died. The youngest was registered as Eliza Louisa Bishop, but baptised and married as Susan Eliza Louisa.

Re big gaps, my great-great grandmother had only 3 children in 20 years - first one six months after marriage, second one 13 years later and then the last 7 years after that. I think g-g grandpa must have been off working elsewhere. He was 58 when his last child was born and wife was 42.

Diane

[Vicky the Viking]

I am suspicious about big gaps, especially the further back you go. Most of my families (from census entries) are having children pretty regularly, every 2 years or so, right from getting married up till their early 40's. (If there's a 4-year gap I look for a birth & death, and have managed to pick some more up this way) I know its been said before, but sometimes gaps indicate the wife dying & husband remarrying; in one case the 2 wives had the same first name & its only cos there was a missing baby that I found mum's death too...

But I digress, as usual

I worry about a family where I have the first son arriving 7 months after the wedding, and no further children until my 2xgt grandmother was born 13 years later. I have both birth certs - same parents. 1861 census is missing, so there is only one census entry showing both children. However, 30 years later I find widowed mum living with another daughter. Goodness only knows where she had been in the meantime, and whether there are other missing children. (There don't seem to be any naming patterns for the children I know about) Its a reasonably common surname in the S & SW unfortunately and the family spent 30 years moving backwards & forwards between London & Somerset, so I can't even ask local registrars to do a trawl for me.

So if anyone ever turns up a SYMES birth with father John & mother Charlotte Foster, anytime between about 1853 & 1870, please get in touch :D

[Anne Brown]

Just to throw a spanner in the works lol. My dad was born in 1927 and his only sibling, a sister in 1945.



Anne

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

And another spanner....my ex-M-i-L has her first baby after exactly nine months of marriage when she was 19. 22 years later she had her second and last child.

She told me there was no known reason for her not having any children in between - it just didn't happen!

[Olde Crone Holden]

Oh yes, I can give lots of similar instances where there was a huge gap between siblings.

However, it is just as well to rule out unmarried teenage daughters!

OC

[George]

I ordered the birth cert to prove or rule the idea out, should receive it at the weekend.

George