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  • Adopted or Not

    Hi everyone

    My great-grandmother, Ilta, told my mother that she was adopted. She told her a tale of her mother dying during childbirth and her father being killed in an ambush in a foreign land (my mother cannot remember where, perhaps Afghanistan or India).

    Thing is, I recently managed to get a copy of Ilta's birth certificate. It shows her birth date as 13/08/1879 and is dated less than two months later, 06/10/1879. The parents named are (as she claims) her adopted parents...

    So here are my questions...

    Do the "parents" names on the birth certificate legally have to be the biological parents?

    Or is it possible that Ilta's mother did die in childbirth while Ilta's father was away in a foreign land. The child was then cared for by the village vicar and his wife until Ilta's father returned. Word then reached them of the father's death and they then chose to adopt her???

    Or do you think that my great-grandmother made it all up???

    I'm beginning to favour the latter...

    Any help would be appreciated?

  • #2
    Sounds like an even more fanciful version of my gran's lie, but maybe that's being unkind.

    Are you saying the couple on the birth cert are the village vicar and his wife?

    I can't imagine people in their position lying to the community and the registrar. Everyone would surely know if the vicar's wife was expecting or not. The parents on the cert are supposed to be the biological parents. Yes, sometimes people told lies (usually a gran of a child pretending to be it's mother to cover up her dau having an illegitimate baby) but the chances of someone with some status in the community doing this would be low. (I think)

    Was the birth in England/Wales? Are they on the 1881 census together?

    Would their be a reason she might have wanted to distance herself from these "parents"? Sid she fall out with them, do you know?
    Last edited by Merry Monty Montgomery; 05-01-09, 10:00.

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    • #3
      The child was then cared for by the village vicar and his wife until Ilta's father returned. Word then reached them of the father's death and they then chose to adopt her???
      I just read this bit again. If the child was taken in by the vicar and later he decided to keep her for whatever reason, there would be no birth cert with his name on it. In those days the only sort of birth cert issued was to detail the birth parents and the place of birth etc.

      Where does it say she was born?

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      • #4
        Oh, and welcome to FTF!

        Comment


        • #5
          I'm looking at her 1881 census entry now.

          That states she was born in the place they are living, which I'm guessing is also what is on the birth cert.

          I feel the story can't be true. The vicar and his wife were just too much in the public eye and they were probably not the sort of people to lie in any case - if they had decided to take on an orphaned child, there would be no birth cert and the census entry would probably say born in XYZ (wherever she was born) though it might well say "daughter" on the census even though biologically she wasn't.

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          • #6
            The parish registers might make interesting reading.

            Maybe the 'mother's' burial will be recorded?
            If the vicar was her father why the long delay before registering the birth?

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            • #7
              I assumme ths is the one and only Ilta on the 1881 census, shown as daughter of Hamilton A Douglas Hamilton, vicar of East Witton in Yorkshire. Interestingly the vicar's birthplace was India which may be where the "foreign parts" part of Ilta's story originated.
              It was of course possible that her natural father had already died and that the vicar and his wife took her in as soon as she was born and registered her as their own. But as Merry says its seems improbable that a vicar would lie in this way, or that they could get away with it in a small village where they were known. Normally I would say that even if lies were told to the registrar the truth would be told in church so check for a baptism but in this case that's probably not going to work!
              Are we sure she lived the rest of her childhood with the Hamilton. Could it be that it was they who died and tht she was "adopted" later in her childhood?
              Last edited by JudithM; 05-01-09, 10:34.
              Judith passed away in October 2018

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              • #8
                You might be able to ascertain what Ilta was thinking about her birthplace when the 1911 census is released later this year. I see she was married by then, so if she thought she wasn't born in Yorkshire she might have said so at that point.

                I see both her "parents" were born abroad, so I don't know if this gives a little more credence to her tale?

                Another thought occurred to me.......what if the rather OTT "overseas" story was a coverup for an illegitimate birth of someone in the family and it was known the vicar and his wife were going to take on the child when she was born?

                I notice the vicar and his wife have servants living in in 1881. Harder to fake a birth under those circumstances............

                I must go and take the Christmas decorations down!

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Gwyn in Kent View Post
                  If the vicar was her father why the long delay before registering the birth?

                  Possibly because some vicars are poor at paperwork! lol

                  Originally posted by JudithM View Post
                  Are we sure she lived the rest of her childhood with the Hamilton. Could it be that it was they who died and tht she was "adopted" later in her childhood?
                  She's still with them in 1901.

                  There is a single adult female cousin living/staying with them in 1891. I can't see her in 1881 yet!

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                  • #10
                    I noticed when she married in 1904 Ilta had added another forename:

                    Marriages Sep 1904
                    Denning Lilian Mary Lambeth 1d 848
                    Douglas-Hamilton Aldina I Lambeth 1d 848
                    Dowling James Lambeth 1d 848
                    Hamilton Aldina Ilta D Lambeth 1d 848
                    JONES John Comyn Lambeth 1d 848

                    I wonder who she named as her father on the cert? Probably the vicar, even if she didn't think he was!

                    Another thought. If the vicar and his wife wanted to pretend this child was theirs by registering her as such, why did they tell her anything other than "you are our child?" Or didn't they?!!

                    This is doing my head in! lol

                    Decorations :(
                    Last edited by Merry Monty Montgomery; 05-01-09, 11:22.

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                    • #11
                      Seems the Hamiltons already had a son Basil when Ilta joined the family and then had two additional younger children by 1891.

                      I wondered if Ilta's name might offer a clue (if father died in foreign parts) - only thing I could come up with is Ilta is the Finnish word for evening. Not much help there then!

                      Seems to be a pedigree for her (or at any rate, for the Ilta born 13 Aug 1879.)

                      Descendants of William Douglas, Duke of Hamilton, 1st Earl of Selkirk (1634-1694) gen 6-10 of 10 gen-

                      Jay
                      Last edited by Janet in Yorkshire; 05-01-09, 11:10.
                      Janet in Yorkshire



                      Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

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                      • #12
                        Are we sure this is the birth registration for the correct Ilta?

                        In rural areas, babies have been known to have been given the same name as the children of the local landowner, gentry, professionals, clergy.

                        I can't see that this well-connected family would claim parentage of a child who wasn't theirs????

                        Jay
                        Last edited by Janet in Yorkshire; 05-01-09, 11:21. Reason: spelling mistake
                        Janet in Yorkshire



                        Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Janet in Yorkshire View Post
                          Are we sure this is the birth registration for the correct Ilta?

                          In rural areas, babies have been known to have been given the same name as the children of the local landowner, gentry, professionals, clergy.

                          I can't see that this well-connected family would claim parentage of a child who wasn't theirs????

                          Jay
                          No because we haven't been told her surname, but it's the only one in the right Q. I wouldn't have taken that as enough though, because we might have been talking about Scotland, but dad is a vicar which is right, so I guessed this is the right one!

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                          • #14
                            Amazing... Absolutely amazing...
                            Thank you all so much for your swift responses and insightful comments.

                            Now let me give you some more information that may help uncover the truth...

                            Ilta had a child out of wedlock... You can almost feel the flush of shame running acrosss the Venerable Hamilton Anne Douglas-Hamilton's face...

                            My grandfather James Barcklay Douglas Hamilton (note how his surname was just Hamilton, with the middle name Douglas rather than the double barrelled Douglas-Hamilton) was born in 1903 in Marylebone, London. There is no father's name on his birth certificate.

                            Ilta then met and married James Dowling, a man 36 years her senior and my grandfather took the Dowling name instead of Hamilton. James Dowling died a few years after marriage and I've managed to uncover details of his Will which led me to understand more of this wonderful chaps story... He was a very strong supporter of Charles Bradlaugh, a political activist and athiest... Probably the final nail on the coffin for the Venerable Hamilton Anne Douglas-Hamilton????

                            So the conclusion is... she made up the story of adoption after being disowned by her family for having a child out of wedlock and then marrying a very vocal athiest...

                            That puts that one to bed and allows me to gloat about my blood line connection..

                            Thank you all again for your help here...

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                            • #15
                              Oh and the name Ilta is indeed Finnish. There was a famous opera singer with that name touring Europe at around the time of Ilta's parents wedding in Geneva (how wonderful it is to say that rather that "adopted" parents)

                              They may well have seen her perform at the newly built Geneva Opera House...

                              What a wonderful job you all have...

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                              • #16
                                Originally posted by Skiddlywoah View Post
                                My grandfather James Barcklay Douglas Hamilton (note how his surname was just Hamilton, with the middle name Douglas rather than the double barrelled Douglas-Hamilton) was born in 1903 in Marylebone, London. There is no father's name on his birth certificate.
                                This was very often the way they dealt with double-barrelled surnames in those days, indexing on the second part of the surname only and treating the first part as a middle name, so I don't think you can read anything into that.
                                KiteRunner

                                Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good... laugh"
                                (Indigo Girls, "Watershed")

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                                • #17
                                  So the conclusion is... she made up the story of adoption after being disowned by her family for having a child out of wedlock and then marrying a very vocal athiest...
                                  *reaches for the smelling salts*

                                  lol!!

                                  Comment


                                  • #18
                                    Ilta also appears in The Peerage

                                    thePeerage.com - Person Page 11009

                                    which rather discretely states "born before 1900" LOL
                                    Janet in Yorkshire



                                    Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

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                                    • #19
                                      The Peerage haven't noticed her first marriage, probably because she had reverted to her maiden surname for the second and for the first she had a different forename!

                                      Comment


                                      • #20
                                        You can find details of Hamilton Anne's ancestry here, if you haven't already seen it:

                                        Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal ... - Google Book Search

                                        and a brief note of his baptism here:

                                        FIBIS - Powered by The Frontis Archive Publishing System

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