1911 scenario........

[Gwyn in Kent]

An 18 years old unmarried girl is working for a farmer( 60) and his wife (56) as a domestic servant.
Also present are several unmarried males.
2 of them are described as farmer's nephew. One of these is 25, the other is 15. The other male listed is 40.
All were born in local villages.

In the following November, a child was born to the young girl.

If it was your family, who would you chase for clues as to being the possible father.?

Birth certificate and baptism certificate offer no clues. Child was raised within the family.

Gwyn

[Darksecretz]

if there is no extra information on the b/cert or the baptism then there is no real way of knowing the truth, did the 18 yo girl marry any of the men that were on the farm?

[Gwyn in Kent]

No, she married her cousin in 1916.

I know I'm clutching straws really...

Gwyn

[Olde Crone Holden]

I agree with Julie - there's no way of knowing who the father was. It could be any of them or none of them, someone else entirely, nothing to do with the farm.

Any clues in the child's name?

OC

[Gwyn in Kent]

Child was given one of the names of her maternal grandmother and the middle name was a favoured 'married-in' relative.... so no clues there.
Photos show that she very much looked like her mother, as did a later half sister. Other 2 half siblings looked more like their father.

Big IF....
IF I could find descendants of any of these men, would that be a close enough match to prove fatherhood?.... or does it not work like that.
I know OC is very learned in these matters.

[margaretmarch]

For DNA matching I think it is very difficult for female lines and if it's too far down a line probably not helpful at all.
Margaret

[Olde Crone Holden]

As far as I am aware, you can only prove back to grandparents if you wish to prove the paternity of a female. Plus, you have the HUGE barrier of attempting to persuade all these people to undergo a DNA test. It is very expensive I understand, not like the ordinary Y-dna tests.

You must ask yourself why none of these presumably unmarried farmworkers married her, if they were single and had fathered her child. There would certainly have been social pressure brought to bear and you wonder why they resisted. The obvious answer is that it wasn't any of them.

OC

[kylejustin]

in 1811 you could look for bastardy orders. would there be some sort of paperwork in 1911 for an illegitimate child? like if the father had paid maintenance?

[Olde Crone Holden]

It would be pure chance if any paperwork survived because by 1911, maintenance was being dealt with in Magistrates Courts and paperwork was normally destroyed once the child reached 16 (or whatever).

However - local newspapers often published these maintenance orders so maybe a look in a local paper might be worth a go.

OC

[Gwyn in Kent]

Thank you for your thoughts everyone.

Logic tells me that I'm probably never going to know the answer to this, but a look in the local papers might be worthwhile. At least I'll know that I've tried all avenues.

Gwyn