To ignore what I’ve found out.

[CD41]

Posting here for traffic. Decided to research my family tree. I’ve tried before and didn’t have enough time so thought lockdown might be perfect.

I already have a lot of info on my maternal grandmothers side but nothing on my maternal grandfathers side. I was incredibly close to my grandad. He only died a couple months ago but he didn’t talk about his family much.

So tonight I was doing some basic searching on ancestry. I learnt that my grandads mum and dad got married 8 months before he as born. Maybe it’s because she was pregnant? Who knows.

Doesn’t sound too bad but my grandad has a brother 5 years older than him who I always assumed to have the same father as they share the same name. I then discovered that my grandads dad appeared to be married until maybe 18 months before he was born. I never knew he had a first wife. It also means that he would have been married to first wife when my great uncle (still alive and in his 80’s) was born so likely not his dad after all unless it was an affair at first. It appears my grandads dads first wife died young. It didn’t seem likely they had children.

I tried finding my great uncles birth registration. It appears that his name was changed from his mother’s maiden name to my grandads surname. But obviously without seeing the birth certificate no idea who great uncles father is.

Bearing in mind my grandads dad died when he was very young and he cannot really remember him. It would also make sense as my grandad had the same name as his dad. Surely a first born son would take the name? Not the second? I had never even thought of that way before.

Now aibu to not say anything? I assume if my grandad did know he didn’t tell anyone or he may have just told my granny and they kept it quiet. Or maybe he didn’t know..

I guess nothing has changed for my grandad. His mum and dad were his parents regardless but it’s his brother who maybe lived a lie and they were in fact half brothers (I don’t think that makes any difference, my children have different fathers but consider them just brother and sister not half of anything).

They also had another older brother who their mum had really young.

Shall I just keep quiet? I worry if I tell my mum she’ll just go telling everyone and it’s probably not the right thing to do right now.

Aibu to keep it to myself?

but the G Uncle's birth is registered with her maiden name and the eventual husband's name. It's far more likely that he was the son of the man his mother married.

If he was registered as illegitimate to the two of them then his birth may have been re-registered after they married to legitimise him.

If they went to the effort of jointly registering a birth then he was the father. That was a massive thing!

In some cases even that would still the child have the mother's surname (although legally they could have the father's name). In some places it wasn't the done thing to give the father's name even if he admitted and acknowledged the parentage whereas in other cases the father's name was given

Great uncles birth registry has his mums maiden name and my grandads surname in brackets so it’s a little confusing

What were you looking at this to see this ? Ancestry ? Only possible if that is someone who as added that to it as a suggestion ?

@lyralalala In some cases even that would still the child have the mother's surname (although legally they could have the father's name). In some places it wasn't the done thing to give the father's name even if he admitted and acknowledged the parentage whereas in other cases the father's name was given

You were not allowed to put a man's name on an illegitimate child unless he was present at the Registrar .

The other thing that has to be remembered is that the official records are only what people told the officials. There were no computer records and no cross checking so, especially in families that moved a lot, it was very easy for children to be moved to another part of the family or to even be legally linked to different parents.

There's a case in my family tree where a widowed man fathered 5 children with his sister-in-law (who presumably came to stay with him to care for her late sister's children) and were very open about it and both registered each birth together. They then seemingly got married when she was heavily, heavily pregnant with their 6th child. This allowed him to register the birth alone.

8 weeks later his 16-year-old was packed off on the boat for a new life in America with a distant Aunt. She was never allowed to return until long after her father and step-mother/aunt were dead.

From all the discussions, arguments and rumours in the family on both sides of the atlantic (who didn't know each other for years) we're 99% sure that the 6th child is actually the child of the daughter, but we can never prove it as she was registered as the 6th child.

You were not allowed to put a man's name on an illegitimate child unless he was present at the Registrar .

I know, that's why in the previous sentence I said if they went together he was the father

I was referring to him still having his mother's name even though his father was on the birth certificate. There is, from what I've seen, a real split in areas where some take the mother's name regardless of the father being there and some where the father's signature tends to mean they have the father's name

@lyralala I see . Your explanation wasn't very clear especially to people who are not experienced in this. Your phrase " not the done thing " confused me but you have clarified.

My great grandmother was widowed and then lived "over the brush" with another man for many years. She had my grandad and another child from her marriage to my greatgrandfather and then 4 children with her new partner. They all had my great grandfather's surname, and kept it even when much later their parents married. One of my (technically half) great aunts in particular was very possessive of her surname. She took huge offence at any suggestion that she wasn't a "real Bloggs" even though she didn't actually have a scrap of Bloggs DNA. I've often wondered how her father must have felt about that.

The more I think about it, though, an 8 month gap between wedding and child's birth could easily have an 'innocent' explanation. Child could have been a honeymoon baby who arrived early, and a pp said that the Ancestry settings are only accurate to a quarter year. Plus, the assumption otherwise is that great-grandma realised she was pregnant pretty much as soon as her period was late and they immediately went off and got married. Surely each of those things would take a bit longer?

I think it’s best to keep it to yourself

Maybe they knew/know and more than you believe them to and it’s just one of those things that hasn’t been spoken of

This was the case in many many families

I had no idea a cousin had a different father (from her mum having an affair). When I commented that she is the only tall women in our generation (we are all 5’1/5’2 she is at least 5’10) no one said the truth and we put it down to mixed genes it’s really not my business. Another cousin told me at a later date when she heard of my comment - see she knew I didn’t. Likely many in your family probably know and it’s not spoken about

We have a very similar situation in our family. It came to light (as in we all found out) after a member of the family died. None of my generation in the family thought anything of it at all and were just intrigued but it turned out some of the older generations (including one of my parents) had known for years and had always seen it as something awful and to be ashamed of, and still do. Every one now knowing caused a huge amount of upset to some of our older relatives and also meant some lies had been told in the past causing more upset for all involved. There was no name listed for father on the birth certificate, just the mother's so without some additional information you will probably never know any more.

The more I think about it, though, an 8 month gap between wedding and child's birth could easily have an 'innocent' explanation. Child could have been a honeymoon baby who arrived early, and a pp said that the Ancestry settings are only accurate to a quarter year. Plus, the assumption otherwise is that great-grandma realised she was pregnant pretty much as soon as her period was late and they immediately went off and got married. Surely each of those things would take a bit longer?

I think in a lot of situations, once couples were engaged and all the wheels set in motion for a wedding, they didn't worry so much about saving it for marriage since the deal was more or less done. A lot of women probably felt comfortable giving into desire if it was only 3 weeks til the wedding.

And I know the generally received wisdom is that sex outside marriage was utterly taboo until about 1976, but up to and through Victorian times lots of working class people did have common-law marriages, or only bothered to legally marry once they had their first child. No shame, that's just how it was done. A lot of that has to do with the old law/tradition that a promise to marry equated to a marriage vow, plus I suppose in a small rural village everybody knew your business and policed your behaviour, so it was a lot harder to ghost someone you'd committe to. This is why soldiers were regarded as such philanderers, because they regularly moved on with their regiment and couldn't be traced.

Both my grandparents had their first child very soon after marriage (1920's/30's). One set of great grand parents only got married just before great grandad died to secure pension rights.
I had a set of chapel records covering mid 1800's to mid 1900's. A lot of couples were married after the birth of the first child or shortly before.

War babies were often brought up by relatives, sisters,aunts, grandparents. Some were adopted, some left as orphans some helped thru the church baptising babies months after birth and registering to different parents. As said before there wa no checks on the information given so long as you were in the parish, hey ho!