Disguising birth in pre and post WWII in England

[RustyParker]

Recently got into genealogy on Ancestry / Find My Past and thought I'd see if I could find any info which could shed light on a family rumour.

My maternal grandmother was said to have had another child either just before she married my granddad or just after. No idea of dates but I think it could be towards the end of the war or no long after so 1945 - 1950. I had the idea of looking through birth records to see if she was registered as "Mother" to another child in addition to my DM / aunts / uncles but I didn't find anything.

I got to wondering as most births were home births at the time and in her area (certainly my DM and her siblings were born at home without midwives) how likely could it have been that any child could have been born, hidden within the family and the adoptive parents register the child as theirs? I'm assuming there was much in the way of pre-natal care around that time?

Does anyone have any musings??

I've had to promise my DC there aren't any skeletons in my closet!!

Try looking for births registered using the mother’s middle name as a first name and/or a misspelling of either maiden or married surname.

It was incredibly common, and people turned a blind eye to women having a 'surprise late in life baby' much younger than the rest of their family, or women who'd been married many years without children suddenly having one. Daughters would be sent to stay with a relative to 'help out' to conceal their pregnancies, and the vicar wouldn't ask closely when a couple came to register the baby

This happened in a few of my friends families in Ireland, even relatively recently (30-40 years ago). One of the oldest daughters would give birth secretly and the mother would say she had a late 'surprise'. Not so great for a friend who found out her sister was her mother when she was 18...

@Mycatismadeofstringcheese

Try looking for births registered using the mother’s middle name as a first name and/or a misspelling of either maiden or married surname.

That is a brilliant suggestion, thank you!

@CMOTDibbler

It was incredibly common, and people turned a blind eye to women having a 'surprise late in life baby' much younger than the rest of their family, or women who'd been married many years without children suddenly having one. Daughters would be sent to stay with a relative to 'help out' to conceal their pregnancies, and the vicar wouldn't ask closely when a couple came to register the baby

So sad isn't it. I think by piecing together all the stories my DGM had a fling with a distant cousin of hers and the baby went into that side of the family. We're unsure whether she was newly married and my DGF was at war or before their marriage.

Isn't it fascinating what you come across though.

@Grimbelina

This happened in a few of my friends families in Ireland, even relatively recently (30-40 years ago). One of the oldest daughters would give birth secretly and the mother would say she had a late 'surprise'. Not so great for a friend who found out her sister was her mother when she was 18...

I can't get my head around how that would make someone feel when it all came out, your poor friends.

I'm having real trouble with my Irish side as I'm not familiar with parish areas and there's a real problem of not using their real names and so are known by certain family names but there's no way of me finding them as I don't know their birth names!

A lass I grew up with did this, her lovely eldest daughter was told (carefully, and is now at 20 totally understanding of it all) when she was about 14.

This is only 20 years ago in a Sussex village. It's dead easy to do.

Sorry that sounded flippant. I mean, the practicalities are easy. I was friends with the mum: the emotions are immensely tough.

Don't worry @8Track I didn't think you were being flippant. It sounds so frighteningly easy to do, even relatively recently as only 20 years ago. I'm glad your friend's daughter handled it well. Maybe it being gently explained to her at that age helped rather than it being uncovered during an already difficult time like after a bereavement?

The system was certainly more open to abuse than it is now. Lots of women never saw a midwife or doctor when pregnant, and delivered at home. All that was needed was the father or mother to toddle along to the register office and register the baby.

Post war though isn't the same as the Victorian times, there were a LOT of illegitimate babies around and born immediately after the war. Formal adoption had been around since the 1920s, before that date you were allowed to make any arrangement you wanted for a child and there was often no paperwork. However, if it was the case of a child being raised within the family there is less chance of paperwork perhaps.

In the late 40s, I would imagine the birth would definitely be registered - somewhere. Perhaps in a district a long way from the mother's home - we have an illegitimate birth registered in our tree in Forfar when the 18 year old mother lived in Glasgow, the only assumption is that she was sent off to give birth quietly. Most often the birth will be registered under the mother's surname, but that doesn't mean the person used the names they were born with in later life.

Another possibility is a stillbirth. In Scotland stillbirths weren't registered until 1939, a wee bit earlier than you are looking for but a possibility.

Another possibility is that the story is tagged to the wrong member of the family. I have come across this loads of times, stories about someone's grandad doing whatever and it was actually a generation further back, or a sister or something. So look more widely within the family too.

Have you searched for a birth registration on FreeBMD?

@RaspberryCoulis - Thank you for that information, so useful and so interesting. I have found some of those scenarios you describe such as stories attributed to a different family member and I'm constantly amazed at the sheer amount of information out there to help solve family mysteries or confirm stories.

I didn't think to check outside the area where DGM was from. Following a pp suggestion I did check using middle names, variations of first name, maiden etc. and although nothing found there as of yet, I did find another family member I had been looking for who she was named after.

@expectopelargonium - good call! Thank you!

Does anyone know why a record for someone might be "closed" so can't be viewed? Doesn't even mention a name (I know who it would be though as they were a child of the couple).

Sometimes a birth was registered without a baby's first name, just the surname, and was tagged onto the end of the registration page for that part of the alphabet, possibly handwritten on. You might only find that on microfiche records. Also check the following quarter in case the birth was registered late.

I sense something not adding up with my paternal grandmother and the paternity of her 1st child ( probably not her husband). He is my fathers older brother but many think he is a half brother due to lack of family resemblance and also lack of bonding with my paternal grandfather . For my father and his siblings the whole issue of legitimacy is a no go area. On her marriage certificate, paternal grandmother’s maiden name is not the name she was born under ( her father’s surname) , its an apparently random surname and I can find no marriage certificate pre dating her marriage to my father’s father . Dates suggest she was pregnant with 1st child when she married my father’s father, but maybe they lied about date of birth and registered the baby late . I’d like to crack this one but just come up against blind alleys.