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Genealogy
Original poster

Intriguing...

10 replies

SnuggleBuggleBoo · 18/03/2023 19:48

My mum just told me something which surprised me, and I'm wondering if there's a way to find out the truth.

Her mother died last year. On her deathbed she revealed to my aunt 'something big' that my aunt supposedly wanted to process before discussing with my mum. The two of them have since gone no contact without it having been discussed. Now my mum has a theory about what it is - she wonders if her mother was adopted as a baby.

My grandma (let's call her Jenny) was an only child with an older mother (Flora). Jenny's dad died when she was a teen and she married at 18 and had my mum at 20. Flora minded my mum throughout her childhood and they had a very close bond.

My mum recalls a lack of warmth between Jenny and Flora even though Jenny was highly cossetted as a child. Jenny was dutiful towards her as an adult but not affectionate. They had no resemblance either in looks or personality. My mum is far more 'Flora' than 'Jenny' in personality though of course they spent a great deal of time together as a little girl.

There's a lot of infertility among the women on my mum's side of the family, I strongly believe my aunt's own daughter was conceived with a donor egg. Anyway, one of Flora's cousins was a midwife and my mother thinks it's quite possible that she brought a newborn Jenny to Flora to raise, maybe from a woman who'd got pregnant out of wedlock.

Supposedly my aunt is into genealogy and was exploring the family tree, so maybe she asked Jenny about it and that's what triggered the big revelation. That's just a guess though. If Flora was adopted though I'm thinking it must have been on the 'unofficial' side of things, and Jenny was registered as hers, or it would have come up much earlier in my aunt's genealogy project.

ANYWAY, sorry for rambling. What I'm trying to ask is, would there be any way to find out if Flora was really my biological Great-Gran, or if my mum's slightly wild theory could be true?

OP posts:
VariationsonaTheme · 18/03/2023 19:52

What approximate years are we talking about? That will determine what info is available and how you might go about finding out what’s happening.

Original poster
SnuggleBuggleBoo · 18/03/2023 20:21

VariationsonaTheme · 18/03/2023 19:52

What approximate years are we talking about? That will determine what info is available and how you might go about finding out what’s happening.

I believe Jenny was born in 1934/5?

OP posts:
Original poster
SnuggleBuggleBoo · 18/03/2023 20:23

I realise there's a typo at the end of my OP - it should say 'If Flora ADOPTED' not 'If she WAS adopted'.

OP posts:
Saker · 19/03/2023 08:42

You could look for a birth registration for your grandmother. If you could find one with the correct maiden name for her mother, then you could be reasonably sure that she wasn't adopted. If you can't find one, it doesn't follow she was adopted as there are many reasons why you sometimes can't find them. Adoption records are usually available on the general database. If you want to PM me the details I can look to see if I can find a birth registration for your grandmother.

Original poster
SnuggleBuggleBoo · 19/03/2023 14:53

Saker · 19/03/2023 08:42

You could look for a birth registration for your grandmother. If you could find one with the correct maiden name for her mother, then you could be reasonably sure that she wasn't adopted. If you can't find one, it doesn't follow she was adopted as there are many reasons why you sometimes can't find them. Adoption records are usually available on the general database. If you want to PM me the details I can look to see if I can find a birth registration for your grandmother.

Thank you! My mum's theory is that it would have been unofficial though. Flora's cousin being a midwife taking a newborn from an unwed mother or whatever and Flora then registering it as hers. So Jenny's birth certificate would seem fine and normal.

OP posts:
Saker · 19/03/2023 18:10

I did understand that you are saying that the adoption could have been unofficial.
However it would have been illegal for them to register a newborn baby in someone else's name. It would have also been odd for a baby to suddenly appear in a household when the mother hadn't been pregnant. I would have thought it would be more likely that the baby would have first been registered in the real mother's name even if she was then adopted unofficially. It might not give a definitive answer, but I think a good starting point would be to find out if the birth was registered as expected.

neitherofthem · 21/03/2023 16:38

@SnuggleBuggleBoo You mention that your mum and your aunt have now gone no-contact with one another.

Are you in contact with your aunt? If you are, then maybe she would be able to talk to you about this deathbed confession, or whatever it was.

There may be nothing to do with adoption, it could be about Jenny's father (Flora's husband) who died when Jenny was a teenager. Maybe he'd been in prosin, or perhaps he was a brute, or maybe he wasn't Jenny's father. Maybe he and Flora weren't married. There are a lot of things other than adoption that it could have been.

If you aren't on speaking terms with your aunt, then the way to go would be to try and find birth, marriage and death certificates.

neitherofthem · 21/03/2023 16:39

prosin? Prison.

How I yearn for an edit button.

picklemewalnuts · 21/03/2023 17:03

But if your mum is like Flora, doesn't that make it likely that she's related? If Jenny isn't related to Flora, then neither is your mum.

picklemewalnuts · 21/03/2023 17:04

Could be that they had different dads, or anything.

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