How would you feel if a DNA match told you that your great great grandfather might have had a child outside his marriage with a housemaid?

[PuppiesProzacProsecco]

Sorry for the ridiculously long title!

Basically, I've stumbled on someone on ancestry that might be the great great granddaughter of my mum's (previously unknown) father.

My grandmother was in service and became pregnant with my mum aged 18. The father was an older married man. The surname, timings, profession, place and age match up and my DNA match to this person indicates she's my half second cousin once removed or my third cousin. Which I think from a quick Google sounds broadly correct if her Great grandmother was my mum's half sister.

I've messaged her but no response as yet. I'm feeling quite anxious because of the "scandalous" aspect of the situation - my mum was born in 1935 so a different time. As far as I know, my grandmother never claimed she was raped but with power/class dynamics and the fact she was so young whilst he'd have been in his 50s, calling it "consensual" is a bit of a stretch.

Basically, has anyone else been in a situation like this where they've been told something like this? How did it make you feel?

I think my great great grandfather probably did exactly that.

At all events, one census shows my young great grandmother working as a maid/housekeeper at his address; then she moves back home to her mum; then she reappears at her former work address, with a young son, marries my GGGF and has two more children (including my grandmother) with him. GGGF takes the older lad into his business. I suspect he's the daddy.

@MementoMountain aww I'm so glad your GGG got a happy ending.

My grandmother's story didn't turn out to be such a happy one unfortunately but it's lovely to know it could (and did) happen 🥰

I would take it with a pinch of salt. I found all sorts out through my family history, both sets of grandparents had illegitimate children, my great grandfather ran over one of his children in a horse and cart and sadly killed her and spent much of his adulthood in and out of prison for being a drunk and not paying his fines.

there were also lots of early deaths of young children to illness that doesn’t kill anymore and lots of early deaths of adults due to just having shit lives and working in mills from childhood.

I think most of us probably have a very “interesting” history of one sort or another.

It's certainly not unusual for this to have happened. My great - great grandfather was conceived this way. I am not sure of my great great great grandmother's status but was always told she was a servant. However (perhaps unusually) she managed to secure a cash settlement in return for leaving the country, and she then set up her own business which did very well - it still exists today!
I have great admiration for what she made of her life.

I would be mildly interested and would love to meet up once or twice and exchange info but that’s about it. I wouldn’t make much effort to keep in touch or to be sisterly.

I'd find it interesting but no more than that. At that level of removal I suspect almost everyone has family complications. Do you actually want to make contact with your half second cousin once removed- I have lots of unknowns on Ancestry who are at a similar distance to me and I don't think I'd respond to a contact request.

A bit ick as I'd assume it wasn't consentual

Bless her.
What must she have been through..

I wouldnt care but i wouldnt want you messaging me about a tenuous connection. (Although i havent uploaded my dna anywhere so it would be mire intrustive if someone did seek me out).

Ive seen my GG grandmother is probably not the child of a 50 yo mother but i wouldnt want to hear from the father's family, appreciate with your dm it's closer to you but this person is a very distant cousin. The town im from everyone has that level of connection to each other!

I would love to know. In fact, I joined Ancestry and did a DNA test with the hope of maybe one day tracking down descendents of my mother's 'unknown' father. (Her mother, my grandma, offered to tell her about him when she was a teenager, but at that time Mum said no way, she didn't want to know. Her stepdad was good to her, and as far as she was concerned, he was the only dad she wanted or needed.

My mum is of the same generation, born in the early 1930s, and yes, it was scandalous enough for her to refuse to openly acknowledge or discuss the issue even with me or my brother for over 50 years. However, she is now curious and has even done a DNA test herself with the hope of perhaps finding close enough matches on that side of the family to finally get some answers.

That aside, family research has been absolutely fascinating, and I would love distant relatives to contact me.

I also discovered that the girl who was my best friend in my last year at school over 45 years ago was actually my fifth cousin.

A N Other Loon

No, I've no interest in meeting up with her at all. And I don't expect she'd want to meet me either.

I'm just trying to confirm if her GG grandad could be my grandfather. It's odd to me that so many people have commented on my thread in the Genealogy section who don't seem to have any understanding of why people do DNA tests or research their family tree.

My mum never knew her father, I never knew my grandfather. My grandmother's life was effectively ruined by whatever happened to her when she was 18. She went on to have more children and their lives weren't great either. I think it's only natural that I'd like to know a little more about who this man was. There are some details I won't reveal here (such as his profession) that could, if confirmed by her, further confirm to me that he is indeed the man who fathered by grandmother's illegitimate baby. Aka my mum.

Wouldn't give a fuck, probably wouldn't reply

Id like someone to contact me with something juicy but no one ever has

I think I'd look upon it as an interesting fact but leave it as that.
Ive done my ancestry and found out a few things that could be seen as ' skeletons ' .
My 3x g grandfather was transported to Tasmania to serve a 14 year sentence .
Inspite of him having a wife and young children here in the UK , I have distant cousins in Australia ( !) and after his sentence he never returned to the UK .
His brother was also transported and he did return to his family.
I've also found out I have gypsy / traveller heritage via my mother's line and even thought she is no longer alive there is no way she would have known that and not told me .

DH had an aunt who knew the family secrets but she died not telling anyone. She had promised to write down what she knew for DH, but she didn’t.

The issue was his grandmother, mother of his DF, an Uncle and Aunt, had the same surname as them at birth and never married. The 3 DC also had two different fathers but DH never knew this and had never worked it out. I did around 30 years ago, mainly because the family is mentioned in a local history book and so was the grandma. DH only had his aunt to ask by then.

A cousin has said what she was told about DH's and her grandad, (two different men) but who knows if it’s correct? She wasn’t sure of the exact name, just their job. I think I’ve worked out who it was.

They were all ashamed of her having 3 DC with 2 different men, not marrying and being a “seamstress”. She lived in a cottage owned by one of fathers so he housed his two DC. Cousin referred to her as the “village bike”. So there was silence for decades. Many families will have had similar.

It's happened several times. DGF and DGGF liked the ladies. I was happy to meet them as were the wider. I think people have a right to know where they came from.

I have a really sad story about deportation, in around 1840, my god knows how many greats grandfather was sentenced to 14 years transportation. However he never made it further than a prison hulk in Gosport or somewhere like that

Meanwhile, in the following year while he was still on the hulk, his wife had twin boys who died within days of the birth. No father recorded. He wouldnt have been the father due to the dates.

Four years later he was given a pardon and whats nice to see is that they were just as crap with record keeping and bureaucracy in the mid 1840s as now, seeing that he got a 'Kings Pardon' because that was the title of the document even though Victoria was on the throne. Anyway, he got a Kings Pardon for having a bad back, having never left England and came back. And they went on to have more kids. However, given the way things were in those days the whole community would have known that she had these little children, out of wedlock, no husband, then lost them, I dont know if she was supported or shamed?

I understand entirely why people research their family trees- I have done my own. I honestly don't think you are going to get any sort of closure from this and I think the reaction you'll get to suggesting (without evidence) that a stranger's relative may have raped your grandmother and ruined her life is probably one you won't find helpful.

Hi OP,

I have been in the position of reaching out to DNA matches in order to answer a burning question, and have had mixed responses. Some are eager to help find the connection, some are dismissive, some don't respond at all. You don't really know until you try.

What I've found is that some people only do the DNA test to discover their ethnicity and have no interest in finding distant relations. Others have been shocked by their result and need time to come to terms with that before responding to approaches. Others who have been doing their family tree for years sometimes move on with their interests and don't visit the DNA site that often any more, so it can take months for them to see a message.
I wouldn't despair about the lack of response yet.

The fact that this DNA Match has a family tree up suggests that she is open to finding out about her family, and I also wouldn't worry about the potential for it being a non-consensual liaison. Neither you nor this match are responsible for your ancestors' behaviour and as good researchers/family historians, you should both be keen to establish the facts without speculation.

Good luck!

This is exactly the situation my family found on ancestry except we are the housemaids great grandchildren.

My great -grandfather was married three times - probably bigamously. We all find it fascinating and love trying to plot a very complicated family tree. It’s made more difficult because each of the women also had another relationship and more offspring. I ignore all the posts telling me that someone is my third cousin twice removed.

We found someone who ran a brothel and someone else who married in the US and had a further 6 kids while still staying married here and continuing to write to his wife here pretending for years he was saving up and coming home.

Par of the course for this type of research. My mother was mortified by the brothel one and wouldn’t tell anyone. It did sound a bit horrific, like he was truly bad person and it was her grandfather who she remembered. Whether for me, it was just interesting.

It made me v sad to unearth some family history and it explained the intergenerational trauma and pts suffered by my granddad, and also the concealment and lies that my mother and her siblings engage in.

Its good to understand triggers, family history, trauma, and it's also good then to allow the past to rest.

I’d be a bit suspicious that someone was claiming to be a relative, and be was wondering what they want.

I think a lot of family secrets were kept, not spoken about, even if they were known about.

In my case DNA testing was a positive thing, as it eliminated my small doubt that one of my grandfathers might not be my biological grandfather. He was.