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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: robraw on Thursday 10 February 05 11:29 GMT (UK)
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In my family we have in every generation of premature birth, Many first offsprings were born within 6 months of the marriage.
In Oz I can expalin it in the early days as mnisters of religion were a bit scare and marriages and baptisms occurred ont he same day. But in England
Were my lot randy or rare
Robraw
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Robraw,
In earlier times it was incredibly common to have a child before the marriage took place. I have dozens of examples in my tree. I suspect that there are many reasons for this ranging from the fact that some saw the "engagement" as being almost as significant as the marriage through to simply being unlucky ;D
Paul
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We have a number of bouncing babies born at a terribly premature age!!!!
I have been told that many, many years ago it was quite common for the first child to be born before or shortly after a marriage so the man knew he was marrying a fertile woman.
A sort of old time "try before you buy" situation I suppose ;D
tabitha
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Yes, there are many a premature birth in my tree in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Seems they were a promiscuous bunch. ;D
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Yes, there are many a premature birth in my tree in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Seems they were a promiscuous bunch. ;D
Must be something to do with the country air, some of my East Riding branch had very short pregnancies :o
When I first started family history I used to look for a marriage at least 9 months before the birth, now I start from the birth month and work backwards, it's a lot more successful. ;)
Bee
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Ive got a few, which caused me a headache or two..
my most recent find was born only 6 weeks after the marriage - a very short pregnanacy indeed ;)
which now gives me another headache, as my mum is adament that thwere were only four boys born to my G Grandparents and ive found 5....
but all the family photos show 4, and i cant find a death lol - im sure it was either stay a mystery or at somepoint i will find the answer
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anyone else had a father who would not let daughter even sit on a sofa with a boyfriend, then get his own marriage certificate to find he was married christmas eve 1938 and guess who was born in june 1939
sylvia
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Two of my ancestors actually married on the day their first child was born - I have both the certificates to prove it. I'm not actually sure which came first, the wedding or the birth but the mind boggles ............
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Well I don't know about births before the marriage, but I come from a long line of NO DAD'S myself.
I have one ggg grandma who had four, yes four children, in different villages who had the same surname as mum, but spelt slightly different. Will never know if they had different fathers.
Plus several others who have no fathers name on the birth certificate.
Tom
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I spent ages trying to find the background of Ethel who died in 1969. She was ultra respectable, very keen on marriage - though I failed to find any record of her own marriage. Her death certificate gave her father as George, with Ethel's surname. Eventually I traced her through a different route and found she was illegitimate, no father named.
I've also got a 17 year old lad up in North Yorkshire who married his 22 year old girlfriend because she was pregnant - early 19th century.
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There certainly aren't enough fingers on one hand to count my lot!
Jill
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I remember long ago, when I was a teenager, my mother was moaning about 'the younger generation' saying they were far more promiscuous than her generation, to which my grandmother replied 'you must have been a boring lot then, because it went on in my day.' Needless to say my mother wasn't amused, but I thought my gran was really cool. It was only when I started researching my tree that I found out why my gran felt the way she did, her first child was born a month before her wedding - I wonder if my mum ever knew that.
Sandie
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My i thought it was only my family who were naughty, but it seems every one is in the same boat. i have 2 g g aunts with children just after they were married. i have another who was illegitimate, and yet another who had 6 boys, but i have 7 names.
Don't you just love family tree?.
Wj