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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Finley 1 on Saturday 03 August 13 05:51 BST (UK)
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2383895/Desperate-wives-man-fathered-500-children-women-war-hero-husbands-shellshocked-make-love.html
497 children that had one father!!!!!!!!!!! ------ throws up a lot of questions doesnt it?
crazy
:-X
xin
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This is the problem in researching family history :) The maternal line is the most reliable one to follow as this is generally neither faked nor disputed, that is the mother is always known, the father is assumed to be the husband even if he is not.
Stan
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I guess there wouldnt be any records to indicate if this story is true. Derek may have fathered some kids but that number is a bit overboard i think. Sorry but im a bit sussed about it.
IF it is true half brothers and sisters could have married and not even be aware they are related :o
Wonder what his occupation was noted as on his childrens birth certificates ;D [children he had to his wife that is]
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What a fascinating article! As Stan says, I suppose assumptions are always made about the father, but may not be true, in all time periods!
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This is the problem in researching family history :) The maternal line is the most reliable one to follow as this is generally neither faked nor disputed, that is the mother is always known, the father is assumed to be the husband even if he is not.
Stan
Or to put it another way: maternity is a matter of fact; paternity is a matter of opinion.
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Wow ! Interesting article. I guess no one will ever know the truth unless everyone gets the DNA testing done.
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Very interesting article, another genealogical brick wall :)
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[/quote]
Or to put it another way: maternity is a matter of fact; paternity is a matter of opinion.
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Yes definitely. I have someone in my tree, who was illegitimate, I checked and double checked a lot of records but turned up nothing substantial. An important point we have to consider is that having a child out of wedlock was considered a sin, and so the true facts of what happened and with whom may indeed have been distorted in an attempt to cover this up and protect the people involved from scandal. In my experience if you find the name of the father of an illegitimate child you're lucky! :)
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Bear in mind that there were possibly more than 20 million children born in the country during the period Derek was 'working'. Of course, depending on how far he travelled, there may have been local concentrations of his genes :-\
These stories make interesting and thought-provoking reading but I would suggest the odds are generally strongly in favour of the husband being the children's father in most cases, and I will continue to make that assumption unless there is evidence to the contrary.
Mike.
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I am thinking that I may need to buy some more software. I am not sure if my database can hold so many children for one family. Just in case!
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[Wonder what his occupation was noted as on his childrens birth certificates ;D [children he had to his wife that is]
[/quote]He was a precision grinder.
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Oh wow that is 15 children a year. That means if a baby was made each visit that is more than one visit a month.
I wonder if the visits were planned for an area to save money on travel. I.e "You have 4 ladies in London this week Derek ;)
Did anyone think of STD's. I would have been concerned about that if I was his wife.
Leaves too many questions in my mind. :o
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Rather a mind-boggling story :o
Wars and their aftermath must always have resulted in some dodgy paternities but Derek's story is in another league!!
However, I shall continue to assume that my paternal line is as it purports to be as after all I do appear to look a bit like paternal grandfather ;D
Maggie
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Being a father involves much more than providing a sperm at the right moment.
I would be much more interested in the man who brought up my ancestor, and the people who had shaped his life than in being able to trace a particular strand of DNA.
Mike
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I'd take the whole story with a large pinch of salt, after all it seems to originate from the "Daily Mail". Need I say more about that pernicious rag?
Anne
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My mother had a match who had "sperm doner " written on their tree . I did contact someone else who matched them who said "oh yes my brother was a sperm doner in the 1970s and I get lots of people contacting me ! "
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There was a time once when I did think that to be an ancestor of someone you have to actually be the blood ancestor, and biologically descended from them. But now I strongly refute that in cases where a man raised an ancestor from babyhood whether blood or not. The child took their surname and the man was married to the mother plus much more outside the sperm donor. Also you do not inherit DNA from every single blood ancestor anyway.
If a man married a pregnant woman and he knew the real father had fled or died and he was saving her from a sticky situation and raised the child as his own, then I would deffo count him as the child's father.
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I'd take the whole story with a large pinch of salt, after all it seems to originate from the "Daily Mail". Need I say more about that pernicious rag?
Anne
My thoughts exactly. Sounds like baloney to me.
Martin
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My earliest paternal line ancestor is Thomas Titshall born c1663, likely in the Thetford area of Norfolk. Not sure who his parents were or any siblings but if he has a brother who had sons, who in turn had sons and so on to today, then I should have very distant paternal line living cousins descended from the Titshall brothers, that is if Thomas did have a brother. We should share the same Y-DNA unless there was a break in the line, on my line of descent or on theirs.