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Thanks for sharing that information. My father in law only remembers how upset his mother was as being labelled as illegitimate. I assumed that since her father wasn't present at the birth, that this was the reason. Up until this point, I had issues tracing my own family tree lines so had put more effort in to my husband's side as that was so much more straight forward. The children were named after grandparents on each side and all appeared to be married prior to the arrival of children. On one line, they were all coal miners and shuffled between streets close to the mines with daughters that married sons of existing miners. Reading up on the history of scottish miners has been interesting and sad as there was no health and safety back then.

Could I upload her birth certificate for you to have a look and see if you can spot something that this novice missed?

My husband's grandmother was born in January 1900 and her certificate has illegitimate written clearly. However, her father died just before Christmas, on 20th December 1899, aged 39 and left his widow with their three daughters aged 10, 6 and 3 and Margaret arrived three weeks after her father died. As a result, his name was never on her certificate even though she shared the same parents as her sisters. I can only imagine what life was like for the family over Christmas, New Year, and having a baby whilst mourning the loss of your husband and provider. I have not found the family on the 1901 census but I am still investigating. Margaret grew up with a sense of shame because she was classed as an illegitimate child.