What do you think?

[majm]

Hi All,

I have a GRO certificate for the birth of an illegit baby girl in Salford, Manchester in 1853.  The informant was not the mother, and no father's name is mentioned.  The informant was simply the occupier.   I have followed up on the occupier and it seems he was simply the landlord, and a married man with children.  It took quite some time to find him as the address was one of those unfilmed 1851 water damaged census records for that part of Manchester. 

I had not been aware that non family members could register births and this is the only non-family informant I have found on any of the many 19th century GRO certs in my tree! 

I have no way of knowing if that 1st May 1853 birth of Mary Hartley HUNT, at 2 Roberts Court, Salford, Greengate, Manchester, daughter of Mary Hunt (no father's name, no father's occupation) and informed on 20th May 1853 by James Haslow, occupier of 2 Roberts Court Salford to the Registrar (surname of Hill I think, but illegible signature), actually refers to my Great Grandmother.  But one day I will figure it out.   Cheers, MA

[mum mum]

This may be a bit late but I'm going to put my bit in as well. It seemed common for women to remarry as soon as possible after the death of a spouse, especially if she had children. I presume a woman with a child would have no means to support herself and her child and would have to accept whatever offer of marriage came along. Marriage would have been a necessity, not really the result of meeting someone and "falling in love".
My GG Grandmother married her second husband, a man 20 years or so older than her when she was 8 months pregnant with her third child who was given the surname of her first deceased husband. I guess the registrar knew that she was a widow and that the child was the first husbands.
I have noticed that in my family tree if a woman was widowed she seemed to remarry pretty quickly by todays standards. After all there were no widows pensions or single mothers benefits back then.
mum mum

[majm]

Hi mum mum,

Yes, I agree about those widows with children re-marrying shortly after loss of husband.  And, while that would help provide for that widow and her children, it also meant that the new husband had a 24 hour housekeeper, perhaps not just for himself, but also for his own children by an earlier marriage.  Remember that there were many deaths of women at or around child-birth because medical science was not what it ought to have been. 

Cheers,  MA

[Gaille]

Hi mum mum,

Yes, I agree about those widows with children re-marrying shortly after loss of husband.  And, while that would help provide for that widow and her children, it also meant that the new husband had a 24 hour housekeeper, perhaps not just for himself, but also for his own children by an earlier marriage.  Remember that there were many deaths of women at or around child-birth because medical science was not what it ought to have been. 

Cheers,  MA

I have a lovely tangle in my tree that unless you understand the family set up you would wonder who was who!

My Paternal gt-gt-grandad had 4 sons.
in 1891 - Shortly after the birth of the youngest his wife died leaving him with 4 sons under working age.

In 1892 he has a new wife, who then has 2 daughters.

In 1900 gt-grandad died, leaving a widow, 2 young daughters and 3 of his 4 sons (1 died in 1896)
1 daughter then died the year after in 1901 after the cencus

so by the 1901 Cencus I have my gt-grandad living with his step-mother, older (full) brother, and 2 half sisters ............plus his stepmums sister.

on the 1911 Cencus I have oldest brother as head of the house aged in his 36's, step mum aged 48, half sister aged 11 .............. and yet another of the step mums sisters !

I can only surmise that the oldest son took in the family including his brother, step mum, half sisters and his step mums sister (s) after the death of the father ....................... lol but anyone else looking at it would wonder what the heck was going on!

Where I was kind of going with this is this ..................... my gt-grandad was pretty much brought up by his step mum and his elder brother after both his natural parents died - he was very young when his mother died, and his dad re-married, so she would have been the only mother he remembered.................. my dad remembers him talking of her as his 'mum' - NO ONE in the family actually realised until I found out that his youngest sister was in fact his half sister .......so in respect of that she is in our family tree, and I have traced her family back 3 generations(lol I stumbled on a fantastic site that had loads of info on it)

(I have to admit this is partly out of curiosity - my dads MUMS side of the family came from the same small village in Shropshire so I am curious as to if both his parents lines were related in some way generations back - both his parents were born & brought up in Manchester.)

Gaille