The Stigma of being illegitimate & female in 1800

[LizzieW]

My g.grandmother had her 6th child with her first husband in 1878 and the birth certificate shows the father's name and "deceased" next to it.  I would have thought this was more normal, and can't imagine why, if the child was her husband's, the mother didn't give her husband as the father, stating that he had recently died.  So perhaps, tinytears9, your husband's grandmother was illegitimate.  Her mother's husband may have been ill for some time before he died and his mother sought solace elsewhere.

[clairec666]

I've found some differing attitudes to illegitimacy within my family. Some go to lengths to cover it up - grandparents pretending the child is theirs, invented fathers on marriage certificates. And some don't seem to bother. (Maybe the whole village knew the truth so there was no point trying to lie?)

My great-great-grandfather became a respectable businessman in London, but was born out of wedlock into a rural family in the late 1860s. On the 1881 census he takes his stepfather's surname. When he marries, he uses his real surname, and pretends his stepfather is his real father but changes the surname to match his own!
Without a time machine I'll never know if the "stigma" of illegitimacy followed him throughout his adult life, and how hard he lied to cover it up. It certainly didn't hold him back.

[pharmaT]

Apparently Ramsey Macdonald was born illigitimate.  I wonder if the other candidates brought this up during campaigning.

[coombs]

My great, great gran was born in December 1863 in a pretty remote Sussex village and the mother seemed to be still living with her wheelwright father and his wife at home and registered the birth as illegitimate. The father has been identified through other records. Maybe it was the same as Claire's case, everyone may have known so no point in lying.

[AntonyMMM]

its not just the 1800s' my nan was illigitemate because her mother did not get msrried to my nans father until she first registered my nan on the 13thjanuary 1912 and then married george on the 15th january 1912 she obviously was not thinking of my nan when she did this it was more to do with what the law stated than anything else. my nan was borne on 23rd dec. the holdays started almost immediately and the registry office did not re-open until about a week after the beg of the new year, dso she did not rush to  register her its a shame that se did not rush to get married either and legitimise my nans birth my nan felt this fact thr whole of her life. I followed suit my mm refused to marry my dad , but when she eventually explained to me i agrred that she did the right thing.

It is the marital status at the time of the birth that is relevant when registering a birth. So even if she had delayed registering the birth until after the wedding, the registration would still have been completed as that of an unmarried couple, assuming she answered the registrar's questions correctly ( which of course some people don't).

[RJ_Paton]

It is the marital status at the time of the birth that is relevant when registering a birth. So even if she had delayed registering the birth until after the wedding, the registration would still have been completed as that of an unmarried couple, assuming she answered the registrar's questions correctly ( which of course some people don't).

In Scotland the situation is slightly different in that providing there was no impediment to marriage and the parents subsequently did marry then the birth of the child was automatically legitimised.
The additional stigma of having the word "illegitimate" on any birth certificate was also later removed by a change in the law whether the parents of the child went on to marry or not.

[coombs]

From 1837 to 1850 if a putative father was named he could be entered on the register of a birth, a common myth is that applied until 1874 but Dixon's BMD site said from 1850 onwards no father was to be put in the entry for an illegitimate birth. Of course from 1874 (or 1 Jan 1875) if the father was present he could put his name down if not wed to the mother.