General tips re: illegitimate children

[AntonyMMM]

I mentioned earlier that my illegitimate ancestor's father's name was included when he married in 1842. Were there any rules about that?

The father's, now both parents, information has never been part of the legally required information that has to be given when marrying (in England/Wales) so it is just whatever the bride/groom give. It isn't checked or verified at all. There has never been any rule to stop the father of a child born illegitimately being named, although I expect some vicars may have discouraged it.

Currently it is OK to name a natural, adoptive or step parent.

You can also choose to leave it blank if you want to as Boris Johnson and his wife both did when marrying in 2021 and as far as I know neither were born illegitimately, and both know who their parents are. I use a copy of their marriage certificate as an example of the new A4 format when I give talks on marriage registration. They aren't that unusual either - I had a few similar examples when I was a registrar.

[antiquesam]

I'm never going to be able to find who my father's father was using DNA. I seem to have lots of matches around the world and few from his native county of Devon. He was a merchant mariner, though, who took two year contracts on trampers  ???to stay out of the UK for tax reasons. In his day a two week stay in port was normal to load and unload so who knows how many  half siblings I have. 

[brigidmac]

antiquessam dont give up you may be able to work it out through matches to more distant relatives
his parents, brothers and sisters may have stayed place so you will have matches who are shared matches to each other from further back and one particular location and set of ancestors names will keep occurring ,you have to build your tree down from them

my grandmothers birth father never married or had other children as far as i know but my dna matches descendants of 2 of his sisters and a half sister who also lived at one point in the town where my grandmother was born .

there are lots of tips and examples of how to do this kind of triangulation on the dna forum
my cousins highest paternal dna match in a different country turned out to be descendant of the birth father of his grandfather  but both descendants of a single mother so no name matches + i worked out which location and family he must have come from

[antiquesam]

His sister did stay local, but she too was illegitimate, whether by the same father I don't know. Like him she is long dead along with all her offspring. He named his uncle as his father when marrying, as did his sister. To be honest I'm not sure I want to go down that track.

[melba_schmelba]

I'm never going to be able to find who my father's father was using DNA. I seem to have lots of matches around the world and few from his native county of Devon. He was a merchant mariner, though, who took two year contracts on trampers  ???to stay out of the UK for tax reasons. In his day a two week stay in port was normal to load and unload so who knows how many  half siblings I have. 

Which company did you test with? Have you transferred any tests you have done to all the sites you can upload to i.e. GEDMATCH, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA?

[Nanna52]

I'm never going to be able to find who my father's father was using DNA. I seem to have lots of matches around the world and few from his native county of Devon. He was a merchant mariner, though, who took two year contracts on trampers  ???to stay out of the UK for tax reasons. In his day a two week stay in port was normal to load and unload so who knows how many  half siblings I have. 

I have a choice of five brothers.  It may be as close as I get, but I know more than I did before I took the DNA test.
It sounds as if your grandfather lived up to the sailors creed of a girl in every port.

[antiquesam]

Melba schmelba. I used Ancestry and it's on Gedmatch and My Heritage. I've joined the relevant Facebook page.
Nanna 52. I can't, of course, confirm your suggestion but I have my suspicions.

[DianaCanada]

I mentioned earlier that my illegitimate ancestor's father's name was included when he married in 1842. Were there any rules about that?

The father's, now both parents, information has never been part of the legally required information that has to be given when marrying (in England/Wales) so it is just whatever the bride/groom give. It isn't checked or verified at all. There has never been any rule to stop the father of a child born illegitimately being named, although I expect some vicars may have discouraged it.

Currently it is OK to name a natural, adoptive or step parent.

You can also choose to leave it blank if you want to as Boris Johnson and his wife both did when marrying in 2021 and as far as I know neither were born illegitimately, and both know who their parents are. I use a copy of their marriage certificate as an example of the new A4 format when I give talks on marriage registration. They aren't that unusual either - I had a few similar examples when I was a registrar.

Thank you for this information, Antony.  When my mother, who was born to a single mother, married in 1945, she named her grandfather in the father column.  He had a part in raising her And was still alive and likely at the wedding.  Perhaps the vicar even suggested it.
I too have narrowed her father down to three brothers, I tend to think the youngest most likely.  Unfortunately, only one of them had children, so even if one of the descendants tested, I could only rule out that one.

[melba_schmelba]

As a general comment, as you go farther back in time, illegitimacy seemed to be less of a taboo and illegitimate children were often named in wills. It seemed that with the coming of Victorian times, it probably became more of a taboo and these things were hushed up and not publicly acknowledged.