Illegitimacy in 19th-century America (German, white, certificate, public)
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If we are gong back before the 19th century, I have a whopper of a story in my family history from Colonial Connecticut.
Thomas Miller (my 9th great grandfather) came over from England in the 1630s and was one of the founders of Middletown, Connecticut. He had a wife and daughter. In 1665, his wife was on her deathbed, and Thomas sought comfort from their servant, Sarah Nettleton. At the time the wife died, Sarah was pregnant with Thomas's child. Sarah had the son, and a month later, the wife died and Thomas married Sarah.
Thomas was arrested and jailed, and tried in the local Puritan church court for "notorious wickedness in committing uncleanness with Sarah Nettleton." He was fined, and whipped naked in the public square. Sarah was also sentenced to being whipped, but the sentence was delayed until she delivered the child. But there is no evidence that she ever was whipped after the child was born.
Thomas's adult daughter was already married, and apparently tried some other legal actions against her father. It appears he tried to settle things with her by being generous to her in his will.
Thomas and Sarah (my 9th great grandmother) went on to have 7 more children, the youngest being my 8th great grandmother, who Sarah was pregnant with in 1680 when Thomas died.
With that story in mind, I always wonder when I see a large gap between a group of siblings and the youngest sibling. Was that just a surprise late baby or was it a case of covering up an illegitimate child?
It's also possible the mother had miscarriages or stillbirths during the gap.
One great great grandfather came here from Befast/northern Ireland. He was an 'Orangeman'. He had a legal wife and children. Then *something* happened and he found it necessary to leave immediately. He arrived in New York on an immigration ship a few months later.
Family was certain his wife knew what happened and where and why he dissapeared, but she just said he left. She never said. But using his real name, he met and married my gg grandmother, who also immigrated from Orange just before. No mention was made of the former marriage at the time, but it's been assumed she knew. Technically he was still married to wife number one.
My great grandfather and the rest of the kids were considered legit by officialdom since there was no record which followed him from Ireland.
I have a picture taken of both he and his wife and he certainly *looks* like a tough sort to deny. I also wonder how much and what part of his being an 'orangeman' led to his sudden departure.
My dad's mom's father similarly came from England. He married her mother, had a job, everything was normal. Then he left for work one day and vanished. It was investigated and nothing was found. He hadn't done anything known. The interesting thing is it was believed his wife knew where he was and never ever said.
Forget 19th century, legal books from 1960s read like it's another country. All way up to 1960s the family laws were quite 19th century like and bastard children were universally denied the same rights as children born to parents who were legally married to each other.
Just curious; How did you all find such interesting details with names, dates, and stuff about your ancestors? Did you use Ancestry, or a researcher? Or did you have the actual family Bible? Or maybe hearsay, passed down from one to another.
Anyway, I think it's fabulous that you know so much about your ancestors, even those who came over centuries ago. I have had no luck finding out even the minimal info about most of mine. Before my Mom passed, she wrote down some of the family "gossip" but that's all I have now.
For my stories in my 2 posts above, I found info in lots of places.
For the Swedish ancestors, almost all my info came from Arkivdigital.com which has hundreds of years of very detailed records from Sweden on births, deaths, marriages, household membership, and household moves, along with trades/professions of the head of household. You can literally trace my 2nd great grandfather in Sweden, moving from town to town, living with women and fathering their children, then showing up in a new town with a new woman, and having children with her.
For my Scottish-Irish scandal, that was from family stories passed down, orally but most importantly in writing, and newspaper articles and birth/death/marriage notices in Irish newspapers from FindmyPast.com.
For the mysterious oldest daughter and her later illegitimate baby, I found all of that in records onAancestry.com and Familysearch.org. Also newspaper articles from Genealogybank.com.
My Colonial Connecticut scandal was from excerpts of books and histories about colonial America, and many sources told the story of Thomas Miller (above).
Just curious; How did you all find such interesting details with names, dates, and stuff about your ancestors? Did you use Ancestry, or a researcher? Or did you have the actual family Bible? Or maybe hearsay, passed down from one to another.
In my case, most of it I was sent to me by a distantly-related family researcher who went to the county courthouse and turned up a lot of stuff decades ago. Also there was a descendant of some of these people who died in the 1970's and left handwritten notes about her genealogy which were discovered at that time, and were revealing. She knew that her grandfather was not her grandmother's husband (and therefore that her last name was passed down from an unrelated man).
I have other ancestors in the early 1800's who were accused of adultery (again in the same Georgia community)-- both husband and wife got around, both were my 3rd great grandparents (in this case I descend from their one legitimate daughter). It is a case of "well-behaved women seldom make history", not only was my 3rd great grandmother "witnessed" to have engaged in adultery (several witnesses were named in records) but she also was accused of attempting to poison the wife of one of her lovers.
Meanwhile my 3rd great grandfather ran away with another man's wife and fathered a child with her, then dropped them both and married a third woman.
I believe there was a lot more of this than we think. It was probably due to the scarcity of officiants in some areas.
I did notice, that it seems that the dates indicate that my great grandmother, who had 13 children, was pregnant when she got married. This was a shocker, since my grandmother, her daughter, was so prim and proper, and had only one child.
I was heartened that it seems like the great grand parents were hot for each other.
In Norway in the mid 19th century, in some areas the rate of illegitimacy was as high as 50%.
The illegitimacy was among landless people. Legitimacy isn't really necessary when there is nothing to inherit. In Norway these were primarily inland farm laborers. Coastal fishing areas had lower rates of illegitimacy.
The Norwegian government was concerned enough in the mid 19th century to fund studies to determine the reasons for this. In short, it was found that landless people were also essentially homeless, and lived in barns owned by farm owners and farm renters. They slept communally. Stuff happened. So the only social norm averting illegitimacy was religion (Lutheranism).
The majority of Norwegians who immigrated to America were these landless farm laborers. So naturally, many Norwegian Americans have a high percentage of illegitimacy in their heritage. (Look for variants of the word "uekte" in church and government records.)
After Norwegians arrived in America, most eventually became land owners and the incidence and acceptance of illegitimacy declined.
One thing is for sure.....a lot of Hanky Panky was going around for Centuries.
What I feel sorry for is the small kids of today who are asked in grade school to write about their Ancestory.
What about the kids that have a somewhat BLANK paper to turn in that feel left out.
My kids during the early 60's did get my side of the family tree to the early 1900's (Hungary) while the wife was a very limited Irish/German in the US.
First Grand Daughter from my First son asked me to fill out some info about my Hungarian 100% linage.
Maternal Grand parents were 100% Irish (O'Kelly).
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