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"The time when puberty begins varies greatly among individuals; however, puberty usually occurs in girls between the ages of 10 and 14 and between the ages of 12 and 16 in boys."
My bad. The 1890 census were destroyed in a fire and only a few records have been saved. I need Kankakee Illinois. Not available. This child, born in 1888 does not appear in the 1900 census, in the family with his mother. So either he was shipped off to another relative or family or ??? A member of my group suggested that a church official could have been responsible for her pregnancy and this was common then.
Also, the death info for this male states occupation as "Mn church. " Not expecting this to be Mennonite. Was thinking it "minister."
I still need help determining where to look for more info.
If you are relying on data entered onto genea sites by other users who have made mistakes in their own tree. Look for citations for evidence. You cannot necessarily rely on them and they can really make a mess on that site;s records. You need to have the official documents to prove every single person in your tree. Do not rely on any information unless you have confirmed it absolutely with copies of government records such as immigration, birth death
and marriage records, graves on findagrave.com. You really have to be a detective.
I have relatives who married 3 times. Also in one of the families there were 3 girls named Cora.
One died as an infant. The next girl born was given the same name as the deceased child. Then the second Cora passed away. The next girl born was named Cora. She grew up and married.
It took me a month to sort that out with actual BMD documents.
People used to get married at age 15 or 16 long time ago, before the new laws came.
To which laws are you referring?
I can show you records from the 1970s and 1980s with 15 and 16 year olds getting married. I think I have a couple from the 1990s, too.
There is no federal law regarding marriage age. Each State makes its own laws and sets its own standards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AZgarden
My grandfather's sister, on my father's side, had a baby at age 12!!
While it is possible, it's highly unlikely.
Census records are not "gospel." If you don't understand why they're unreliable, you need to learn.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sassybluesy
I'm going to guess "MN Church" would be Mennonite church.
That's entirely possible. Mennonites were all over Minnesota, the Dakotas and Iowa.
My first wife's mother and her family were all Mennonites, and while her father wasn't, a large part of his family was. The Mennonites view Catholics just like everyone else views Jews. All the banks in Minnesota, the Dakotas and Iowa were owned by Catholics, and when they foreclosed on a farmer, it really agitated the Mennonite community.
I visited them in Iowa once - thankfully only once -- at Christmas, and I was sitting on a piano bench with one of my ex-wife's many aunts who asked what religion I was. I hadn't become atheist yet, so I said Romanian Orthodox. She wanted to know what that was, and I explained it was like being Catholic, but without a pope. I thought she was going to fall off the piano bench. The whole room went silent, and then everyone launched into a tirade about Catholics and I started counting the minutes until I could leave and return to Cincinnati.
My bad. The 1890 census were destroyed in a fire and only a few records have been saved. I need Kankakee Illinois. Not available. This child, born in 1888 does not appear in the 1900 census, in the family with his mother. So either he was shipped off to another relative or family or ??? A member of my group suggested that a church official could have been responsible for her pregnancy and this was common then.
Also, the death info for this male states occupation as "Mn church. " Not expecting this to be Mennonite. Was thinking it "minister."
I still need help determining where to look for more info.
At this point we are only guessing. I think the fact that women had kids at a younger age than they do today has been repeated again and again and is well established. Also, that it is rare to have a child at age 12--it does happen but it is rare. Probably we are all agreed on those facts.
OP, do you have the original birth record for the 1888 son? Where did you get that information? There might be extra information on the birth certificate. Do you have a birth certificate for your grandfather's sister? You'll usually get closer to the truth with the original records.
What I have learned is crazy. I guess I never looked at the dates carefully, to see who birthed whom and when. Here are a few details:
My grandfather's sister, on my father's side, had a baby at age 12!! What happened to him is unknown, except he died at age 29 and was a minister at a church. Record states "Mn church". (Could also be maintenance man at a church.)
So then, the woman proceeded to get married at age 18 and had another child with the same exact name ! First son born in 1888. Her brother, my grandfather, also born in 1888. Could my grandfather's father have been the babe's father? Oh my. I hope not.
The census records for 1890 were destroyed in a fire so I cannot check where this babe lived, after his birth in 1888. I just know that in 1890, he was not part of the family in the census.
Would anyone be able to advise me about records I could look for to explain this "black sheep of the family?" If it was incest I sure would like to know.
It's hard to say with such few details, but having children that young wasn't abnormal. Women had 10+ kids back then. Either you were always pregnant, had some twins in the mix, or you started young. So many things were taboo back then, people lied a lot. Just think of how often people are evasive when filling out the census today. If you had illegitimate children (however that was defined) or were an unwed mother, you'd hide certain things due to stigma. My grandmother's parents had children out-of-wedlock. Her mother (my grandmother's mother) wasn't allowed to leave her father's household until her partner (my grandmother's father) was stable enough to provide for the family. So there are census records where my grandmother's mother is listed with her maiden name and her husband is not in the household.
Keep digging. If you pay attention to details, the family history will write itself before your eyes.
My bad. The 1890 census were destroyed in a fire and only a few records have been saved. I need Kankakee Illinois. Not available. This child, born in 1888 does not appear in the 1900 census, in the family with his mother. So either he was shipped off to another relative or family or ??? A member of my group suggested that a church official could have been responsible for her pregnancy and this was common then.
Also, the death info for this male states occupation as "Mn church. " Not expecting this to be Mennonite. Was thinking it "minister."
I still need help determining where to look for more info.
I think we need a better understanding of where you got the information you already do have, not only so we can judge the accuracy of it, but also so we're not sending you in the same direction to find records you already have. It sounds as though you have a death record for the child born in 1888, and the 1900 census of the family without this child. What else? Can you paste some links to the records you do have?
People used to get married at age 15 or 16 long time ago, before the new laws came.
So is pretty normal to see our great grandparents having kids at such young age.
I agree with this. I have some distant great grandmothers who had their first child at 13 or 14 and were married at 15 afterwards.
Unfortunately it could also be a molestation/child rape sort of situation as well. I've come across a child rape issue in my own tree. A cousin of mine is in her early 90s and very sharp in the mind and I visit her every few months and she told me that one of her aunts was "handicapped" what people back then would call "slow" or "retarded" and when that aunt was 12-13 her stepfather began to sexually abuse her. The stepfather then sent her off to live in an asylum and the aunt died at that asylum after giving birth to a child :-(
She was 14 when she died, the child died as well. My cousin said all the rest of the family was concerned when they first "sent off" this aunt as her mom (my 2nd great grandmother) never told anyone about what was going on. After finding out the step-father got beaten to a pulp by one of her uncles. This aunt even though she was handicapped had been well treated by the family and was very sweet and compliant and my cousin feels that is how she was an easy victim for this step father. My cousin thinks her grandmother (mother of the aunt) knew (my 2nd great grandmother) but that she felt trapped as she had been a widow at a young age, couldn't read/write and had felt like she had to marry this man who ended up doing these horrible things to her daughter/my cousin's aunt. My cousin said times were different back then. She started doing genealogical research in her 80s and so she has been a great resource to me. We've discussed how we shouldn't judge our ancestors based on records as you never know what really happened in these situations.
ETA: My conversations with my cousin have made me have a lot of pity and empathetic feelings for my 2nd great grandmother in particular. My cousin indicates everyone in the family treated her really poorly for the rest of her life after this occurred, but she explained to me how powerless women were back then. She - 2nd great grandmother - had been married off to my 2nd great grandfather when she was only 15. She was his 2nd wife and he was 45 when he married her!! They had 4 children and he died when the aunt who was handicapped was about 10. Though I feel he is also kind of creepy in a way due to impregnating and marrying a girl so young - it is just as creepy that in Ohio, 2nd great grandmother had to have permission to marry him at this time and her mother signed the marriage certificate. My 2nd great grandfather by all other accounts in records was not a "bad" man. He took care of her and the children - he was born in Canada was from a family of very well trained tradesmen (plumbing and masonry). He owned a lot of land and a house so I can see how my 3rd great grandmother - who was poor may have thought she was doing a good thing for her young daughter at 15 to marry a 45 year old man. But he died when she was 32 and though she got the land, she had never been educated, didn't know about finances and couldn't read/write and so she was encouraged to marry this new man who ended up abusing her daughter. My cousin said her grandmother made sure that her daughters and granddaughters went to school and could read and she encouraged my cousin to be a woman "in her own way" and not be confined by what society wanted or forced to marry just because she was "of age." My cousin has had a remarkable life and career and has traveled the globe as a ballet dancer so she took her grandmother's advice. I don't see my 2nd great grandmother as a "mess" but just as a person who had different experiences than my own in a more restrictive time period.
Last edited by residinghere2007; 10-04-2018 at 08:14 AM..
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