Illegitimate child only living with Grandparents on Census
Found the birth registration of a girl with no Mother's Maiden name , the child appears on 1851 & 1861 Census' living with Grandparents, am I able to add her just as a Grandchild to the couple ?
Best Answers
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I have encountered a similar situation on a number of occasions and had mixed results in trying to positively identify the illegitimate child.
If you have found the birth registration and are willing to pay the fee, obtaining a copy of the birth certificate should solve the problem of at least finding the mother's name. A PDF copy, sent by email, is relatively inexpensive when obtained directly from the GRO for England & Wales.
Alternatively, if the child's surname is the same as the grandparents, it is highly likely the mother would be one of their daughters. Try to find the family in the 1841 census, or identify births / baptisms of children (particularly girls) to the couple. From that you can often rule out ones that would have been too young to have mothered the grandchild. The 1851 & 1861 census would not necessarily be of help, as the mother might have married soon after having the child and (the husband possibly not have been willing to act as a stepfather) hence the reason she was left with her grandparents. Even if she remained single, she might have moved away to find work (commonly as a servant at a location some distance from the family home) and be difficult to trace.
To summarise, obtaining a copy of the girl's birth certificate should solve the problem of the mother's name (finding the father might prove impossible, of course). However, finding her marriage certificate (from my experiences in similar cases) might not be so useful. In one recent case, the mother's name was provided, when the father's was obviously unknown, but I have only encountered this once. Otherwise, a the father's name provided might represent a stepfather, grandfather, or just be made up to hide the fact a woman was born illegitimately.
I understand your possibly not wanting to reveal the identity of the girl in question, but providing such detail here might be of help to someone (not necessarily me!) with experience in solving this kind of problem.
Finally, with regards to linking her to her grandparents on the tree, you could (for the time being, at least) just add, as a mother, a female with the same surname as her and her grandparents. (Similarly, I have added just a male surname as father - on the assumption they were not both born illegitimately - when I have wanted to connect two brothers, with unknown parents, on the tree.)
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@kaymilburn1 - if you have found the index to the birth registration then, as @Paul W suggests, you can order the actual birth certificate from the GRO site (assuming we are talking England & Wales)
However, for that period in time you will probably be able to download an online image straight away for £3. PDF copies cost £8. (Sometimes the pages of images aren't lined up so you can't download an image but have to order a PDF).
Go to the GRO site on https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/menu.asp and order it through there if you feel that you can justify the expense.
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Answers
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You can use the Other Relationships feature and add an Other Relationship of type "Relative" to connect the child to each if her grandparents. That will link them together, but it's a weak connection.
Other Relationships have no effect on the way any Trees are drawn. The only relationships that affect Trees are actual parent-child or couple relationships. So if you want the child-grandparent relationships to appear in the Tree, then you will need to somehow find the parent who is the child of the grandparents. That could be challenging in mid-19th Century records.
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Sorry - as Adrian correctly says, it is the images available as downloads that are reasonably priced. I was thinking of this version of the birth certificate, but used the term "PDF" erroneously. However, you can add to your drive as a PDF document once directly downloaded.
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Update - ordered a PDF (£8) found the Mother as a Sister and someone had already made the discovery when I went to add. Thank You for all your advice.
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