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It wouldn't have been recorded anywhere if a mother was a minor?

I was told my mum's original birth certificate (we only have a later copy) had "Illegitimate" stamped in red letters across the top

Don't ask me why but I am drawn to the 1908 birth of Kathleen Stanford in Worcestershire. If she didn't go on to marry then there is this death who could be the same person:-


Name: STANFORD, Kathleen
Registration district: Solihull South
County: Warwickshire
Year of registration: 1993
Month of registration: July
Date of birth: 16 January 1908
District no: 0731A
Reg no: A26F
Ent no: 103
DOR: 793

However I must admit that I don't think that you have enough information to ever know for sure which is "your" Kathleen Stanford.

Sorry to sound defeatist but I can't see any way round it.

Kath. x

I have quite a few birth certificates of illegitimate children and I have never seen the word illegitimate stamped on any of them.

No, I don't think it would have been recorded on the birth certificate that the mother was a minor. After all anyone under the age of 21 at that time was considered a minor.

Kath. x

Ditto - and age of mother has never been on the certs.

Ok thanks, as I say it was my mum that said that. Her guardian wouldn't submit her birth certificate to the Post Office during WW2 so my mum could start work there, because of it.

But it may have been that it didn't have a father listed...

That's more likely. It would have a line across the name of father column.

Thanks Kath - I fear you are right, unless I get lucky with a tree match...

Do you know if the nursing home records have survived?

Try typing the name or address into the Access to Archives search. 90% of the East Sussex Archives are listed on there.

Not that I'm aware of, Janice. Alice Upton, my mum's guardian (who never married) and her sister Mary ran it until the late 40s/early 50s by which time they would have been hitting their seventies.

Not sure what happened to the house, she came to live with our family for a couple of years before her death in 1962

Sorry, where is the "Access to Archives" search?

Google 'Access to Archives' or A2A

Thanks. Weird coincidence - my dad was the archivist at East Sussex Record office from 1959-1964...

Is your dad still alive?

No, he died 4 years ago

Just been re-reading your first post on here Simon and I've just realised that your grandmother must have stayed at the home (or had contact with them) for at least 6 weeks as there is a gap between the birth and registering the birth. Does that mean that your grandmother had your mother baptised or do you think it was Alice Upton?

Most people had their children baptised in those days and i just wondered if there might have been more information on the baptism record (sometimes in earlier years a father may have been mentioned on a baptism when he wasn't mentioned on the birth certificate). However I'm not sure that this would have happened as late as 1926. Just something else to look at.

Kath. x

We can't ask him about the records then :-(

Back to the drawing board!

Thanks Kath, I don't think my mum was baptised. Certainly, later on her guardian said she could go to any church she wished but that she wouldn't go with her. My mum went to the baptists and joined the Band of Hope.

Tried A2A, Janice, nothing there...

I must say I would be very surprised if your mother wasn't baptised. I know there must have been people who weren't but the vast majority of people were baptised in those days.

I think it would be worth going to the county records office and going through the baptisms for any church in the vicinity of the nursing home in the 2 months after the birth.

It might be a long shot but sometimes long shots pay off.

Kath. x

Thanks Kath. As you might have gathered my mum didn't exactly have a conventional upbringing! For some reason unknown to me, her guardian had no truck with religion.

I doubt her natural mother would have got her baptised. I sense from what my mum has told me over the years that she only stayed around long enough to register my mum and then was never seen again.

If I wasn't 500 miles away I might have given it a shot...

Cheers

Simon