Genealogy Chat

My grandmothers birth certificate is "father unknown" I have the address her mother was living at when she was born and am thinking that if I can find out who else was living at that address I might be able to trace the father

When was this Jackie? You can search electoral registers, from roughly 1920ish, or census reports up to 1911 .
Jan

Hi Jan

Thanks for your reply.
My Gran was born in March 1920 in London. Her mother then moved back to Sussex and married in Oct 1920, but I do not know if the man she married is the father of my Gran. I was thinking that if i can find who was living at the address on her birth certificate i may be able to trace who the father may be. How do you search the electorial registers? Is it online?
Jackie

OK Jackie. No electoral registers are online as far as I know. You need to find where they are held for the area. Most people google search if unsure then contact the place where the records are kept just to check - usually the main library for the area. As it is London someone here might know if you put the address on here. Then it is a case of:

Visit yourself! or
Ask nicely and see if someone on here is visiting and can look for you; or
Ask for a search to be done - there will probably be a fee

It is often better to look yourself as you can see who is living in neighbouring streets too.

Good luck!

Oh, and remember - your Great-Gran will probably not be on there, she would have had to be over 30, and men over 21 at this time. Each household will show people of voting age.

Jan
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Jackie

Just to say don't put too much faith in finding who the father was or might have been.

Back in 1900 a girl in my family was seduced by the young man of the household she was in service with and got pregnant. But the young man and his family paid for her to have the baby (a boy) in a London hospital and contributed to his upbringing on condition that she never disclosed his name (the immediate family knew, of course).

So the birth certificate just has a blank, doesn't even say 'unknown' for the father's details. I don't think there's anyone left alive now who knows who he was, although some of us can hazard a guess.

But as all this took place between censuses and before women got the vote there's very little to go on as to where the young man lived, always assuming that she actually lived in, although most domestic servants did.

In the 1901 census she and baby are back living with her parents; she's described as a 'general servant domestic' though I doubt if it was with the father's family. Presumably her parents and younger siblings helped to look after the baby.

But you may be successful, so good luck in your search!

Allan - if were 10 years earlier, I'd say we were cousins. ;)

Exactly that happened to my mother's mother's mother, in 1889. My mum's aunt was born in 1890, and by 1891 mother and daughter were back in Calverton with the family, mother listed as domestic servant.

We too have the tale of the son of the household (or possibly the head, but my mum thinks son). One big advantage I have: as was not uncommon, the child has the father's surname as a middle name. Or so we were told it was, anyway.

There are two families in Nottingham by that surname who have domestic servants in 1891. So I can guess. Since my mum's aunt never married or had children (she was not well treated by her eventual stepfather and was pathologically shy), she's a twig on my tree. But she was a very well-loved one, and I've wondered about finding that family ... but to say what? Blast your ancestors for treating a young woman like that? Or thank your ancestors for my Auntie Dud. ;)

Do you have your grandmother's marriage certificate? Is any father listed on that?

PS I also have a similar case to Allen and Janey, this time the child was brought up by an aunt with children. Mum stayed in Service but was just around the corner.

also don't forget that pregnant girls were sometimes/often sent elsewhere to wait out much of their pregnancy, deliver the baby, then return home with or without the baby.

If they returned home with the baby they then often described themselves as Widow ........... looks more respectable, doncha know!


Also, the house might have been a small nursing home ........ where the district nurse lived and delivered babies


Being unable to identify the father is unfortunately very common





sylvia